At 6:30 on a weekday morning, there's now a coffee cart open for business at the corner of Colesville Road and Georgia Avenue. Yirgacheffe Coffee, a cart parked at the Amoco station at 8600 Georgia Ave., opened in early August. According to Source of the Spring, its posted hours are 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends. One reader told the outlet, "The Saffron Latte is amazing."
That same August, Buna & Barley opened at 901 Silver Spring Ave. Over on Bonifant Street, Kefa Café is still pouring at 963 Bonifant St., thirty years after it opened. Taken together, the three describe a coffee scene that grew this summer around the construction zone instead of inside it. All three close long before the Purple Line crews start their overnight shifts.
A thirty-year center, two new points on the edge
Kefa is the fixed point. Abeba Tsegaye and her siblings Abiy and Lene opened it on Bonifant Street in 1996. It has since added locations inside the Silver Spring Recreation and Aquatic Center and the Wheaton Public Library. At the June 2026 anniversary party, Councilmember Kate Stewart presented a county citation, and Councilmember Will Jawando called it a celebration of "30 years of joy, love, and a really good cup of coffee on Bonifant Street." That's per Source of the Spring's coverage. Tsegaye told Bethesda Magazine she hopes the café keeps blooming for decades. Her short version was "We feel so blessed to be able to be here."
Neither of the summer newcomers opened on Bonifant. Buna & Barley took over the former Wesenyelesh International Market on Silver Spring Avenue. It sells Ethiopian coffee and tea, puts particular weight on the Ethiopian-style macchiato, and carries traditional snacks, grab-and-go meals, curated goods, and beer and wine. Co-owner Teff Teffera told Source of the Spring that the model comes from the Addis Ababa corner shops he grew up with:
"They weren't just places to buy something. You grabbed coffee, caught up with people, watched soccer, picked up morning or afternoon snacks, ran into a friend, and kept moving."
Teffera has lived downtown for more than 20 years. He describes the shop less as "another coffee shop" and more as one stop in what he calls the neighborhood's coffee circle, a circle he says got bigger once Yirgacheffe set up at the Amoco corner. In August he gave the hours as roughly 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily and called the short schedule "intentional-ish" while the team works out staffing. Check before you go, since those hours were set during a soft opening.
One more spot may join soon. In June, Source of the Spring reported YeENAT Kitchen as "coming soon" in the former Lucy Ethiopian Restaurant space at 8301 Georgia Ave. Nothing reviewed for this post confirms it has opened.
The last closures all start at 9 p.m. or later
The remaining Wayne Avenue work installs the overhead catenary wires that will power the trains. Purple Line Transit Partners scheduled it as a series of rolling overnight closures, and the Wayne-Fenton intersection piece was pushed back to late November. Hours below come from the Purple Line's construction update and Source of the Spring:
- October 25 to November 6: Wayne Avenue between Dale Drive and Manchester Road, nightly from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.
- November 8 to 20: Wayne Avenue from Fenton Street to Dale Drive, nightly from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m., in two stages: Fenton to Cedar, then Cedar to Dale.
- About November 22 to December 1: the Wayne Avenue and Fenton Street intersection, nightly from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m., with Ride On routes 15, 16, 17, 20 and 28 detoured.
Communications director John Undeland told the outlet that weather and other unforeseen issues may shift those dates.
Compare those windows with the coffee hours. Yirgacheffe's latest close is 5 p.m. on weekends. Buna & Barley reported about 4 p.m. The earliest the street work starts is 9 p.m., and the latest it ends is 5 a.m., an hour and a half before the cart opens on a weekday. On the published schedule, the final closures and the coffee circle don't overlap at all. Bus riders on the five detoured routes will feel the late-November intersection work. Someone walking to a macchiato at 10 a.m. won't.
Bonifant is the one block that still feels the dig in daylight
The overnight rule has an exception, and it's the street where the circle started. The Purple Line's current construction update lists the Dixon Avenue and Bonifant Street intersection as closed through October 2026, with access to Bonifant businesses and the parking lot maintained. East Bonifant between Fenton Street and Georgia Avenue is eastbound only, with no parking on the south side, and that work continues through fall. West Bonifant between Ramsey Avenue and Georgia Avenue is still closed to traffic, but pedestrians can get through.
The block has already been through worse. Café via Roma at 911 Bonifant closed temporarily in June 2025 when construction blocked the Wayne-Fenton intersection, and it came back that October on reduced hours. By December 2025, Source of the Spring reported it open Wednesday through Sunday from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. as the work eased. That was the most recent hours update found.
The state has also put money into the corridor. MDOT's Purple Line Small Business Grant Program offers grants of up to $50,000. Its program page says about $3 million has gone to 287 businesses since 2025, and a third 2026 round is open through November 7. The first 2026 round awarded $500,000. Kefa Café, Kook Kai's Thai Noodles, Fenton Citgo and Arepas Pues in downtown Silver Spring were among the recipients, according to Source of the Spring.
A late-October Saturday that works around all of it
Because the closures run at night and Bonifant is the only daytime squeeze, a weekend loop can start at the edges and work in toward the anchor. These are the businesses listed on the Downtown Silver Spring district's May 2026 Taste the World in Fenton Village roster. That roster is a spring snapshot, not a live directory.
- 8:30 a.m., Yirgacheffe Coffee, 8600 Georgia Ave. The cart's weekend opening time. Try the Saffron Latte.
- Mid-morning, Buna & Barley, 901 Silver Spring Ave. A macchiato, and a snack you probably haven't seen around here, to borrow Teffera's pitch.
- Late morning, Kefa Café, 963 Bonifant St. Come on foot. East Bonifant is one-way and the west end is closed to cars.
- Lunch on the same block: Kook Kai's Thai Noodles at 939 Bonifant, Roger Miller Restaurant at 941, or Sweet Sweet Kitchen at 904, with Prime Coffee & Bakery around the corner at 930 Thayer Ave.
If the Saturday is October 24, the evening belongs to the Silver Spring Zombie Walk: a gathering at Quarry House, a costume contest, the walk itself, a dance party, and screenings at AFI Silver. Wayne Avenue's overnight closures between Dale and Manchester begin the next night.
The timing lines up again in November. The Montgomery County Thanksgiving Parade steps off Saturday, November 21, at 10 a.m. from Ellsworth Drive and Fenton Street and heads south on Georgia Avenue. The overnight closure at Wayne and Fenton is scheduled to begin on or about the next day.
What the trains change, and when
The opening date is still uncertain. The Purple Line FAQ says service is expected in "Winter 2027." MDOT's May 2026 status report to the General Assembly shows the concessionaire's February 2026 schedule forecasting revenue service on March 17, 2028. That's 78 days after the contractual date of December 30, 2027. The same report expects construction to be substantially complete by late 2026, followed by more than a year of testing.
Some of that testing is already in Silver Spring. Advocacy group Purple Line NOW reported in September that testing had been seen near the future Manchester Place and Silver Spring Library stations, and that trains may run through the corridor at odd hours, especially overnight.
The first change residents will notice on foot is the Spring Street Bridge. It closed in summer 2024 and was supposed to reopen in January 2025. MTA now calls it "substantially complete," but no reopening date has been set because several items still need to be finished with Montgomery County, Source of the Spring reported on October 11. Wayne Avenue has already been milled, repaved and restriped. Purple Line NOW notes that the bridge will be the pedestrian and bike link to the future Silver Spring Library and Dale Drive stations. Kefa has stayed open on Bonifant for the entire build.
If you're watching your own blocks change as the trains get closer and want to talk about what that means for your home, Stacy Berman and team are glad to compare notes, ideally over a macchiato on Silver Spring Avenue. Contact Stacy.
