Zanzi Café

The iron balcony railings painted in bright, alternating colors distinguish the Zanzi Café from the surrounding plaster walls of Mkunazini. This building occupies the site where the island’s first telegraph office operated during the late nineteenth century. Operators once sat in these rooms, tapping out messages that connected Zanzibar to the outside world through a fragile undersea cable. Today, the space serves coffee and meals to travelers who sit where those operators tracked incoming cables from Aden and the Seychelles.