Akron Coffee Roasters Openly Experiments at the ‘Coffee Lab’

The Coffee Lab by Akron Coffee Roasters at the Bounce Innovation Hub in downtown Akron. Daily Coffee News photo by Doug Brown.

In an environment that embraces innovation, Ohio’s Akron Coffee Roasters is workshopping new menu items and brewing experimental coffees at its fourth retail bar, The ACR Coffee Lab.

The Coffee Lab occupies about 600 square feet on the ground floor of a 300,000-square-foot former BF Goodrich Tire factory building in downtown Akron that was transformed into Bounce Innovation Hub, a small business support nonprofit. 

Daily Coffee News photo by Doug Brown.

Bounce teamed with Akron-based designer Karen Starr to transform the public areas, filling them with modern, locally-made furniture and art. Outside the cafe is a large wall mural by local artist Lizzy Aronhalt.

“The cafe was built out during the initial transformation of the building [in 2018], so we are inheriting a lot of what was already there,” ACR Founder Albert Macso told Daily Coffee News. “We feel that both our design aesthetic and our menu offerings will be a perfect match for the building that is pushing innovation and entrepreneurship.”

ACR replaces a previous coffee provider within the building, which happened to be one of its wholesale clients. The new bar maintains the La Marzocco Linea Classic AV espresso machine and Mahlkönig E65 GBW grinder, as well as a Fetco Extractor V+ batch brewer.

Daily Coffee News photo by Doug Brown.

Said Macso, “We’ll offer drip during the morning rush, but we’ll primarily do Hario V60 pourovers with my favorite grinder that I recently rebuilt, the Mahlkönig Tanzania.”

Within a rotating lineup of single-origin coffees showcased through the pourover program, ACR will also include at least one “limited batch” offering.

“Basically, we buy just one bag of a bunch of interesting and/or unique coffees, and rotate through them,” said Macso. “These have included many of the newer experimental processing methods, and we will for sure feature these at the Coffee Lab.”

Daily Coffee News photo by Doug Brown.

Drinks at the Coffee Lab include a Mole Nitro Cold Brew, featuring nitro cold brew, chocolate milk made with local chocolate, and a house-made mole syrup made with dried chili peppers, cacao nibs and spices. A Root Beer Sproda combines a double shot of espresso, Fever Tree tonic and Portland Syrups Root Beer flavor.

These can be sipped alongside a range of toasts, overnight oats, sandwiches, salads and soups. The Coffee Lab also expands on the vegan and vegetarian options at other ACR cafes, introducing more opportunities for tofu and tempeh substitution.

Daily Coffee News photo by Doug Brown.

Founded eight years ago with a single roastery and cafe, ACR opened the Asterisk Coffee Bar in 2019, adding cocktails to the mix. In 2022 the company grew from its original 5-kilo Ambex roaster into a 12-kilo-capacity San Franciscan SF-25. Last year, the company became the official coffee supplier of the Akron-Canton Airport (CAK), where an ACR bar is now open in a pre-security area of the main lobby. 

“[The SF-25] takes up a lot more space, but we still roast out of the original downtown Akron location four days per week,” said Macso. “The Coffee Lab at Bounce Innovation Hub continues our measured, strategic growth. And we continue to take on wholesale partners in the region that fit with our standards of quality and service.”

Daily Coffee News photo by Doug Brown.

Akron Coffee Roasters Coffee Lab is located at The Bounce Innovation Hub at 526 South Main Street in Akron. Comments? Questions? News to share? Contact DCN’s editors here. For all the latest coffee industry news, subscribe to the DCN newsletter.