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Roastery café plan for Erie Terminal has downtown developer perking up
YOUNGSTOWN
A Salem café known for its on-premise coffee roasting plans to open a new location in downtown Youngstown.
Friends Roastery opened in Salem nine years ago and wants to move into the Erie Terminal, 112 W. Commerce St., said Mitch Lynch, who co-owns the cafcafé and coffee-roasting shop with Patricia Tinkler.
“We’ve always planned on having a second café, and we hoped six years ago to move downtown,” Lynch said. “Our plan is to get in Youngstown and have our operation open certainly in the next year.”
Developer Dominic Marchionda, president of U.S. Campus Suites in Poland, is working on the $8.4 million project that will turn a vacant downtown industrial structure into a 65-bed apartment complex with retail space on the first floor.
“We’ve accepted [Friends Roastery] as a tenant and are looking forward to signing” the business officially, Marchionda said.
The Erie Terminal rebuild will begin next Monday, and the retail space should be open by the first quarter of next year and the apartments should be ready to live in by the second quarter, he said.
It’s a little later than expected, as Marchionda said he hoped to have the retail portion open by the end of this year.
Marchionda said he could not identify other businesses that have expressed interest in moving to the Erie Terminal at this time.
“I’m not permitted to disclose that because some already have established locations,” he said. “We’re excited about the type of tenants looking at the building. ... We’re looking forward to a very successful completion of the project and looking forward to its opening.”
Lynch said he’s anticipating the move downtown.
“I have a passion for food. ... Youngstown could be a restaurant city,” he said.
Friends Roastery will offer caf food and pastries, in addition to roasting coffee on site, Lynch said.
He said the café in Salem will stay open, but he and Tinkler wanted to open a second location because Salem hasn’t grown as much as they thought it would.
Lynch plans to partner with local growers and bring a “garden-to-table” approach to downtown dining.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” he said.