In January 2002, Mark and Tanya Dornan became the new owners of Cool Beans Café, formerly known as Arabica. Mark was also in Leadership Medina where he met Amy Demlow, a local attorney. Knowing how her husband Sean had always wanted to own his own business, Amy suggested that he talk to Mark to learn more about the reality of being a business owner. Through their discussions, Mark and Sean developed a friendship that has grown into the partnership that now owns and runs Cool Beans Café in Medina and a second Cool Beans Café in Ashland, Ohio. This dynamic pooling of talent is focused on providing the local community with a unique meeting place. Here's the inside scoop as told to us by Sean Demlow;
We've done a lot of remodeling here and the main idea was to make Cool Beans Café into Medina's meeting place, a place where business people can have meetings, you can reminisce with an old friend, and a relaxing spot where you can just sit and talk. Our goal is to establish a comfortable, living room type feel with chairs, a coffee table, couch, and magazines. It's a very warm, cozy place to hang out with your friends. We provide a full compliment of beverages including specialty coffees, teas, sodas, and juices. Our coffee is made from fresh, gournet Arabica beans which are custom roasted locally to provide us with a lot of exclusive roasts and to help ensure freshness.
Tanya has introduced six different kinds of specialty, wrapped sandwiches that are a healthy alternative to burgers and fries and all have been given local names. We have The Courthouse which is tuna salad and cheddar cheese, shredded carrots, sprouts, lettuce and tomato in a wheat wrap. The Old Phoenix, named for the Old Phoenix Bank, is filled with roast beef and swiss with lettuce, tomato and red onion, topped with a roasted red pepper horseradish mayo in a garlic herb wrap. Our A. I. Root features smoked turkey and swiss with roasted red peppers, sprouts, lettuce and tomato topped with honey mustard in a honey wheat wrap. The Gazebo includes grilled chicken breast and asiago cheese with roasted red peppers, lettuce and tomato, topped with pesto mayonnaise in a tomato wrap. Our veggie wrap is named The Western Reserve and is stuffed with mixed greens, asiago cheese, roasted red peppers, shredded carrots, tomato, cucumbers, and red onion, all topped with a sun dried vinaigrette in a spinach wrap. We also have our Cordon Bleu Wrap which is grilled chicken breast, ham, swiss, lettuce and tomato, topped with honey mustard and red onion in a honey wheat wrap.
We offer a baked goods menu that ranges from bagels, biscotti, and cinnamon rolls to scones, baklava, muffins, and cake. For warmer days, we carry twenty-eight flavors of Hershey's Premium Ice Cream that's served in cones, floats, and assorted chilled beverages.
On Saturday nights, we have live music with various local musicians playing a lot of different types of music.We also have an agreement with Armstrong Cable where we have a computer set up that demonstrates their cable Internet service. You can come in, surf the Internet, and if you like the speed of cable, Armstrong will install it in your own home or office. One of our new additions that you be seeing soon is going to be a wireless network (wi-fi) so that anyone with a laptop having a wireless network card can come in, sit down at any booth, and get on the Internet with their own computer. We have a community table which is a place for anyone with a local business to leave their brochures and business cards for others to see, a bulletin board where we list all of the upcoming local Medina events, and on Tuesday mornings we have Story Time for pre-schoolers and their moms from 10:00 until 10:30. It's all part of making Cool Beans Café into a community meeting place.
On September 2, 2003, we launched Cool Beans Express across the street in the old Key Bank drive-thru. We decided to open a drive-thru facility so that you can get your favorite drink without getting out of your vehicle. While it doesn't have everything we have at the Cool Beans Café, you're able to get our beverages and pastries quicker when you're on the go. As you're driving down Liberty Street toward Court Street, just turn into the Key Bank lot and after picking up your favorite beverage, you'll exit onto Court Street, all without ever getting out of your vehicle!
Cool Beans Café is the meeting place for the community and a relaxing spot for conversation, a bite to eat, and a great cup of coffee. Drop by the café or Cool Beans Express today and don't forget to tell them that The Advocate sent you!
)
)
){kind=link}