A 7 Brew drive-thru coffee stand is headed to the north side of Ohio 82 across from SouthPark Mall in Strongsville, but only after city officials forced the project's developers to rip up part of their original design over fears it would choke traffic on one of the region's busiest roads. Developers plan to tear down the former National Tire & Battery store at the site, next to and west of Chick-fil-A, to build the new 500-square-foot coffee shop.
The Strongsville Planning Commission approved the project on July 16, 2026, clearing the way for construction, according to Cleveland.com. The approval came only after a tense back-and-forth over how cars would get in and out of the site, which sits at a driveway entrance to the Plaza at SouthPark near an intersection that Cleveland.com reports already sees heavy traffic generated by the neighboring Chick-fil-A and a nearby Starbucks.
City Engineer Draws a Line on Ohio 82 Access
The original site plan submitted by architect John Elsey of Akron-based GBC Design Inc. included two driveway entrances, one running directly off Ohio 82 (also known as Royalton Road) and a second off the Plaza at SouthPark's main entrance drive, per the same account. That did not sit well with Strongsville officials. Minutes from a May 12, 2026 Architectural Review Board meeting show City Engineer Ken Mikula warned the project team that the Planning Commission would reject the proposal outright unless the direct Royalton Road driveway was eliminated, according to the City of Strongsville.
Elsey agreed to drop the Ohio 82 entrance and instead widen the remaining entrance and exit drive off the plaza's main access road, the city's meeting minutes show. Elsey told officials the 7 Brew site could stack as many as 25 cars in line, well above the eight to 12 cars typically seen at a 7 Brew location, the same document notes. “We are excited to be here in Strongsville,” Elsey said, according to Cleveland.com.
Royalton Road Already Runs Over Capacity
The concession was not arbitrary. Traffic data published by commercial real estate firm Goodman Real Estate Services Group shows the Royalton Road corridor near Interstate 71 and SouthPark Center carries more than 54,000 vehicles a day. A 2025 traffic engineering study published by arXiv found that daily volumes on both of Strongsville's main arterials, Royalton Road and Pearl Road, routinely exceed their designed capacities because each connects directly to interstate ramps — a systemic issue the city has previously tried to address with a $4.7 million federal-aid project to upgrade traffic signals along Royalton Road.
Motley 7 Brew, the franchisee behind the Strongsville location, has not said when demolition or construction will begin, or when the coffee shop will open, Cleveland.com reports. The company is a Vancouver, Washington-based limited liability company registered to do business in Ohio, according to the Ohio Secretary of State, and it already operates 7 Brew stands elsewhere in northeast Ohio, including in Brunswick, Cuyahoga Falls, Lyndhurst, Middleburg Heights, Parma, Parma Heights, Sheffield Village, Stow, Westlake and Willoughby.
A Chain Backed by Blackstone, Building in Pods
The Strongsville stand fits into a broader regional cluster. Motley 7 Brew has committed to opening 60 locations across Ohio over five years using a suburban “podding” strategy, with nearby Cuyahoga County stands already operating or planned in Middleburg Heights on Bagley Road, Parma Heights on Pearl Road, and Parma on Pleasant Valley Road, according to WKYC. Motley 7 Brew, formed in 2023 per its company website, also operates Taco Bell franchises in the region and has expanded into the Dallas-Fort Worth market, with plans to open additional shops in Washington and Oregon; the franchisee aims for more than 350 stands overall.
Founded in 2017 in northwest Arkansas, 7 Brew grew from seven locations in 2020 to more than 700 coffee shops across 38 states today. The chain serves coffees, energy drinks, fizz sodas, teas, lemonades, smoothies and shakes. Its growth has been fueled by outside capital — global private equity firm Blackstone Growth acquired a major equity stake in February 2024, pushing the chain's valuation past $1 billion and backing a national build-out toward 800 locations. Analytics firm Placer.ai reported in December 2025 that 7 Brew expanded from just 14 locations in early 2022 to 500 by late 2025, a run supported in part by a master franchise agreement with Flynn Group, the world's largest restaurant franchise operator, to construct 160 stands.
Rapid Builds, but Legal Trouble at the Manufacturer
Most 7 Brew locations, including the Strongsville stand, rely on prefabricated modular construction: 35-ton, 500-square-foot steel buildings are manufactured off-site, trucked in, and lifted by crane onto prepped foundations in a single day, according to Restaurant Dive. Site utility preparation typically takes about three months before that modular drop happens.
That manufacturing pipeline has hit turbulence at the corporate level. In February 2026, 7 Brew co-founder Ron Crume filed a lawsuit in Missouri alleging his business partner embezzled more than $2 million from Creative Modular Construction, the exclusive firm created to build the chain's prefabricated stands, according to KTLO. Creative Modular Construction broke ground in 2024 on a $30 million manufacturing plant in Springfield, Missouri, the same outlet reports.
SouthPark Center Keeps Growing Around the New Stand
The 7 Brew stand joins a shopping center already in flux. The Plaza at SouthPark is a 312,000-square-foot regional center anchored by Costco, Best Buy and Petco, and it added a 26,000-square-foot Barnes & Noble in a former Bed Bath & Beyond space in January 2026 — the retailer's first return to Strongsville since Borders closed 15 years earlier. Hoodline reported new fitness plans nearby at SouthPark Center just a day before the 7 Brew news broke.
Broader redevelopment is also underway in the SouthPark commercial area, where the Strongsville Planning Commission approved plans in April and June 2026 for a new dual-branded Hampton Inn and Home2 Suites hotel on a split parcel near the mall's retention basin, a project that required parking and setback variances from the Board of Zoning Appeals, per city records. Between the hotel project, the bookstore, and now a coffee stand engineered to avoid backing traffic onto Ohio 82, the corner across from SouthPark Mall looks set for a busy stretch of construction.
