After a year of hauling their mobile cart and roastery between borrowed spaces on Akron's west side, Eric and Lindsay Razo have finally stopped moving. Here We Go! Coffee opened a storefront at 1028 Jefferson Ave. in Highland Square in September 2026, settling into a 1913 building with large windows and warm wooden floors inside the neighborhood's Yellow Brick Road District.
The couple's path to a permanent address wasn't a straight line. As Signal Akron reports, Here We Go! Coffee operated out of Acorn Vintage in West Hill before relocating to Mary Coyle in Highland Square, part of what Eric Razo described as a stretch of not wanting to move again. The business first set up a mobile cart at Acorn Vintage in August 2025, according to the same reporting, alongside early childhood education provider Watershed Community School, before Acorn Vintage closed and pushed the Razos toward Mary Coyle and eventually their own storefront, per Signal Akron's earlier coverage.
From a Garage Roaster to a Storefront With a Mascot
The shop's new look leans into the Razos' sense of play. Lindsay Razo said the bright colors and packaging are meant to make coffee fun and to welcome families, the Signal Akron report notes, and the storefront has already adopted an unofficial mascot: Mug Man, a miniature smiling anthropomorphic coffee mug that a customer 3D-printed for the shop. Temporary seating comes courtesy of neighbor NR Design, which lent tables and chairs, while customers have pitched in with donated plants in exchange for a free drink.
That scrappy, communal energy traces back to how Here We Go! Coffee began in the first place. Eric Razo studied education at the University of Akron and worked as a barista during college, later taking a job at Artisan Coffee in Akron's Ellet neighborhood. He went on to help start 647 Coffee in the Middlebury neighborhood while working at The Well CDC, a shop then known as Compass Coffee that now runs as a program of The Well CDC, serving coffee from Akron Coffee Roasters to reinvest revenue into local economic development, according to The Well CDC.
Burnout, a Garage Roaster, and a Leap of Faith
Razo left The Well CDC in 2020, not long after he and Lindsay welcomed their first child, and found himself burned out navigating new fatherhood and service-industry work during the pandemic. He bought a small coffee roaster and began roasting beans in the couple's garage, eventually creating Here We Go! Coffee in 2023 and taking orders as the business picked up wholesale customers.
Funding came the same grassroots way the business has operated ever since. Razo received a loan from a family member along with additional support from friends, and the business later raised $8,155 from 39 backers through an Indiegogo campaign aimed at moving the operation out of the garage and into a permanent neighborhood cafe. That funding eventually let coffee become Razo's full-time work, and in 2025 the couple purchased the mobile cart that carried them through their string of temporary locations.
Settling Into the Yellow Brick Road District
The storefront's location wasn't an accident. The building sits near Akron Honey, Authentic Nigerian Kitchen and Yesterday's Goods Print & Gift Shop, all part of what Akron Honey founder Brent Wesley dubbed the Yellow Brick Road District. Wesley founded Akron Honey in 2013 after acquiring a vacant, blighted lot on Jefferson Avenue for $2,200 in 2012, and he launched the district in 2025 to turn the stretch into a dedicated community market and micro-neighborhood, according to Cleveland Magazine. The micro-district has already shown it can draw a crowd — it served as an official venue for Highland Square's PorchRokr Festival in August 2026, hosting an evening silent disco with three local DJs, per the festival's own Facebook announcements.
The Razos live in Highland Square with their two children, and the neighborhood's walkability has helped make the storefront model work. Highland Square carries a walkability score of 60 out of 100 and average one-bedroom rent of $792 per month as of this month, according to Apartments.com, numbers that reflect the kind of foot-traffic-friendly district the city has designated as a key business and arts corridor anchored by public murals and the historic Highland Theatre.
A Gradual Buildout, Done Their Own Way
The building itself is a mixed-use holdover from an earlier Akron, spanning 7,464 square feet of commercial and multi-family space with storefront leases in the structure advertised around $1,000 per month this year, per listings tracked by CommercialSearch. For now, the coffee cart operates Wednesday through Saturday inside the storefront, with Eric and Lindsay roasting on Mondays and Tuesdays and still taking the mobile cart out to events around the area, where it's also available for rent.
The couple plans to build out a permanent coffee setup and eventually hire additional employees, but they're funding much of it themselves and say the storefront will develop gradually rather than all at once. That pace stands in contrast to the drive-thru coffee chains expanding elsewhere in Summit County — Dutch Bros filed plans in July 2026 to redevelop the former Skyway Drive-In site on West Market Street in neighboring Fairlawn, a Hoodline report on the drive-in's 74-year run noted. Razo said he wants to build something lasting with the community and show that Akron and its neighborhoods are worth investing in. Photographer Ryan Loew captured him preparing a drink at the storefront on October 7.
