The Lucky Penny Café in LaGrange is a quaint coffee shop and café north of the town’s downtown area.
The café, 100 U.S. Grant St., as well as the neighboring Child Garden, is housed in a building that had been vacant for years following the closing of another restaurant, according to general manager Christina Mayer.
“The craze for bubble teas was just starting, and so that’s kind of how it had started and then it developed,” she said. “So it’s been evolving the last two years pretty rapidly.”
While bubble tea was one idea, the main feature for the shop was coffee, according to Mayer.
“Over the last year, we’ve developed our menu so we’re not just known as a coffee shop, we’re more of a coffee shop/cafe,” she said.
Menu items include fresh grilled paninis, yogurt bowls and soup flights, according to Mayer. The shop also sells cake pops from a local cottage baker, Bam Pops, based in LaGrange.
“We get six dozen weekly, and we sell out within days,” she said.
The Lucky Penny also features a menu item Mayer said she learned about in Washington, called white espresso, which comes from a regular coffee bean that is roasted differently, changing the flavor profile from coffee as people know it to more of a “nutty” flavor, similar to hazelnut.
This flavor profile allows the espresso to be mixed with other drinks, such as the peanut butter and jelly latte, Mayer said.
“We have things you can’t get anywhere else; nobody serves white espresso,” she said. “It’s completely new to our area.”
While Mayer is from LaGrange and has lived there a majority of her life, she said owner Melanie Dove has lived there her entire life and opened the shop in May 2022 not knowing its future.
“This is our hometown; this is where we’re from,” she said. “I don’t think we expected the café to make such a name for itself, honestly, we just thought we were going to open this small, little coffee shop.”
The popularity of the café has stretched beyond LaGrange and Lorain County, according to Mayer, with customers from areas like Dayton, Erie, Pa.; and Lansing, Mich.
“We’ve realized that we reached a lot of people, a lot further than LaGrange,” she said. “We’re seeing people driving four hours to come just stop up here to this little café.”
Mayer said social media has been the cafe’s biggest tool.
“Word of mouth is huge, because if we weren’t putting out a quality product that people really loved, word of mouth wouldn’t do that and it would actually do the opposite,” she said. “We’ve been able to create a brand for ourselves that’s recognizable.”
Upon opening, the café was open four days a week, eventually changing to six due to demand for weekend hours, according to Mayer. Turnout during the week, especially with extra days, prove the “constant busyness” of the shop.
“When we first opened, one of the first things that I really wanted to make known was we were going to have good food, we were going to have amazing, unique coffee, but we were going to have the best customer service here,” she said. “I’d like to think that people love us, that we’re doing something right.”
There is hope to continue growing, according to Mayer. Customer connection is one of the many things that makes the café renowned in the area.
“I think the one thing that has set us apart and helped create that (following) was just the fact that we have an awesome environment,” she said. “We’re a unique spot. We’re not just the same café, or just another coffee shop.”
