Baladi Coffee House

Baladi Coffee House is at 24942 Lorain Road in North Olmsted, and its own website announces the shop simply: North Olmsted location now open. Baladi is Arabic for my country or my homeland, and the business presents itself as an exceptional coffee experience rooted in heritage, craftsmanship and genuine hospitality. Its sourcing claim is specific. The beans, it says, are harvested from a single dedicated farm in Haraz, the mountain coffee region west of Sana'a in Yemen; they are never blended; and they are roasted to order with no fillers and no additives. The shop sells those beans by the bag as dark and medium roasts, a Jubani speciality blend and a Turkish speciality blend, along with Adeni tea bags.

The drinks menu is not published on the shop's own site, so what follows comes from its online ordering menu. The espresso bar is long: a Baladi House Latte served hot or iced, and pistachio, Spanish, Biscoff, tiramisu, brown sugar cinnamon and salted caramel lattes. Beyond it the menu is divided into refreshers, matcha, frappes, coffee, mojitos, tea, smoothies and milk-based drinks, with a short list of sandwiches. We have not listed prices, because delivery prices are higher than counter prices, and we have not named individual Yemeni coffees because the ordering menu does not show them item by item. Jubani, which the shop sells as a blend to take home, is the Yemeni style that brews coffee together with its husks and spices; Adeni tea is the cardamom-spiced milk tea of the port city of Aden.

It serves no alcohol. Its listed hours are the longest of the North Olmsted coffeehouses: 7am to 11pm from Monday to Thursday, 7am to 1am on Friday and Saturday, and 8am to 11pm on Sunday. That gives North Olmsted a room where a group can still be sitting at half past midnight on a Saturday over coffee. Qahwah House on Brookpark Road is under half a mile away and Shibam Coffee on Brookpark Extension about a mile and a quarter, so the three can be tried in one evening. The shop also takes catering and event orders through its website.