A quintuplet of restaurants opened in the Akron area in April.
Restaurateurs ushered in an eclectic European bakery, a celebrity-themed fried chicken spot, a Nashville-themed hot chicken restaurant, a Mediterranean shawarma eatery and the reopening of a vegan- and vegetarian-friendly restaurant in a new location.
The bakery and cafe that opened in Bath has seen lines out the door daily and has been baking 700 to 1,000 pastries to keep up. For a whole different vibe, the fried chicken restaurant that opened in House Three Thirty has a rustic feel but also gives nods to the NBA.
There’s something for everyone at the Nashville hot chicken place, even if you opt for no spice. The shawarma shop has mouth-watering meats cooking on spits and a restaurant that relocated to Hudson has added new menu items.
This isn’t an exhaustive list of all the restaurants that opened in April but we would like it to be. Help us make it more complete by contacting Beacon Journal reporters Kerry Clawson at kclawson@thebeaconjournal.com and Tawney Beans at tbeans@usatodayco.com with tips on openings.
Morning Star Bakery and Cafe
Going to Morning Star Bakery & Cafe for the first time was an exciting experience, from the colorful mix of artwork and Nordic-looking soft seating to the friendly folks waiting in line to the amazing pastries and savory foods at this new eatery.
Eric and Darcie Bosshard opened the large cafe April 17 at the Corner Provisions building in Bath, where customers have been lining up out the door daily. They’re in search of pastries that you don’t usually get in this area, from purple ube cinnamon rolls to Danish vanilla buns and Dubai chocolate croissants.
People are so wild about the ube cinnamon rolls, one gentleman had come to purchase one and sit down to savor it every day but two the first 14 days the cafe was open, Eric reported. Executive chef Sarah Carcipollo said customers have waited as long as an hour and 20 minutes for the next batch of ube treats to come out fresh from the oven.
That’s the beauty of this place where everything is made from scratch: You never know what pastry will be coming out next. Five bakers make beautiful, European-inspired pastries from 2:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. daily.
Keeping up with customer demand has been mind-boggling but satisfying for the Bosshards and their growing staff of bakers who create from 700 to 1,000 pastries daily. The owners, who live in Bath, created the beautiful new cafe as a passion project — a place where people could gather to enjoy their food, ask questions about it, linger and make new friends.
Their menu and decor were influenced by their time in Copenhagen as well as their other European travels. Influences from Japan also can be found in the cafe’s selection of matcha and other Japanese teas as well as the hand-crafted Japanese tea cups they’re served in.
Morning Star also offers pourovers as well as espresso, cappuccino and lattes. The eatery features four egg-based breakfast entrees as well as a yogurt, granola and fruit choice. Lunch includes sandwiches on croissants, baguettes and sourdough as well as a shawarma bowl and a blueberry pistachio salad.
1070 Ghent Road, Bath Township; 330-666-0660; 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Saturday-Sunday; closed Monday-Tuesday.
— Kerry Clawson
Buckets
Buckets is a nod to LeBron James, who has scored more buckets than any other player in NBA history, but also what’s being served up inside − fried chicken.
The restaurant, which opened April 1, has a rustic farm feel, from the light fixtures made of metal buckets hanging from the tall ceiling to the fare offered on the expansive menu.
Its signature dish is small metal buckets of fried chicken that have a nice blend of spices that include a hint of dill pickle and sweet honey. The fried chicken meal even includes some of the house pickles that are a sweet blend with a hint of spice.
Buckets joins the other LeBron James Family Foundation ventures inside of their sprawling House Three Thirty complex. The new eatery is a neighbor to Starbucks, a Chase financial services center, a Secret Pizza shop, a Sweet Shop, a store with LeBron James gear, a cabaret and even a museum dedicated to the NBA star.
532 W Market St., Akron; 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday; 330-217-9932; buckets330.com
— Craig Webb
Dave’s Hot Chicken
Dave’s Hot Chicken, a fast-casual restaurant specializing in Nashville-style hot chicken, opened April 16 at Summit Mall.
Customers tend to gravitate towards the chain’s slider, a fried chicken filet served on a potato bun with kale slaw, pickles and drizzled with Dave’s sauce. Chicken tenders, served with sliced bread, pickles and a side of Dave’s sauce, are another favorite.
Dave’s Hot Chicken offers seven levels of heat for its chicken patties and tenders, ranging from no spice to reaper (the latter requires a signed waiver to order). It also has eight “dipper” sauces to pair with its meals, one of which is their ketchup-and-mayo-based Dave’s sauce.
Available sides include seasoned French fries, cheese fries, macaroni and cheese and kale coleslaw. Other menu options include top-loaded shakes, boneless chicken bites and hot mozzarella bars.
This location is the brand’s first spot in Summit County, but fifth in Northeast Ohio. Franchisee Nikolas Silea oversees all of the Dave’s Hot Chickens in the area.
3265 W. Market St., Suite 100B, Fairlawn; 10:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, 10:30 a.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday; 330-500-3302; restaurants.daveshotchicken.com
— Tawney Beans
Shawarma Fresh Kitchen
Shawarma Fresh Kitchen (SFK), which opened in the space formerly occupied by Irie Jamaican Kitchen in Highland Square, has a singular focus on the shawarma meats that it marinates for 48 hours and cooks on rotating spits.
Stacked chicken and beef shawarma are cooked on rotating vertical broilers under the watchful eye of chef Mizo Dergham, layered with just enough fat and 32 spices for juicy flavor.
The high-protein shawarma rolls that owners Issam Halawi and Nick Banker and shawarma guru Dergham offer at this 100% halal restaurant weigh nearly half a pound. Chicken thighs are used for the chicken shawarma, with the skin needed in order to help stack the meat and add flavor. The meat is rolled in saj, which is thinner but more durable than pita, then toasted on the grill.
“I love the combination of the flavor of the garlic sauce and the pickles and the meat. That’s dynamite,” Halawi said of the shawarma rolls, which also come with hot sauce.
In Syria, shawarma is a street food and shawarma shops are on every block. Shawarma Fresh Kitchen’s 32 spices come fresh from Syria, where Dergham hails from Damascus and Halawi from Aleppo, known as the city of spices.
Halawi makes the restaurant’s five sauces — garlic toum, hot, green tahini, tahini and New York white — and outsources an amazing mixture of pomegranate and molasses that comes in a squeeze bottle. Both the restaurant’s sandwiches and fries are meant to be dipped in all of them.
Halawi, who also owns the Upper Crust next door, was an original co-owner of the former Irie Jamaican Kitchen, which closed in 2025.
At SFK, diners are ushered into a warm, inviting space that has the feeling of a market with clusters of hemp rope lighting fixtures and a wood awning. Warm shades of orange dominate an abstract design scheme.
837 W. Market St., Akron; 330-367-5555; 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday-Saturday, closed Monday; viashawarma.com and Shawarma Fresh Kitchen on Facebook.
Veg+
Hudson’s downtown gained a vegan- and vegetarian-friendly restaurant April 29.
Veg+ now offers a wide breadth of house-made fare in the space formerly home to Revival Room. The new eatery seats 102 between its first- and second-floor dining rooms as well as 24 on the patio.
Owner Betsy DuWaldt has nearly two decades of front- and back-of-house restaurant experience. Her background includes being a fraternity dinner cook at UC Davis to bartending at a Legal Seafoods in Cambridge, Massachusetts, all while getting degrees in technical communications and business administration.
The restaurant originally opened July 2023 on Akron Cleveland Road in Boston Heights. Many of the popular menu items served at their former location, like pickled beet salad and metro parks chicken sandwich, are still available.
Customers can also shake up their dining experience by ordering one of Veg+’s new menu items, which includes mushroom pate, eggplant caponata, Korean barbecue bowl made with Cleveland Kitchen kimchi and various pasta dishes, among many others.
Once the eatery receives its liquor license, it will also serve an array of cocktails, beer, hard seltzers, cider and wine.
200 N. Main St., Hudson; 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday; 234-284-8483; facebook.com/vegplus
— Tawney Beans
Beacon Journal reporter Craig Webb contributed to this report.
Got a story recommendation? Contact Beacon Journal reporter Tawney Beans at tbeans@usatodayco.com and on Instagram @TawneyBeans. And follow her adventures on TikTok @akronbeaconjournal. Arts and restaurant writer Kerry Clawson may be reached at 330-996-3527 or kclawson@thebeaconjournal.com.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Hungry for chicken, pastries, shawarma or vegan? Try these 5 new spots
Reporting by Kerry Clawson and Tawney Beans, Akron Beacon Journal / Akron Beacon Journal
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