ONTARIO – For Cody Nicolas, birthday wishes do come true.
Nicolas and his business partners CJ and Andi Schonauer plan to open a coffee shop in Ontario on Thursday, Jan. 25, on Nicolas’s birthday.
“It will be born the same day as me … and it was totally by accident,” Nicolas said. “CJ pitched it to me. We wanted to open by the first, but it’s typical, you make a goal and then you get to it and readjust. So, then we pushed it to the 11th.
“We had some other hang ups, but now it’s official – we know we can be open for the 25th.”
The Ontario Coffee Department, or OCD for short, will open for the first time at 7 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 25 at 325 Shelby-Ontario Rd. directly beside Besta Fasta Pizza.
Nicolas recognizes that the area doesn’t have a lot of other businesses around it, but he’s optimistic the shop will draw customers, especially students from nearby Ontario High School.
He recalled when Relax, It’s Just Coffee moved into a bare downtown Mansfield area and other businesses followed suit. Nicolas also mentioned the increase of people in that area and the Final Friday concerts that draw hundreds and sometimes more than 1,000 people for shows at the Brickyard.
“When Paul (Kemerling) wanted to put one down here (Mansfield), people laughed at him, and now look what we have in five years time, six years time or whatever it’s been.”
An avid coffee drinker, Nicolas had worked at Relax since he moved to Mansfield on Dec. 31, 2011. Though he’s from Michigan, Nicolas had been attending school in Massachusetts before making the move to north central Ohio, where he has friends and family.
In Massachusetts, he also worked in the coffee business. He spent three years with a shop based in Salem. Eventually, he was asked to run a new branch in south Boston.
“I did that for a year, and I couldn’t really afford to live in Boston anymore,” Nicolas said.
During that time, he learned a lot about coffee and running a business, so he’s eager to get his own shop started later this month.
“I kind of want to bring this to this area, something that you would find in Columbus or Cleveland or where I received my training in Boston,” Nicolas said.
The Ontario Coffee Department will offer drip coffee, classic espresso-style drinks and more. Nicholas says he hopes to find a balance, satisfying both customers who just want to pick up a coffee on their way to work and those who are more interested in the specialty options.
The shop’s name came in part from the building’s former use as a fire department.
“We didn’t want to completely riff off that angle – that’s corny – but I still liked the fact that it was a very wholesome name that includes the word Ontario,” Nicolas said.
He hopes the city will take a special pride in the new business. He also liked that the Ontario Coffee Department was a name that could easily be abbreviated.
“I picture, some can call it the Ontario Coffee Department, and some people can call it the OCD – play on the tidiness of the shop, the efficiency, the attention to detail,” Nicolas said.
He anticipates that people familiar with the shop will call it “The OCD,” but wants first-time visitors to find it online as the “Ontario Coffee Department.”
Nicolas and the Schonauers were first approached about starting a coffee shop in Ontario by the building’s owner, Brett Baxter.
“Brett wanted a coffee shop and he talked to us,” Nicolas said.
They looked at the space in early December and immediately got to work, so that in less than two months the business is ready to open. Nicolas notes that it’s “built to expand” and hopes to add more to the OCD as it grows.
For the first few weeks of business, hours will be 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Sunday. Nicolas assures customers that it will later open Monday through Wednesday, too.
“My goal for the first few weeks is to just see how traffic is from week to week … Start small,” he said.
Learn more and find the most updated information about the Ontario Coffee Department on Facebook or Instagram.
