Despite being previously tucked away in the Pivot Center for Art, Dance and Expression in Tremont, Natalia Alcazar managed to make a name for herself in the local coffee scene. Thanks to a great product – and a knack for social media – Alcazar cultivated and then grew the roots of Dahlia Coffee that outpaced the small space.
Last month, Dahlia Coffee (2085 W. 114th St., 216-302-7785) got a bigger stage when it opened in a new location, a standalone building in the Cudell neighborhood on Cleveland’s west side. Formerly home to Scoot Cold Brewed Coffee, the charming café provides Alcazar with plenty of room to expand her budding business.
While living in Portland, Oregon, Alcazar developed a passion for coffee. She took that obsession a step further by taking roasting classes in Minneapolis. After relocating to Cleveland with her boyfriend, she left the corporate world behind to pursue coffee fulltime. She currently roasts at First Crack Coffee, a co-roasting facility in Asiatown.
“I focus more on Central American coffee because I’m Mexican,” says Alcazar. “I roast beans from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and Colombia. I tend to roast a little darker – not super, super dark. I roast to medium or dark roast, but the quality of the coffee and tasting notes are still there."
Alcazar roasts beans weekly for sale by the pound at the coffee shop. Those beans also wind up in espresso drinks and drip coffees. They are joined by specialty drinks like Mexican mochas, dulce de leche lattes and café de olla, a Mexican spiced coffee.
For now, the food options are limited to some pastries and Argentinian-style empanadas filled with chicken or beef and green olives, potatoes and sweet peppers. Alcazar also makes sweet empanadas starring pineapple, guava or strawberry and conchas, Mexican breakfast bread. Down the road, she plans to increase the food offerings with breakfast sandwiches and grab-and-go lunch items like salads and sandwiches.
If things continue progressing as Alcazar hopes, you can expect to find bags of Dahlia Coffee appearing on the shelves of your favorite neighborhood grocery store.