If you’re in search of a fancy latte or in dire need of a cappafrappamocha-whatever, Angst Coffeehouse & Pub in Walnut Hills is not the place for you. But, if you’re looking for a neighborhood hangout that reminds you of someone’s sleek yet super-comfy basement where you can meet your friends and enjoy a cup of great coffee, a local beer on tap and tacos and play pinball or a board game while listening to some Jazz, Angst is going to be your new favorite spot. Oh, and if the name sounds familiar, you’re not imagining anything; this is the second go-round for the place, albeit in a different location.
The first incarnation of Angst began on the main floor of Ron and Nicole Reblando’s 19th-century Highland Avenue home in Prospect Hill in 1996. Ron, a native of the Philippines, had been attending business school at Yale when he was recruited by Procter & Gamble to come to Cincinnati. Ron’s parents had immigrated to Los Angeles when he was a child, and he found Cincinnati to be a bit old school compared to California. “Coming here, it was very conservative and I was looking for a place that was more progressive,” Ron says. “I really couldn’t find that, so I decided I would make one myself.”
Inspired by the coffee scene in Seattle and on the East Coast, Ron named his coffeehouse Angst in part because of the dichotomy he saw in Cincinnati at the time.
“There was a sense that I felt where there was window dressing of a very corporate, young-professional type of city,” he says. “Everything was perfect, but underneath that there were some racial issues, there was the creative class that wasn’t necessarily part of that young-professional scene, so I just sensed that there was some angst there.”
Angst’s initial run lasted for two years, during which Ron switched careers to begin medical school and he and Nicole began their family, but his father’s second bout with prostate cancer put both school and Angst on hold.
“Being the only child — and in our family tradition — you took care of your parents,” Ron says. “So I moved my mom and dad from Los Angeles to Cincinnati. I basically moved all of their things and put them in our building, which was Angst, and closed the coffee shop. My dad passed away in ’99.”
Ron went on to a full-time career in business. But at the urging of a friend, he recently revisited Angst and opened a new incarnation of the shop in Walnut Hills.
“I just like to help improve the community,” Ron says. “I was helping out on a Saturday cleanup in (Five Points Alley) and afterward I was attending the beirgartens on the following day and I ran into an old friend…He said, ‘Ron, you gotta restart your coffeehouse,’ and I said, ‘Man, you realize I got a day job and six kids?’ ”
But Ron still had a lot of the old equipment from the original Angst, and he ended up applying for and receiving one of the first THRIVE grants, created via a partnership between Fifth Third Bank and the Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation — a nonprofit dedicated to community development in Walnut Hills — which provides money to attract business to Peebles’ Corner.
Ron takes inspiration from Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Harvard Professor Robert D. Putnam. “When people build bridges between each other, that actually lengthens your lifespan. It’s a good thing,” he says. “We’ve lost these personal ties in society.”
In order to support local businesses, Ron carries only local beers and coffees, including La Terza, Coffee Emporium and Pho Lang Thang. Although Angst now serves carnitas tacos and quesadillas reminiscent of Ron’s Los Angeles days, the Xavier-student-run Faves eatery will soon be supplementing the menu with guacamole and chips.
As for Angst being a self-dubbed “community center,” Ron describes it this way: “Folks are able to walk over from their homes — this is a big residential area all around here — and when people know that they have a place to hang out, and we love to introduce neighbors to each other, they know that they can come in and know someone. It’s part of the community building that we love to do.”
ANGST is located at 2437 Gilbert Ave. in Walnut Hills. More info: facebook.com/angstcoffeehouse.
This article appears in Nov 11-17, 2015.