Megan Tysoe’s Rooted Juicery + Kitchen is expanding to the Central Business District with a new, caffeinated approach to serving plant-based treats to Cincinnati.
Tysoe, the founder of what is now quickly becoming a chain in Cincinnati, will open the doors of her third Rooted location in early October of this year, and she will do so with Urbana Café at her side.
Partnering with Tysoe, Urbana Café owner Daniel Noguera will supply the new Rooted location with coffee beans, espresso machines and equipment to help kickstart Tysoe’s new coffee program. Additionally, Noguera has agreed to train Tysoe’s staff on how to effectively use the new machines to ensure that his coffee tastes just as good as it does at his Pendleton location.
“We need to guarantee that she’s going to be successful on that side of the business,” Noguera said. “It needs to work for them because they’re putting in the investment and time; it needs to work for us also because now she’s serving our coffee.”
Tysoe couldn’t be happier to have Noguera and his employees offer assistance throughout the transition, as all signs point to this being a matcha made in heaven.
“Really expanding on the warm beverage category is something we’re really excited about, and that will be pretty unique to our downtown store,” Tysoe said. “We pride ourselves in using the best quality, organic, super-food ingredients we can find, and Daniel would say the same.”
Tysoe opened her first Rooted location in Oakley in 2015 before expanding to Mariemont in April of last year. Wasting no time in adding another store to the family, she is now on track to cut the ribbon on her third location on 6th and Walnut.
“We’re really excited to come downtown and be in the heart of our city that we love so much,” Tysoe said. “We’re just so excited and grateful and thankful for all of the support that we’ve already gotten. We’re thrilled about the collaboration with Urbana, and we’re just excited to open.”
In addition to the traditional take on coffee and espresso Urbana Café already brings to the table, Tysoe has tasked Noguera with taking his coffee expertise to the next level.
“We’re definitely collaborating to create some new, unique drinks that look really beautiful but are also really therapeutic and good for your health.”
While other Rooted locations already offer matcha, Tysoe and Noguera are working together to create matcha drinks that are even more pleasing to the eye, including a blue and pink matcha beverage. The dynamic duo also intends to create activated charcoal drinks, turmeric lattes and dandelion lattes among other boundary-testing beverages.
“At Rooted, our goal is, obviously, to make products and beverages that taste really good but are also really good for you,” Tysoe said. “So, we’re constantly thinking about ways to boost our drinks with superfoods.”
Having orchestrated similar partnerships with other stores in Cincinnati, Noguera has learned to relate the experience to making music.
“It’s like writing a song for somebody else,” Daniel said. “We’ll write the song, script it, add the music to it and then however they execute, they’ll add or subtract depending on their customer base.”
With Noguera and Tysoe at the helm, chances are a Grammy is in order.
