RoosRoast Liberty
John Roos names his roasts like dishes on a menu, and the medium is called Lobster Butter Love.1
Why go
Roos opened the roasting works on Rosewood Street in 2008 and it sat too far south of campus to pull students.1 He took this downtown room at 117 E. Liberty in 2016 and The Michigan Daily's readers have voted it the city's best coffee every year since.1 The front of the shop is painted in a blue, yellow and red geometric pattern you can see from up the street. Roos handed the wall to a group of U-M students, most of whom he says had never touched a paint brush before
.1 The business runs three ways: this cafe, the solar-powered roastery on Rosewood, and a stall at the farmers market.2
Order this / avoid
- Order: Lobster Butter Love, the medium roast.1
- Avoid: a late afternoon here. Liberty shuts at 2:30pm Monday to Thursday while Rosewood runs to 5pm daily.2
What locals & experts say
- John Roos, to The Michigan Daily, Best of Ann Arbor 2023:
We just let them do that. I mean, we try to keep everything funky and authentic.
1 - Roos, on how far it has gone:
It's grown so much. I never thought it would be this wild. But it's wild.
1
Good to know
- Hours: Monday to Thursday 7:30am to 2:30pm, Friday to Sunday 7:30am to 3:30pm.2
- The award is a readers' poll. Best of Ann Arbor is voted by Michigan Daily readers, not judged by a trade body.1
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: "Some of the best coffee in ann arbor" The student body has voted the same way every year since this door opened.
Verdict
should-visit — John Roos started roasting on Rosewood in 2008, too far from campus to matter, and by 2016 he had the corner of Liberty and a student body that votes for him annually. He names his roasts like dishes, Lobster Butter Love for the medium, which is a small decision that tells you how he thinks about selling coffee. The evidence is a student readers' poll and the roaster's own pages, so nobody has judged the cup on the record. Jeff's line and a decade of votes are enough to send you in.