Nearly two years after relocating from its original home in Shaker Heights to a new location in Highland Heights, LaunchHouse is bringing its entrepreneurial coworking community concept to the west side. 

Alex Wittenberg loves a good cup of coffee. So much so, he envisions a world where Cleveland’s coffee shop patrons share their love by buying their neighbor—whether it’s a friend, the next guy in line, or even an unknown stranger—a cup of joe. To that end, Wittenberg, along with co-founders Sebastian Thimmig, Adam Fishburn, and Edward Liu, have created CoffeeQ, an online app that allows users to do just that.

More than 500 Clevelanders gathered for the fourth annual Accelerate event at downtown’s Global Center for Health Innovation—or what event co-chair Ursula Cottone calls a “civic ‘Shark Tank.’” Sponsored by Citizens Bank and orchestrated by Cleveland Leadership Center, the buzzy civic pitch competition featured 25 semi-finalists presenting bright ideas on how to accelerate Cleveland’s momentum.

Following in the footsteps of FirstEnergy Stadium, the Cleveland Indians, and JACK Cleveland Casino, the Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland has implemented a large-scale food waste recycling system known as Grind2Energy—becoming the first and only convention center in the country to do so.

Banking on the growing coworking trend, the hope is that when the MidTown Tech Hive opens on Thursday, March 1, it will become a cooperative gathering place for great minds to bring innovative ideas with a sense of community and an emphasis on tech education. Read more about what Tech Hive will offer here.

Fourteen years in, the Cleveland Bazaar has evolved from a one-day holiday sale at Derek Hess' studio into Cleveland’s longest-running independent craft show.

About two or three years ago, Cleveland Heights resident Mary Kelsey and some friends began talking about the concept of cohousing—a community of homes that are clustered around shared spaces like a common house and outdoor areas. While there are fewer than 200 cohousing communities across the U.S., Kelsey says there are “quite a few” are in progress, including right here in Northeast Ohio.

The label “startup hub” is no longer reserved for a few select cities across the nation, and Cleveland is being dubbed a haven for innovation as more entrepreneurs set their sights on our city to put down roots. Robert Half’s list of “Top 10 U.S. Cities Where Startups Are Growing” ranks Cleveland at number eight based off its survey of 2,600 CIOs in 26 metropolitan areas around the country—citing access to skilled technology talent and an attractive quality of life. Other cities on the list include Charlotte, Atlanta, San Diego, Phoenix, and Seattle. Click here to see who else made the list.

The Coventry P.E.A.C.E. Campus and the nonprofit groups working out of the building will remain in the former Coventry School building after Heights Libraries opts to buy the property from the Cleveland Heights-University Heights School District for $1, saving the grounds from possible commercial development.

While Matt and Trevor Gile and their father, Chuck, may have gone into the auto repair business three years ago with Cleveland Heights-based Motorcars Collision, the family has dreamt about donuts for at least seven years. Now the trio is realizing their dream with the opening of Daylight Donuts and Coffee (3077 Mayfield Road in Cleveland Heights) along with their newly-relocated Motorcars Collision.

Quicken Loans Arena (aka “The Q”) isn’t just launching the next generation of pro basketball stars—it’s turning out culinary power players as well. Today, the arena’s Launch Test Kitchen announced its newest lineup of local chefs, all three of whom come from minority-owned businesses.

Cleveland native Nikki Yeager was tired of people making comments that her son should dress more "like a boy," so she decided to do something about it by launching Every Bean Boutique—a gender-neutral line that's part of a larger movement to remove traditional labels from children's clothing. Learn more about Yeager's mission here.

Trey Kirchoff has a nose for good coffee and he seeks to spread his love of a good roast with the rest of Cleveland. This spring, Kirchoff will partner with Mason Adkins and Berto Huertas of Sixth City Cycles to open Coffee, Coffee, Coffee—a combination coffee shop and bike shop in Old Brooklyn. The new shop will open in the former Familyography space at 4193 Pearl Road.

Read more about this unique blend of coffee and bikes here.

Since 2015, the Beauty and Barber Empowerment Center has been a resource center in Shaker Square for beauty industry professionals. Now they're the recipients of a $6,000 grant from the United Black Fund of Great Cleveland to support people in transition, including formerly incarcerated individuals and displaced barbers and cosmetologists, in their career paths. 

From Eliot Ness to T.I.T.U.S., the Molchan family business has grown immensely. Since opening Perplexity Games back in 2016, the business (currently ranked as TripAdvisor's top escape room in Cleveland) has grown from 3,000 square feet to 4,500 square feet. The number of game offerings has also increased, with the addition of "Clockwork Caper" and "T.I.T.U.S." in addition to the original "Eliot Ness Investigation." Learn more about this place for escape artists here.

When gift-giving, why settle on a fruitcake when you can have a Bloom Bakery delight? The artisanal café-slash-social venture is hosting a Holiday Shop replete with assorted cookies, dinner rolls, and apple pies, plus seasonal items like pumpkin roll and pumpkin bread—as well as a showstopper that Executive Director Jill Rizika calls "to-die-for deep, deep chocolate brownies."

"We really hope instead of giving a gift certificate or a candle as corporate gifts, that [people] might think about ordering through Bloom and get the double whammy of getting a treat while also supporting a second chance," says Rizika.

Tonya Kinlow and her husband, chef Craig Stevens, never intended to start an app or a mindful eating movement—they just wanted to open a restaurant. But as they got deeper into the planning process, their values pointed them in an entirely different direction. The result is UGottaEat, an app that acts as a social network where users can share home-cooked meals and obtain freshly made meals from local chefs. Learn more about how this innovative app works here.

It only seems fitting that someone named Mercedes Bell would open a boutique on wheels—and that's exactly what Bell did when she launched Lavora's Mobile Boutique earlier this year. An emerging style entrepreneur, Bell had already been running her online boutique for over one year when she debuted the roving fashion truck in late July 2017. In the months since, the truck has made appearances at events like Glenville Community Festival, Soul of Buckeye, Battle of the Bands at Shaw High School, and the recent pop-up shop at Spaces. Get the 411 on this roving retailer here.

In early October, Cleveland became the first northern port city to sign a memo of understanding with Cuba’s maritime administration—effectively paving the way for future trade possibilities. The agreement makes a fitting cap for what has been a year of rich synergy between Cleveland and Cuba across the spectrum, from art to entrepreneurship to architecture to dance.

One wouldn't guess by its industrial past, but Cleveland has surprising ties to the roots of urban farming in America—and they're on full display at these local farms, which were spotlighted recently at the global Meeting of the Minds conference. See why Chateau Hough, Green City Growers, Rid-All Green Partnership, and Ohio City Farm are now serving as a blueprint for MOTM experts to apply in their own cities.