East Cleveland's Loiter Café Reaches Agreement With Cuyahoga Land Bank After Lawsuit

Loiter East Cleveland, a café and community space run by Ismail Samad, just ended a lingering lawsuit with landlords, the Cuyahoga Land Bank. Credit: Mark Oprea

By the time the ribbon was cut on the second floor of the Mickey’s Building on the fringe of East Cleveland on July 10, Ismail Samad was ready to open his coffee shop and community market with full force.

Most of the pieces of what would become Loiter East Cleveland were either already in place or about to be: a kitchen selling salmon sandwiches and locally-grown herbal teas; a wall featuring portraits of Malcolm X and Harriet Tubman; a sweets case and “Teeny Tiny Market” selling products from local Black entrepreneurs—sweet potato bruleé to Lil Robert’s Orange Grits.

Samad, who returned to his native East Cleveland after the pandemic, pictured Loiter in almost a philosophical existence. He had founded two similar venues specializing in food of the African diaspora—Corbon Hill Food Project in New York City, and Nubian Markets in Boston—and wanted Loiter to push the envelope here when not a lot of pushing was going on.

“We don’t have a grocery store. There’s very few convivial spaces to hang out for legacy residents,” Samad told Scene of the neighborhood.

“I mean, you think of all these research studies on East Cleveland—we’re the highest in obesity rates, in poor housing, in food insecurity,” he added. “Well, how do you fix that? You create an economic engine yourself.”

An economic engine that, for at least a few months last summer, was caught up, and even stifled in a legal case with the owners of the Mickey Building, the Cuyahoga Land Bank.

Although the suit between Samad and the Land Bank was resolved Wednesday, the legal battle has seemed to leave a lingering tension between Loiter and its landlords eager to make the developing land around Loiter, the so-called Circle East District, into a lush neighborhood. One that could, as renderings and titles foreshadow, serve as a bridge between nearby University Circle and an East Cleveland that’s long struggled to keep a consistent one.

Toka Ivy, a barista at Loiter, makes tea locally grown, what Samad wants his café to be known for—supporting nearby Black agriculturists and homesteaders. Credit: Mark Oprea

What’s come out of the suit has been, it seems, a lasting tug-of-war of identity: What should Circle East be? And who is it meant to be catered to?

Which doesn’t come without obvious disagreements. “Hey, you can’t build a suspension bridge without tension,” Samad said.

Further down the road from Loiter and Circle East, off Euclid and East 125th Street, East Cleveland remains rattled yet again by recent controversies.

In October, East Cleveland Mayor Brandon King and former councilman Ernest Smith were indicted by the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas for dozens of counts of crime, ranging from theft in office to misusing government credit cards. King’s indictment has either plunged some East Clevelanders into further civic woes or led others, especially on a City Council that often reviled King, to dream of better days ahead.

A mentality that has been proffered by Circle East and those that are pushing its brand. Ever since the Land Bank first considered buying the Mickey’s Building in 2009, there’s been interest, it seems, in building a neighborhood: building 200 homes, redeveloping Mickey’s (and old Buick dealership), growing East Cleveland’s income tax base by about $240,000 a year.

It would involve about 30 acres in total that, the Land Bank announced at its July ribbon-cutting, could be host to $120 million in development. All seemingly catapulted and kicked off by its $3.5-million makeover of Mickey’s, which Dennis Roberts, a development director for the Land Bank, said was key to its then-pending sale to Boston-based Verdynt Bio Labs.

Those 100 jobs from Verdynt “is the spark needed to jumpstart investment that will fuel the beginning of the revitalization of this historic city,” it was promised in July.

Yet, during the sale, according to a complaint filed by Samad and his attorney, Samad was apparently locked out of the Loiter he’d previously gotten clearance to run. The Land Bank, the complaint says, had changed his locks; they had removed Loiter’s sign.

Cuyahoga County Judge Cassandra Collier-Williams decided to block the sale of the building to Verdynt until after the July hearing. Samad had a soft opening in August; a grand opening was held on September 28.

And today, despite what appears to be a burgeoning crisis of identity, the Land Bank implied that bygones can be bygones.

(Scene reached out to Circle East representatives multiple times this year for comment. Multiple calls for comment from a Land Bank spokesperson were not returned Thursday afternoon.)

“We are pleased to have reached a resolution that allows us to move forward and focus on our shared goals,” Ricardo Leon, the Land Bank’s CEO, said in a statement. “We believe that by collaborating creatively and working toward sustainable solutions, the Land Bank and Loiter can achieve meaningful progress and make a lasting difference.”

Which is what Samad told Scene he’s more focused on: growing Loiter’s mission while letting Circle East do its own thing around him.

On Thursday, Samad invited Scene to lunch at Loiter, for a kimchi chicken salad made with locally-grown sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts along with chamomile-mint tea grown right down the street. At a table nearby, writer Quartez Harris acknowledged the joy inherent in Loiter’s identity. “I mean, this place exists,” he said, “I didn’t know that this could exist. But it does.”

Nearby, Samad agreed.

“We were like, no way in the world we can do something in East Cleveland without dealing with the negative connotation people have with East Cleveland,” Samad added. “And we know it exists, and we’re not going to run away from it.”