West Market Street, Conger Avenue and Edgerton Road form a triangle around Mustard Seed Market & Café’s red-brick home in Highland Square. While the Mustard Seed family brand has been an Akron mainstay for over 45 years, the Highland Square grocery store and cafe opened in May of 2015.
Unlike its Montrose location, this Akron space boasts an upstairs bar and cafe with an outdoor patio balcony with seating for 100 customers. Colorful umbrellas and olive-green cushions on wicker couches ensure patrons can enjoy one of the city’s relatively few above-street-level outdoor dining experiences.
The business name is drawn from the Bible, specifically the book of Matthew, where Jesus tells the disciples that one only needs to have faith the size of a mustard seed to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.
“It’s named for taking that leap of faith,” Abraham Nabors said.
His parents opened Mustard Seed 45 years ago. Today, Nabors and his brother, Gabe, run it. Their parents have retired.
Much like its namesake, Mustard Seed has won the faith of its customers with a commitment to locally sourced, non-artificial ingredients. It’s believed to be one of only two grocery stores in Akron with natural ingredient standards, the other being Whole Foods.
Fast service and fresh ingredients cultivate a casual dining atmosphere
Its inventory of fresh ingredients is put to full use in both the downstairs grocery store and the upstairs cafe to create a smorgasbord of meal options.
Nabors said the most popular item on Mustard Seed’s menu is the farmer’s breakfast, comprising fresh bacon, eggs, potatoes and toast. But his favorite is the vegan bananas foster French toast on the weekend brunch menu.
“It is so good, it’s crazy,” Nabors said. “If you don’t care about being vegan, it doesn’t matter because you won’t even be able to tell.”
Mustard Seed operates with a fast-casual model. Customers grab a menu and take their place in line, then place orders and take a table number. Red table numbers sit inside; green table numbers sit outside depending on customer preferences. Food runners replace traditional waiters to bring the food from the back of the house to customers.
“Full-service doesn’t blend well with a grocery store because we let people bring food from the grocery store upstairs to eat,” Nabors said. “In a traditional restaurant, that would eat into server tips and make them go somewhere else.”
Nabors said that a customer who only buys food is looking at approximately a $10 to $18 check, which can grow to $25 with the addition of a beverage and $30 with dessert. He reiterated that customers can bring any food they purchase from the grocery store upstairs to the cafe.
Because of the flexible dining model, Mustard Seed’s cafe does not take reservations. However, this does not hinder customers’ ability to make the cafe a consistent place of work, study and socialization due to the high seating capacity.
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Varied healthy options keep customers long-term
Friends Jasmine Mathews and Lyn Thomas have been dining together at Mustard Seed for five years. Mathews said the menu keeps her coming back.
“I don’t know if I have a favorite item; I love their food,” Mathews said. “I’m working my way through everything because everything I try is a little bit of a new surprise.”
“It’s fresh, local, organic and healthy,” Thomas added. “Healthy is probably number one for me.”
Nearby, Kaylan Grove and her 10-year-old daughter, Penelope, enjoyed an order of sweet-potato fries. Grove said her family used to live in Highland Square but now live a mile away, near Firestone Community Learning Center. She said Mustard Seed has been a favorite family dinner spot since it opened.
“I feel better about the ingredients; they’re clean,” Grove said. “It’s casual, but feels nice, and you can find something organic if you want to.
“The kids even love the kids’ menu, actually.”
Mustard Seed’s busiest times are at brunch and lunch and dinner rushes, and they tend to see more customers on weekends than weekdays, like most restaurants. The cafe also hosts live music on Saturday nights, free of charge to customers.
“We just pay the band and it attracts a bunch of people,” Nabors said. “If they eat food and buy drinks from us, we just need to make up our investment for the band, which we’ve been doing for a long time.”
Nabors said that, in summertime, the weather, events and food come together to make for an enjoyable outdoor dining experience that doesn’t break the bank. He prides himself on Mustard Seed’s accessibility to the community through an atmosphere that doesn’t need to sacrifice quality to remain quick and casual.
“For the budget-minded customer, being able to buy any food of any value proposition in our grocery store can be more accessible than a restaurant,” Nabors said. “Because we’re in a densely populated, walkable neighborhood, it’s very easy to just stroll up and come grab a bite whenever.”
1st place:
Mustard Seed Market & Café
867 W. Market St., Highland Square
330-434-2233
11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday-Thursday
11 a.m. to 11 p.m., Friday
9 a.m. to 11 p.m., Saturday
9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Sunday
https://www.mustardseedmarket.com
2nd place
Lock 15 Brewing Co. (Also best bar/brewery for 2026)
21 W. North Street, Suite TL 1
234-900-8277
11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Tuesday-Thursday
11 a.m. to 11 p.m., Friday-Saturday
11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Sunday
