Lowertown Bar & Cafe — Restaurant in Ann Arbor

As a coffee enthusiast and cafe aficionado, I absolutely adore Lo Bar & Cafe. They truly elevate the coffee experience.

Coffee Connoisseurs Rejoice: Lo Bar & Cafe features coffee from Hyperion, a local roaster in Ann Arbor. The team at Lo, specifically Martin, Amanda, and Jon, have a knack for bringing out the best in Hyperion's roasts. In my opinion, they serve it even better than Hyperion themselves! This speaks volumes about their dedication to quality and their passion for the products they serve.

Friendly Staff & Welcoming Atmosphere: The baristas are incredibly kind and friendly, making every visit a pleasure. I've had great conversations with them about the cafe, Ann Arbor, and everything in between. The cafe is also a haven for remote workers, offering a welcoming environment with games for entertainment, a water station, and excellent Wi-Fi.

Spotless Interior & Fantastic Outdoor Seating: Lo Bar & Cafe boasts a clean and well-maintained interior. The staff consistently keeps the shop spotless. The outdoor seating is a major plus, perfect for enjoying the Ann Arbor weather. Parking can be a bit tricky, but you can park up on the hill behind the shop or opt for paid parking.

Perfect Ambiance: The background music is never too loud, creating a relaxing and productive atmosphere. It's the perfect backdrop for enjoying your coffee and getting work done.

Overall, I can't recommend Lo Bar & Cafe enough. Their coffee is exceptional, the staff is friendly, and the atmosphere is welcoming. It's easily become my top choice for coffee and cafe experiences in Ann Arbor. I'm always...

Update: Apparently they disabled WiFi to discourage students and coffee-shop-working folks. This is unacceptable and a sign of them not knowing what their customer base consists of.

Thus the 1/5 rating.

This coffee shopping surviving is a sign that lower town needs more competition. Better/ cheaper bars, friendlier coffee shops.

3.5/5

Neat place, definitely needed in the lower town. Fantastic environment. Good bike accommodations. Thought it would be a good night-working place in town, but disappointed "company policy no laptop after 5" 🙄.

This is your classic hippy cafe-bar place:

Very basic menu for the cafe, okay pricing. Hot chocolate sold out in the early afternoon. The cocktails are passable, but expensive for its quality, not a lot of selections neither. There's no food except basic pastries, advertised as using Hyperion coffee, maybe would be a good deal to have a pizza heater serving cottage inn pizza right next door, just saying.

They've put all the effort into the setup, looks really nice. But besides that this is really a sign of lack of cafe/ bar in lower town, needs competition!!

Looks really busy for their day 1. Would love to revisit after a couple months, it's definitely a neat place, but for now...

So the decor is wonderful and thoughtfully arrayed for the inside and outside. I love the boardgames and would like to give an updated review should I ever come back in the evening.

I very much wanted to rate this higher and was very much looking forward to trying this spot but the service was not great not rude but not particularly friendly or welcome the disaffected demeanor or a bartender which if it was 4pm might’ve been expected. The website i’m told is famously inaccurate but it’s pretty new place so maybe just a kink to work out. The option to warm the foods would’ve been nice like at Hyperion but that’s not the main issue as Beara Bakes is always nice at any temperature.

The lack of 2 stars is the milk was either burnt/over steamed or re steamed too many times but either way did not taste good on the mocha or cap and the cappuccino was also more of a latte with almost no foam which is more a quibble. Downed it like a shot then went next door to Northside for just a lobster butter love. I’ve been barista in the past for a couple decades and that bar in there is far too nice to have the drinks...