Spores Café in Ann Arbor offers a unique twist on the café formula, providing a mushroom-infused boost with every drink—new energy and positive health benefits.
Since opening in mid-June between Ann Arbor’s Packard and Hill Street, Spores Café has found a way to stand out through its unique menu and island-interior aesthetic. With faux-grass-covered walls topped with mushroom products, their business matches style with the safety of their products, offering a counter full of pamphlets teaching dosage amounts for each mushroom-based item.
According to co-owner Blair Weiss, Spores Café practices making sure each product is paired correctly and offers a safe microdosing experience; the practice of taking small amounts of a drug to benefit from its reaction without having the full psychedelic experience.
“How do we bring the first-ever wellness café to Ann Arbor? People have incorporated mushrooms into their daily lives because they help with cardiovascular health and gut health,” Weiss said. “People drink coffee every day, so how do we make it easy for people to get their drink infused and experience those benefits daily?”
With its slogan “Where Shrooms & Wellness Meet,” the cafe’s menu offers traditional items like hot cocoa, iced matcha and various lemonades like strawberry, blueberry and mango. However, their wellness elements can be incorporated into each item, as the business offers the option to add “premium, non-synthetic mushroom extracts” to each item.
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Weiss and five of his longtime friends, including Michigan Daily co-founder Joe Boumaroun, and Jon Kasgorgis, first opened the business at Telegraph and Schoolcraft in Detroit. Weiss categorized the idea of Spores Café as a unique concept to bring to the University’s students.
Weiss said, “I think it is important for people to know the educational component that comes along with it, too. Our staff is very knowledgeable about the products and the benefits. We ask questions such as What are you looking to accomplish? We want to make an environment where when you walk in, you have a great experience, enjoying yourself, and receiving the educational component.”
Weiss, a Michigan native, said their entire coffee and espresso bean supply comes from Trinidad and Tobago. The company website states their specific reason for selling mushrooms is due to their belief that mushrooms provide daily health support through their extracts, a business model that is possible following the city of Ann Arbor’s decision to decriminalize mushrooms containing psilocybin and other entheogenic plants in September 2020.
The cafe’s specific brand of fungi is a functional mushroom—non-psychoactive drugs that the website said has been long studied for their wellness properties.
“Functional mushrooms help with cognitive support, boosting energy, stress relief, sleep, support, immunity and metabolism,” Weiss said. “It was important to us to put products on the shelf that were also quality.”
In addition to establishing themselves within the Ann Arbor community, Weiss said one of their goals is to partner with a range of non-profits, having already collaborated with the Wounded Warrior Project, as announced through their Spores-Detroit branch website.
“It was important to us to work with the Wounded Warrior Project. We see PTSD, anxiety, stress and depression when people come in. We are not doctors, but we point them to articles where they can do research and understand the benefits,” Weiss said. “Anyway we can get involved within the community, that is what we are all about, spreading the love and helping out.”
For more information on Spores Cafe, you can visit the business at 814 S State St, Ann Arbor or call (734) 888-6874. You can also visit their website at sporescafe.com.
Antonio Cooper is a freelance journalist from Detroit, Michigan. His coverage of music festivals and interviews with local celebrities appeared in The E-Current Magazine, The Detroit Metro Times, XXL Magazine, RichMagDigital, The Ann Arbor Observer, and Pop Magazine.
