Long wait for Richfield Brewing Company is about to end

by Sheldon Ocker

Four years is a long time to wait for a beer, even a craft beer. A man could die of thirst by then. Thankfully, Mike Lytz is a patient man and has access to fresh drinking water.

It was in 2020 that Lytz and his late wife Margaret, who died in 2022, began seeking a location to build a brew pub. The wait is finally over; the Richfield Brewing Company is scheduled to open this month in the Richfield Historic District, the downtown of the village.

Lytz didn’t need another job. In 2007, he and Margaret opened Sarah’s Vineyard, a thriving winery on Steels Corner Road, across from the entrance to Blossom Music Center. Lytz, who is 68, didn’t have a lot of time on his hands, so why undertake a lengthy process that involved numerous and detailed specifications sought by Richfield Village, a building process made more challenging by nationwide supply problems in addition to all the usual pain-in-the-neck requirements of Summit County?

“I think I fell and hit my head,” Lytz joked. “I guess I’m the type of person that likes to be creative.”

Lytz used to teach in the Akron Public Schools and coach football as an assistant to Clem Cariboolad at Hoban High School. 

“When I was coaching for him, one day he says, ‘Lytz, I know the joy for you is creating not maintaining,’’’ Lytz said. “I do enjoy the building process.”

All well and good, but Lytz has to run the place.

“I’ve got a crew of younger people who signed on and I made them part owners,” he said. “My goal is to have them take over eventually.”

But not now. Richfield Brewing Company definitely is Lytz’s baby.

The place is no dive bar. A voluminous hall with a vaulted ceiling adorned with huge wooden beams serves as the eating and drinking area. There are no partitions or small private rooms to minimize the space. The small bar is not for hanging out; it will be used as a service bar for bartenders and servers.

“The concept of a hall is people bringing their family and friends,” Lytz said. “It’s a meeting place. The village didn’t want just another restaurant or bar. They wanted something different.”

Along one wall are garage doors that open to a long, rather narrow space for more diners. On the outer wall of this space are garage doors that can turn the space into an open-air veranda in summer. Beyond the garage doors is an outdoor patio big enough for several additional tables.

Altogether, Lytz estimates the entire dining and drinking space can accommodate more than 250 patrons.

Lytz calls the indoor design “kind of industrial contemporary.”

But contemporary does not mean without character. Lytz acquired several items of furniture, much of his brewery equipment and enhancements that give the Richfield Brewing Company a historical slant.

His dining tables came from the defunct West Hill Hardware, an iconic Akron institution where someone with a 70-year-old broken lawnmower could find parts to fix it.

Much of his brewhouse equipment came from the John Harvard Brewing Company, named for the founder of Harvard University. The brewhouse, in Framingham, Massachusetts, was closing because of COVID.

Lytz also bought a giant beer mug that guarded the entrance to the Framingham brewery and attached it to the wall above his service bar.

Brewing four or five craft brews (for starters) happens behind a glass wall adjacent to the dining room. You enter through a door that Lytz found in Florida.

Lytz and his wife were vacationing at Sanibel Island on the west side of Florida, but once a week Margaret was required to visit the Cleveland Clinic’s facility on the east side of the state for cancer treatments.

“She would have to stay all day and I wasn’t allowed in the room,” Lytz said. “So, I went searching around on Facebook Market Place for fun and I found this place in Miami Beach that was a speakeasy during the Depression. That’s where I found the door.”

Lytz salvaged wood and stone from the former home of Dr. Randolph Heinle. It is the doctor’s property on which the brewery has been constructed. Lytz also used wood trim from a dilapidated barn taken down by the village.

Andrew Rittenbeck is in charge of making the beer. When Rittenbeck attended the University of Akron, he had to make a choice: play bass in a jazz band or embark on a career focused on beer.

“I realized I didn’t want to look for a gig every day,’’ Rittenbeck said. “I had a friend who introduced me to different types of [craft] beer, and being young I never tried that stuff before. I was kind of blown away.”

Rittenbeck has worked at breweries in Cincinnati, Great Lakes Brewing Company in Cleveland (twice) and Hofbrau House, also in Cleveland.

The chef of the large and well-equipped kitchen is Mary Clarke. Area foodies have already tasted Clarke’s food at Pitchfork, where she was executive chef, and at the original West Point Market, Mustard Seed, Ken Stewart’s Lodge and as a caterer of private parties.

“I’m known for being a little wild, adventurous with my flavors. Really bold,” she said. “I like what brings people home to a positive memory, like in their childhood, when something you eat just brightens your day.”

Lytz and Clarke will not make Richfield Brewing Company into a wings and nacho joint.

The only reminder that Richfield Brewing Company stands on the site of the late Heinle’s former house is a water well that the revered physician used until he retired in 2018. “We’re going to make that into a wishing well and dedicate it to Margaret,’’ Lytz said. “The proceeds will go to the Kiwanis Club.”

Photo Caption: Mike Lytz stands beside the building and under the Richfield Brewing Company sign, which overlooks landscaping of native plants. Photo by S. Serdinak.