LiBs Market is a cafe and coffee shop in Downtown Salem that tries to make you feel like you’re part of the family.

“LiB’s is a place for Salem to come together as a community, over good drinks and good food,” says owner Ben Ratner. “My wife and I do our best to put ourselves into what we do. Our kids are here a lot and they kind of add a lot of pizzazz to their shop. And our regulars enjoy seeing them and kind of seeing what they’re helping to support.”

Ratner says his love of social studies and psychology have given him more of an appreciation for what a shop like LiBs can mean to a community. “Seeing a coffee shop and seeing a café, and that sort of buzz and the vibe of the community that’s there, and the sort of way that they can texturalize a place, it was a way for me to put my interest in social studies to real practice and also my other interests of just kind of trying to be creative and fun and inclusive and bring people together.”

“You’re picking these single origin places and trying to taste that area in a cup”

LiBs Market serves specialty coffee, which Ratner says adds more meaning to the product you’re drinking. “When coffee is grown and processed, the area that it’s grown in and the way that it’s processed has an effect on the final product. And specialty coffee is the top five percent of coffee that’s produced in the world. So to be held to that standard, there’s a lot of people that go into that process, and that connection with people, and humanity, and society, you can kind of see how people express themselves through this product. It becomes more than a product it becomes an art, it becomes a hobby, because you’re picking these single origin places and trying to taste that area in a cup.”

LiBs Market is located at 474 East State Street in historic Downtown Salem, Ohio.