For pizza and a craft cocktail on the northwest side of Akron, Crust & Cocktails sits in Liberty Commons at 1256 Weathervane Lane. Eight pizzas made fresh with local ingredients, wine by the glass or bottle, cold bottled beer and cocktails built to order in a 55-seat room.
Merriman Valley and the Liberty Commons strip above it are where Akron goes when the evening needs to be good but not formal. This page is for the version of that evening that involves a pizza and a considered drink in the same sitting.
Start with the Margherita, because it tells you what kind of kitchen this is. Classic marinara, heirloom cherry tomatoes, burrata on top, olive oil, a scatter of locally farmed micro greens. Nothing to hide behind. It is $17, and it is the pizza to order alongside a glass of the Banfi San Angelo Pinot Grigio.
Classic Pepperoni ($17) goes the other way: marinara under fresh mozzarella and provolone, thin-sliced pepperoni across the whole surface, then a drizzle of hot honey over the top. The heat and the sweetness together want something with structure — Castello di Albola Chianti at $11 the glass does the job.
Truffled Wild Mushroom ($17) is built on a creamy white-wine base with a blend of mushrooms, caramelized onion, mozzarella and parmesan, then finished with local thyme, micro greens and truffle oil. It is the most autumn thing on the menu and it belongs next to the Arius Pinot Noir.
Braised Short Rib ($18) is the one people describe to their friends afterwards: house-braised short rib over a white-wine beurre blanc with sautéed onion, provolone and mozzarella, giardiniera relish on top and horseradish aioli alongside. Order it with the Greenwing Cabernet, or with whatever the bar is building that night.
Tuscan Chicken Pesto ($17) puts grilled chicken, roasted heirloom cherry tomatoes and burrata over a basil pesto base with balsamic. Ai Cetriolini ($17) is the wild card — dill pickles, beurre blanc, provolone, mozzarella and hardwood-smoked bacon, finished with fresh dill. Create Your Own is $17 with a base of your choosing, up to three toppings, a dipping sauce and proteins at $3; cauliflower crust is $5 and vegan cheese $1. A 6-inch personal pan is $10.
Before the pizza, the antipasti do real work. The Charcuterie Board ($19) is chef-choice cheeses, prosciutto and cured meat with pickled vegetables and grapes — the right thing to put between two people who are still deciding. Burrata Bruschetta is $12, Classic Meatballs are $9, and the Stuffed Mushrooms at $12 come under aged balsamic.
The drinks side is what separates this from a pizza place with a beer fridge. Craft cocktails are built to order — the card lives in the room, so ask — and the wine list is short enough to read and long enough to matter: Tuscany, Sonoma, Napa, Bordeaux, Argentina, New Zealand and Germany, all available by the glass as well as the bottle. That is the detail that makes a pizza-and-a-drink evening work for two people who want different things.
If beer is the point, the fridge holds Peroni and Stella at $5.25 to $5.50, Modelo and Corona at $5, Blue Moon and Rhinegeist Truth at $5.25, Columbus Bodhi Double IPA and the rotating Great Lakes seasonal at $6, and the domestics at $4. Downeast Cider, Sun Cruiser and Carbliss cover the seltzer end at $4.75, and there is an alcohol-free Brew Dog Elvis Juice at $5.25.
A word on how the evening tends to run. Pizzas are made to order in a small kitchen, so the sequence matters more here than it does at a place running six lines at once. Put an antipasto in with the pizza order, pour something while you wait, and the food arrives in the order you actually want to eat it. Rush it and you will sit with everything at once; pace it and you have a two-hour dinner for the price of a sandwich and a beer downtown.
Pizzas are $17, with Braised Short Rib at $18 and the personal pan at $10. Antipasti run $9 to $19 and salads are $12. Wine is $9 to $36 by the glass and $24 to $108 by the bottle; bottled beer is $4 to $6. Cocktail prices are not published here — the bar has the current card.
Two people can eat and drink well for the price of one chain entrée plus parking downtown, which is most of the reason this room stays full on a Thursday.
In the room, everything is ordered from your seat; food can also be ordered online through Toast for pickup or DoorDash for delivery. Reservations are limited, so the practical plan is to walk in, take a bar seat if the tables are full, and order the antipasto first while the kitchen makes the pizza.
Weeknights are the easy answer: Monday to Thursday, four until eleven, when you can get a table without a wait and the bar has time to talk. Friday from four runs until midnight, Saturday opens at eleven in the morning and runs until midnight, and Sunday is eleven to nine.
Friday and Saturday evenings fill quickly, so come before seven if you want the widest choice of tables.
Crust & Cocktails, 1256 Weathervane Ln, Akron, OH 44313. 234-272-3090. Mon–Thu 4–11pm; Fri 4pm–12am; Sat 11am–12am; Sun 11am–9pm.
Liberty Commons sits off Weathervane Lane above the Merriman Valley, minutes from the towpath and an easy run from Bath, Fairlawn and Highland Square. The Google listing has the pin.
