The counter, a massive, dark wooden affair, with a light wooden top (which matches the furniture), is at the back. If you really want to catch the sun, you can sit outside on the broad pavement where there are several two-person tables on both streets. The walls on both sides are effectively floor-to-ceiling windows, which means that the interior’s flooded with light, particularly in the afternoon, resulting in a sense of space, enhanced by the amazingly high ceilings. The main entrance, a broad, tall affair, inset and surmounted by a glass arch, is right on the corner, while there’s another door to the left on Ottawa Avenue. I’d assumed it was in a building (the “Monroe Center”), but turns out that Monroe Center is the street Madcap is on, sitting pretty on the corner of Ottawa Avenue, which Monroe Center intersects at about 135⁰. Madcap is in the heart of downtown Grand Rapids, a couple of blocks from the river (from which rapids, grand or otherwise, are disappointingly absent). You can read more of my thoughts after the gallery. There’s also a small sweet and savoury food selection. Naturally, the entire roastery output is available as retail bags. A large, open, bright space, there are two espresso options, three on pour-over. Although the roastery left in 2015, moving to a dedicated facility on Fulton Street, the coffee shop remains. This one, on Monroe Center Street, right in the heart of downtown Grand Rapids, is where it all began, opening as a coffee shop, with the roastery in the basement, in 2008. Naturally, when planning my recent Midwest road trip, Grand Rapids was the first place I pencilled in (although it was my last stop of the trip). Along the way, Madcap’s coffee’s been good enough to get on the shortlists for the Coffee Spot’s Best Filter Award in 2015 and for the 2014 Best Espresso Award. I first came across Madcap in 2014 at Box Kite in New York, and most recently at Miami’s Vice City Bean. When it comes to coffee roasters in America’s Midwest, outside of Chicago’s Intelligentsia, the one name I consistently hear (and whose coffee I consistently see) more than any other is Madcap, from Grand Rapids, Michigan.
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