Concept behind cafe has always been community gathering spot
By Scott Atkinson
The Flint Journal
FLINT, Mich. (AP) — J.J. Shaver and Amber Carey were married in a small building on the edge of Carriage Town.
It was where they met weekly over the six years they dated, becoming what Shaver called “the center of our community.” It was also where they met like-minded people, the place that made them want to make their home in Flint.
And it was where they met the minister who in 2010 married them before they walked out into the hot July day surrounded by loved ones who showered them with coffee beans.
In the 13 years since the The Good Beans Cafe opened at Grand Traverse and First Avenue, the business has evolved into something more than a coffee shop. It’s a place for concerts, plays, for artists to hang their work — and most recently, it’s a place to get married.
“That’s exactly the whole plan,” said owner Ken Van Wagoner, who for Shaver and Carey’s wedding added minister to his list of other titles such as business owner, barista, and concert promoter.
“It’s sort of this recession-proof thing: All right, if you’re not going to come here for the coffee, then you’re going to come here to be married. You’re going to come here to see a concert. You’re going to come here to see a movie, or come here to hear a spoken word,” he told The Flint Journal.
It’s more than a business decision, however. Van Wagoner knew before he opened he was breaking the first rule of starting a business. The location isn’t exactly ideal, with crime happening nearby, drug deals once happening across the street.
But for some people, it’s the ideal place to get hitched.
“If you had to draw a map of our emotional attachment to the city, dead center would be right here,” Shaver said, pointing straight down as he sat at one of the cafe’s tables.
As a place to get married, part of the appeal for Shaver and Carey was that the ceremony could be anything they wanted.
“It was a blank slate. Basically Ken said, ‘What do you want?’ There was no preconceived, ‘this is what I do.’ If you had a minister do it, he would have the things he wanted to say and you would have to work around that. There would already have been a format,” he said.
Technically, Van Wagoner is a minister, just not the typical one.
“The Internet is pretty amazing in that regard,” Van Wagoner said of his ordination that happened through just a few mouse clicks. “It basically is a reinforcement of human values. You’re not necessarily religious in the kind of the frame of (traditional religion).”
While Shaver and Carey aren’t religious, that doesn’t mean that those who are feel excluded. Chad Schlosser leads a campus ministry at the University of Michigan-Flint and had his minister come to Good Beans to perform his wedding in January.
It was the sixth wedding at the cafe.
Schlosser, 25, lives right across the street from Good Beans. His wife, Ran Schlosser, is Chinese and they already had a wedding planned in China. Chinese weddings, however, are more of a social ceremony and aren’t legally recognized. So the couple had planned on getting married at a courthouse before they headed to China.
Then they had another idea.
“Ken has the space there and it worked out perfectly,” he said. “Good Beans is a great place. I feel like Carriage Town would be seriously lacking without it here. It’s definitely the center of our neighborhood.”
And at the center of Good Beans is Van Wagoner.
“I saw him walking from his house down to Good Beans, just picking up trash along the street. That’s not your typical business owner. He really cares about the neighborhood and the city,” Chad Schlosser said. “If we were an African village, he would be the chief. He’s just the leader of the neighborhood.”
The weddings take place in the Anteroom at Good Beans — a rectangular room with local artists’ work hanging that comfortably sits about 50 people (although the Schlossers tested the limits and were able to cram in 70 for their wedding). It’s where Ken holds regular concerts, plays and other performances.
“They wanted an intimate ceremony and that’s what the space really does best, because of the size, it allows for that specialized intimacy,” Van Wagoner said, thinking back to the first wedding he ever officiated.
Until then, he’d never thought of holding weddings. He was approached by a local coffee roaster and customer who asked if he could use the space.
“Well, I’m pretty open to just about anything. It’s always worked out well for me to just kind of say yes and see what happens, so it worked well here, too,” Van Wagoner said with a laugh, standing behind the long, old wooden bar of Good Beans.
The Anteroom makes up the southern part of the building and can only be entered from the outside or a single door in the back the back of the cafe, which doubles as a reception hall on wedding days.
The Schlossers said the space was perfect.
“It was very cozy and fun,” Ran Schlosser, 28, said. “I don’t know much about American weddings so I don’t really know what to expect, you know, for a big wedding, but I really liked my wedding.”
Van Wagoner said that if there were more people in Flint he wouldn’t have to diversify his business as much. And while some critics tell him he should advertise more — or find a better location —
that’s just not what he wants to do.
He loves downtown but doesn’t want to be there, preferring to be within a neighborhood, a destination for people who want to be there and aren’t just walking by.
“The whole concept has always been, community gathering spot. It’s always about embracing the community and saying to the community: here’s a space for you. And one of the coolest things I see happen a lot of times is people who aren’t even here related to each other hook up and say, ‘oh yeah, I got to get with you, oh, you do that? We need to talk.’ And then a meeting happens and an acquaintance happens out of it and before you know it they’re partnering together on writing a grant, or whatever.”
Or sometimes, having that first cup of coffee that might one day lead to a wedding in the next room.
