One word fits this non-traditional coffee shop: simple. Melissa Kersjes and I headed straight through the heart of Grand Rapids, and found ourselves at the corner of Monroe Center and Ottawa.

This coffee shop called Madcap has large windows with bench seating that overlooks the “big” tourist sections of Grand Rapids such as Van Andel Arena, the Grand Rapids Art Museum and Rosa Parks Circle.

This place doesn’t really cater to the typical coffee shop ollege crowd. You will only find real coffee.

They don’t have any artificial flavors like peppermint or strawberry syrup, only honey and cinnamon.

The menu is quite small as they have limited choices on espressos, cappuccinos, lattes, steamers and slow brewed coffee.

You do not typically see teens or even young adults drinking plain coffee, so Madcap is geared towards hardcore coffee drinkers/adults.

Madcap coffee would be the perfect place to have a business meeting or for two old friends to catch up.

You definitely wouldn’t want to walk in with your sweats and do homework for hours on end. Instead it’s the perfect place to bring your boss, and talk about professional things, in a professional setting.

However, the easy environment creates a place where you will not be distracted and where you could focus to get some work done.

The stone tables, contemporary seating, and acoustic guitar music provide a different feeling of relaxation than your typical coffee shop. It also was fairly bright at Madcap, and they even use CFL light bulbs, to help the environment.

Beautiful pictures of waterfalls from faraway lands hung on the wall, creating the desire to fly south for the winter, just like the birds.

This high class coffee shop does have the typical high ceilings, wood floors and a chalk board menu sign; it’s more sophisticated. It is very spacious which made it really quiet, and Melissa and I felt as though we had to whisper.

For Monroe Center, this building is definitely one of the classiest coffee shops, or even stores, on the block.

The employees helped us decide what we wanted to drink, and if they didn’t have what we wanted, they had alternatives.

So we ordered lattes with cinnamon and honey.

Madcap coffee truly knows how to make beautiful art out of a drink.

Melissa’s foam looked like a leaf, and mine resembled a heart.

We didn’t want to drink our coffee for fear of destroying the beautiful design. I personally do not like the taste of the foam on top, but the liquid was delicious.

Madcap coffee employees are Mac lovers, as even the cash register is hooked up to a Mac computer.

Bringing in your Dell computer might not be ideal. You also cannot expect to be able to go to Madcap in the evening.

They are only open until 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday, so going after a night class is not really an option, but it might encourage you to not wait to do homework until late at night, like most college students do.

However, on Friday and Saturday’s they are open till 11 p.m., so on the weekend you could go and get homework done.

Melissa and I left Madcap feeling trendy and sophisticated. This coffee shop could be for you, so Get Out!, take your boss out for coffee, and enjoy the ride downtown.