FLINT, MI -- Ask Ken Van Wagoner what he does for a living, and his first response might not be that he runs a coffee house that's been a Flint staple for almost 15 years.

He'll tell you he's in the hospitality business.

"It's not about the money. You create something that brings joy to people," he said, talking about what it's like to make someone a drink when they come into his shop, The Good Beans Cafe, located at 328 N. Grand Traverse Street in Flint. "It can be an incredible drive."

The Good Beans Cafe is about atmosphere as much as the coffee -- but he doesn't skimp on the coffee. After self-educating himself on espresso and coffee, Van Wagoner serves up LaVazza brand beans -- "It's a great, very consistently good, product," he said -- and he takes it seriously, making the espresso with an Italian-made Lacimbali machine.

"The French get the credit for inventing espresso, but the Italians perfected it," he said.

He keeps a light food selection -- fresh fruit, bagels, muffins, shortbreads, and other items are always on the counter -- but the goal from the beginning was to run a coffee house, he said.

He did it at a time when he wasn't even sure it would work. Independent coffee houses were on the decline when he opened in 2000, he said, but then again, Flint didn't really have one.

"I thought, Flint is about 10 years behind the times, maybe a cafe would be great," he said with a laugh.

Located on the edge of Flint historic Carriage Town neighborhood, the cafe itself as a historic feel, with old wooden floors and vintage lighting and an old piano.

There's also the bar, which has, Van Wagoner is pretty sure, some interesting history.

He bought it from the building that is now the Soggy Bottom bar, simply because he liked the look of it. It's old and wooden with a thick brass rail to rest your feet on. It looks like the kind of bar you might order a drink from in the days before Prohibition -- and that might be because, according to some, that's exactly what it is.

"In 2000 when I opened, this 80-year-old guy came in and said, 'Do you know where it came from?'"

Sure, Ken said, and told him where he'd bought it.

"He said, no," Van Wagoner said. "He said, 'You have the original bar to the Capital Theater Building. I know, because that's my seat, right there.'"

"From 1927 is when it opened, and that's what he said," van Wagoner said.

Van Wagoner said he's done some research since and all signs point to the story being true, though it's not something he can definitively prove just yet.

So it has a cool bar, and if you go there in the mornings often enough, you'll get to know the crowd that's there every morning, cracking jokes and asking about each other's families. Spend enough time there and you can even smile with the other regulars as new customers come in and stare in confusion at the two bathrooms, whose signs don't read "men" and "women" but rather "caf" and "decaf."

But, there's still that coffee.

One of Van Wagoner's more impressive drinks is the creme brulee cappuccino. It doesn't just taste like creme brulee -- it's prepared the same way. After the drink itself is mixed, Van Wagoner pulls out a little blow torch and toasts the sugary top, browning the drink as well as encrusting it to the rim of the mug.

It's for reasons like that -- being on the forefront of a growing coffee scene, making great coffee, and building his own culture and community of coffee drinkers -- that The Good Beans cafe was selected as The Flint Journal's staff pick for the Michigan's Best Coffee challenge.

It's not the only challenge van Wagoner is facing.

He might be a favorite among some locals, but he's also off the beaten path. He's excited to see the growth downtown, but he isn't really connected to the scene. You have to know where he is to find him. He's excited about the recently opened Tenacity Brewery just across the street, about Kettering University's and the city of Flint's efforts to expand the area people think of as downtown. But that's still a work in progress.

"Flint is a tough town. It's a tough town to do anything in, especially a business. Let's be honest, not everyone can afford for someone else make their coffee. The market that's here is growing, it's appreciating what our industry offers, so I'm happy to see that," he said. "The times are changing in Flint, and I'm the eternal optimist, but especially in the past three years I've seen tremendous growth and change."

It's a tough enough town that when he opened business -- he's coming up on his 15th anniversary in March -- he couldn't get any funding. All the lenders told him, flat-out, no, he said.

Probably for the best, he said. It hasn't been easy, and having the debt might have made the business go under.

"The professionals were right, but in spite of them I stuck it out," he said. "I still have the rejection letters. Someday, I want to make some art project out of them. Maybe the 20th anniversary."

Be sure to stop by at 12:30 p.m., Feb. 24 when MLive's John Gonzalez will stop by as part of Michigan's Best Coffee challenge.

Note to readers: if you purchase something through one of our affiliate links we may earn a commission.

Registration on or use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement, Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement, and Your California Privacy Rights (User Agreement updated 1/1/21. Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement updated 5/1/2021).

© 2022 Advance Local Media LLC. All rights reserved (About Us). The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Advance Local.

Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site.