GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — It’s been nearly seven years since Gaia Café closed its doors in East Hills, but fans of the popular vegetarian restaurant are rejoicing, now that the business has successfully reopened in Creston Heights.
Andrea Bumstead, a manager from the original location, now owns and operates Gaia House Café with some help from her family.
“My daughter works here, my son works here, my husband works here, my mom works here,” Bumstead said. “So it's been a really fun process, and it's been really interesting and awesome to see the dynamic of how we all kind of work together.”
She said Gaia actually started as a coffee and poetry house in the early 1980’s, then evolved into a café once the building was purchased by Rick Van Dam, a chef. According to Bumstead, the business continued to grow for nearly 30 years, until Van Dam decided to sell the building in 2014. That’s when Bumstead decided to step in and keep the business alive, but not without a few major hurdles.
“I ended up purchasing the rights and the branding from him,” she said. “We tried to open in that same location once it shut down. We were not able to do that. We had gotten investors involved at that time to try and purchase the building, but one thing after another was just a disaster.”
Bumstead said every time it looked like they were on the right path, something would get in the way. But she did not give up.
“We had three other buildings and they were under contract that had fallen through, and I was at my moment of just like throwing up the white flag. ‘I'm done, I surrender, I'm not doing it anymore,’” she said. “And then I got a phone call from Charity Lytle who is a board member of DAAC, Division Avenue Arts Collective, and she said they were trying to reopen and revive what had shut down for them as well. ‘We're thinking about getting together.’ And it was this aha moment of yes, let's do it. Let's work together, let's pull our resources, let's team up and really just collaborate.”
As a result, Gaia House Café now occupies space in the same building that DAAC calls home — 1553 Plainfield Avenue NE.
“Having both of our businesses and both of our ideas collide has been awesome, not only for us and our own businesses but also for the community that's really been waiting for Gaia and the DAAC to come back,” Bumstead said. “I really did not know much about this area, but I kind of fell in love with the organic-ness of it. All the different store owners also own their buildings or own their property.
"It's kind of growing in a very natural way without being bought out by bigger companies, and that spoke to me a lot, because that proves to me that this area is truly based around community and what we have going on here, watching each other grow, and keeping things funky and fun.”
The building on Plainfield Avenue was purchased in March of 2019, and construction started immediately. Bumstead said things were finally looking good in early 2020, until COVID-19 brought everything to a halt.
“In March, we completely shut down construction,” she said. “We had really thought we would be open by spring of 2020. We just shut it down. We picked everything back up, but at the time we were able to start construction, it was a matter of getting materials. Everything just took so much longer than what we ever anticipated.”
They toughed it out and finally opened the doors in February 2021, offering select items for carryout only. Starting March 10, patrons will have the opportunity to dine inside, albeit at half capacity because of pandemic-related restrictions.
“We are 86 capacity, so we can technically seat about 43,” Bumstead said. “But we don't have a full dining room seating for that many, so once we do dine-in it will still be about 25% based on the way our dining room is set up and the amount of tables we have.”
Nevertheless, she said she’s thrilled with the way everything has turned out, and she’s excited for people to once again experience Gaia House Café.
“I just felt at home the day I stepped inside for the first time to the old place,” she said. “I walked in, there was something that kind of came over me, a feeling that I've never experienced before. I wasn't even in this industry. I didn't want to be in this industry necessarily. But just the place it was, the karmic energy that it had, the feel, the kind people. It was just something that really spoke to me.
"When we shut down it was like, ‘if I have the opportunity to save this and keep it going, then I'm going to take that opportunity.’ And luckily the community has been behind me through this whole process.”
Gaia House Café is currently open Wednesday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and weekends from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Dine in is available by reservation only. And yes, the famous Gaia cookies are available.
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