What’s better than good? Good Good Good. This new natural wine and flower shop opened doors in Creston recently after roughly two years of preparation.
One day, driving past the building that sat vacant on the corner of Plainfield and Sweet Street, Jon Benedict and Kyle Warren noticed it was for sale and decided on the spot to make an offer. Why not?
Then they called Kyle’s wife, Sam Keuning-Warren, and gave the news. She was on board, given that the couple had hoped for years to open some sort of business together.
“Originally, it was going to be a flower farm. Then we floated the idea of rehabbing an old motel, doing all kinds of things,” Sam said during a lovely afternoon at Good Good Good, sun beaming in through the skylights and large front windows. “But then, seeing this space, it just immediately was like, ‘Oh, this should be a wine and flower shop.’”
Between Kyle managing the wine bar Post Off for years (where they both met Jon) and Sam cultivating floral expertise at Posh Petals, it made sense to combine these passions and explore them in their own way.
Both the wine and flowers here have a big focus on “natural,” which has a similar meaning in each case. The flowers are seasonal, largely sourced from local growers, with no dyes. In the winter, to keep with the seasonality, there’s a shift toward dried arrangements and wintergreens.
Meanwhile, the wine also has no additives or dyes, and its flavor is far less tightly controlled. That means the “same” grapes will taste different every year, sometimes resulting in delicious success, other times resulting in a batch not worth serving. This is compared to the big wine brands that will do whatever it takes, including animal additives and dyes, to make sure every bottle tastes and looks the same.
“Imagine wine made the way it has been made for thousands of years,” Jon said. “You take the grapes, you crush the grapes, you press the grapes, you ferment the juice, and then you pour that out and drink it. There’s minimal intervention when you farm or make the wine. It’s just a pure expression of the grape, the region, and the wine maker keeping it as hands-off as possible. We only work with small producers that Kyle carefully curates through his extensive research.”
Extensive is right—it’s clear from just one trip to Good Good Good that Kyle has a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of natural wine and the people who make it, thanks to personal relationships.
“If you’re passionate about something, you meet people who are passionate about it, and then relationships form,” Kyle said. “Anytime a new wine lands in Michigan, it’s like, I have to find out who this person is.”
You may feel you know nothing about wine, and that’s okay, because the Good folks are more than happy to educate you with as little pretension as possible. In fact, even if you do consider yourself a wine aficionado, you’re best off approaching each bottle here with an open mind and a blank slate of expectations.
“I feel like that’s the fun of it, is people come in and they’re like, ‘I don’t know anything. Tell me about this.’ And we try to do that as unpretentiously as humanly possible,” Sam said.
It helps that every natural wine has a story. The trio has even worked directly with local growers to make wine. For instance, CA’ MUSU is a “horsepowered farm and winery” in Hart, making fantastic wine with low tech and no intervention, run by a delightful Italian couple, Domenico and Alise. They all came together to pick some grapes and hang out earlier this year.
“They play only Christmas music through harvest season,” Kyle said. “So, we’re blasting Christmas music, picking chardonnay, and sorting through it. If you’re making natural or organic wine, you have to make sure every grape is good. We’re filling up a big bucket, and the bucket gets full while we’re still sorting, and Domenico is like, ‘I gotta crush those grapes right now!’ He takes his clothes off, goes down to his skivvies, jumps in there and starts mashing them.
“So, we’re chucking grapes at him, while Bing Crosby is singing, and he’s in his underwear jumping around.”
This one story of many goes to show that it doesn’t have to be a pretentious product or experience. In fact, the Good Good Good trio want to do everything they can to make it accessible for everyone and bridge the gap.
To that end, they’re also planning tons of community events coming up, already throwing a banger of a Halloween party as well as karaoke and flower workshops. Looking ahead, they’re thinking about speed dating, glass takeovers with specific winemakers/importers, and event space rentals—not to mention doing the flowers for more weddings.
Mostly, they’re excited to be part of the Creston community, and vice versa. When asked what they’ve been hearing from people, Jon said, “‘Thank you so much for doing this.’ The neighbors in the area all know what this building used to look like, the condition it was in.”
“My most positive takeaway,” Kyle said, “is just how willing people are to go on a journey with us.”
Good Good Good
1590 Plainfield Ave. NE, Grand Rapids
goodwineandflowers.com
The Name
It’s supposed to be fun and easy and light, but there was too much thought that went into it. The main thing is, in Latin languages, the more you repeat a word, the more emphasis it has on it. So, in English, we just say, “Oh, it’s really good.” But in Dutch, if something’s tasty, it’s lekker. If it’s really tasty, it’s lekker lekker. If it’s the tastiest thing you’ve ever had, it’s lekker lekker lekker. Plus, there’s three of us. So it’s kind of punny, but intentional. It’s more than good. It’s very good. — Kyle Warren
