As you walk down Main Street, you can hear young men strumming their guitars while singing folk songs outside a door.

You walk in and suddenly the rich smell of coffee beans and sugar fills your nose.

As you look around, you see two elderly men playing chess, a college student typing her latest midterm paper and three businessmen talking about their next Monday morning meeting…

This is the local, cultural hub known as Sacred Grounds.

“Our goal here is just to make it feel like a pleasant environment for people to come in and say ‘hi,” barista Josiah Ashcraft said.

Sacred Grounds was established 15 years ago by Jenn Courtney and has been a “homey” environment ever since, Ashcraft added.

Anyone and everyone can be seen sitting around in one of Sacred Grounds’ tables enjoying a sweet organic treat while talking to a fellow unknown customer.

“I just love the sense of community here,” six-year-customer, Puck Von Nida said. “It’s easy for me to talk to people, make conversation and make friends.”

And because it has many admirable aspects to it, you never know what your favorite part of Sacred Grounds might be… but for Von Nida, “The pumpkin bread is the best.”

Whatever your preference is —organic, vegetarian, vegan or farm raised— Sacred Grounds will do its best to accommodate to your lifestyle needs.

Each morning at around 4 a.m., barista Kayleigh Sanders, or another dedicated barista, will wake up and start preparing the home-baked goods from scratch for the day’s customers.

“I think that is what makes us so unique,” Sanders said. “Everything is prepared from scratch.”

In addition to its uniqueness, Sacred Grounds helps promote local or national art along its vintage brick walls.

“These exhibits are selected about a year in advance through the Gogh-Getters foundation,” Sanders said. “But we have new exhibits every month.”

One of the best parts of the exhibit is not only the support of aspiring artists but also all art displayed can be bought by loving customers—and it usually is.

Through all of this abundant positivity, Sacred Grounds seems as though it was built to bring strangers together.

There are free board games placed by the cash register for the customer’s enjoyment and if at any time you want to have a nice chat with a barista or fellow coffee connoisseur, a conversation is rarely turned down.

Sacred Grounds is not only inviting but it is entrancing. One visit will turn into many more.

So instead of waiting to walk upon it one day, get out of your comfort zone, try a new and better venue⎼rather than the typical Starbucks⎼and support a local, friendly business that would gladly welcome you.