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For many people, coffee is a miracle elixir, with healing properties, so it’s only fitting that Davenport’s Lindsey Schmidt named her new business Coffee Apothecary.

The unique coffee shop – with a nostalgic vibe and creative menu items – opened at 2751 53rd Ave., Bettendorf, in June and celebrated its Quad Cities Chamber ribbon-cutting on Friday morning.

“Everything basically on the menu is either based on an herb, a psychological name or a medical name,” Schmidt said. “Everything I come up with will be along that theme. You’ll see more psychological than medical sometimes, just because that’s one of my passions, the psychology part of it.

“The same with the menus that we roll out. We dropped an October menu today; we have a fall menu out. All the names are in line with that,” she said. “And we try to do pairings that you wouldn’t see at a coffee shop…So I try to do pairings like cardamom/pistachio breve. We have a black cherry/white chocolate. We have Impostor Syndrome – which is sparkling water, sarsparilla, cream. So I try to do things you wouldn’t be able to get at different coffee shops.”

“I know the Quad Cities is full of coffee lovers and there’s a lot of people to compete with around here, so I try to bring the quality as well,” Schmidt said.

She got a coffee roaster from Arkansas, and went there to train with them. There are quality small-batch syrups from Pink House Alchemy, also in Arkansas.

Coffee Apothecary is leasing part of the former Crust Pizza building, most of which will be occupied by a new Sicilian restaurant, Mio Russo.

Schmidt, 32, majored in business management and psychology at St. Ambrose, has worked in retail management, and most recently in pharmacy operations for divvyDOSE.

“I’ve always had a passion for coffee and design,” she said. “I’ve always been interested in old medical and old psychology. All the books on the shelves in there are from my personal collection. I’m really nostalgic. I like preserving a time that was presumably much easier, though I know it was not.”

Schmidt partnered on the business with her mother, Cindy Williams, who owned Professional Touch Cleaning Services for 16 years. She was the main investor in Coffee Apothecary, which required major renovations to the space, costing over $150,000, and took a few months to complete.

Schmidt got much of her furnishings from vintage shops, including an old apothecary cabinet that is the front counter, dating from the turn of the 20th century.

The fall menu she started about a month ago, and there are secret menu items. The new menu she started Friday has names of different ways you can die on the Oregon Trail – like dysentery and typhoid. There’s a punch card where if you follow the trail with seven purchases, you can get a really cool sticker, Schmidt said.

“Keeping fun stuff like that goes with the medical theme, to keep everything creative and fresh,” she said.

“Coffee works well as medicine,” Schmidt said. “I think coffee is definitely a medicine and drug for a lot of people, to keep them going through their day.”

Since they opened, business has been good, especially picking up the past two weeks, Schmidt said. The regular menu includes craft coffee, energy drinks, sandwiches and burritos.

Samples of new items include:

• Petri Dish 2.0: Caramel apple butter, apple cider and brown sugar boba.
• Poison Ivy: Sweetened creamy matcha latte and blackberry sage cold foam.
• Hemorrhage: Cascara lotus, black cherry puree, super cream/oat cream and sparkling water.
• Herbal Wrap: Shredded chicken, bacon, ranch, mozzarella, smoked provolone, mild cheddar and spinach.
• Pathologist Panini: Aged provolone, cheddar, fresh mozzarella, pesto on sourdough bread.

“We have a lot of regulars, and once we got our fall menu out there and started to be really active on social media, I think people started seeing more,” Schmidt said. “We’re doing more marketing than we did before, which has helped a lot.”

Coffee Apothecary hours are 6:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. weekdays; 7:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturdays, and 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Sundays. They recently started a new delivery service Tuesday-Friday from 8 a.m. to noon. It is only for businesses within two miles of Coffee Apothecary. Minimum order of $10 and delivery fee is $5.

For orders and more information, call 563-349-7757 or visit their Facebook page.

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