![]() ![]() There’s yellow wallpaper with a cherry-blossom motif on one side and a forest-themed tapestry on the other, and a mix of soul, rhythm and blues, and classic rock playing at a volume loud enough to induce a sigh of nostalgia but low enough not to drown out conversation. It does have its chef-owner’s charm and drive and a small staff that radiates warmth throughout the wide, shallow dining room, which is furnished simply with a bar, a slatted-wood banquette, and a row of metal stools lining a ledge where curtained windows look out onto Court Street. The restaurant has no “concept” (as Fuller’s husband, a food and beverage consultant, keeps pointing out to her), no “visual identity,” no logo, only the most discreet of exterior signage, and, at press time, no website. But it’s such an anomaly in the category it doesn’t even call itself one. daily, Madcap is as all-day as cafés come. Considering that its doors are open from 8 a.m. It is in this refreshing and somewhat antiquated spirit that Heather Fuller opened Madcap Cafe several weeks ago on a Carroll Gardens corner that loudly and somewhat confusingly advertises in one great cluster the presence of every adjoining business (a Pilates studio, a gym, a dentist’s office, a real-estate agency, the Scotto funeral home) in addition to her own. Customers tended to become very attached to these places of business and the people who worked there and use them as their home away from home, rather than today’s office away from office. These places were known to serve coffee in the morning, alcohol later on, and food whenever thirst or appetite demanded, but they didn’t make a production out of it. There was a time, not so long ago, before the “all-day café” and its carefully honed, millennial-friendly brand identity dwarfed the dining scene, when establishments like coffee shops, luncheonettes, and diners dotted the land. Madcap Cafe’s veggie “nachos” are essentially crudités, but about ten times better and more efficient.
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