Duvall Cafe is the place to be

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Duvall Cafe is the place to be

Saturday, March 25, 2000

By GREGORY ROBERTS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER RESTAURANT CRITIC

By 10 a.m. Sunday, the empty tables are gone at the Duvall Cafe. Customers line up by the door, waiting to tuck into a hearty breakfast like the Snoqualmie Valley plate of two eggs, two pancakes and ham, bacon or sausage ($6.25), or dense, house-made biscuits drowned in creamy, pork-flecked country gravy with sausage and skillet potatoes ($5.50), or maybe earthy, cinnamon-scented French toast ($4.95) thickly sliced from a loaf of honey wheat bread.

It's the busiest meal of the week at the cafe, set in a row of old buildings in downtown Duvall. The place can hop at breakfast and lunch through the week as well, owner Dennis Lebow said, and the ambitious dinner menu is winning converts.

But it wasn't always that way at the cafe, opened by Lebow and his wife, Paula Inmon, in 1996. Their first winter, Lebow said, was "hellacious." The roof collapsed under heavy snow, the pipes froze and customers stayed away in droves.'

NEIGHBORHOOD RESTAURANTS
Duvall Cafe. 15505 Main St. N.E., Duvall; 425-788-9058. Breakfast 8-11:30 a.m. Tuesday-Friday; 8 a.m.-noon Saturday, 8 a.m.-2 p.m. Sunday; lunch 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, noon-3 p.m. Saturday; dinner 5:30-9 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. Beer and wine. Visa, MasterCard accepted. No smoking. Small step at entrance; accessible ramp on side.

"We were just going broke," Lebow said. "And I said, 'Man, did I miscalculate this one? I couldn't believe I did. We had seen the developments going up, we're close to Redmond, 10 to 15 minutes from Woodinville. But we were pumping in the last bit of our savings to keep it going."

It's not as if Lebow and Inmon were starry-eyed newcomers to the business. Lebow started cooking for hire as a teenager in Los Angeles. He migrated to Washington and detoured into journalism, but in 1987, he and Inmon opened the Sweet Life Cafe in Snohomish.

Despite a steady following, the Sweet Life closed after five years in a landlord-tenant dispute, and the couple went on to other things. Then Lebow spotted a for-lease ad for the cafe in Duvall, and he took over the space.

The Sunday breakfast suddenly caught on at the end of that first winter, and other meals followed, Lebow said. He runs the kitchen, while Inmon bakes the pies ($4 a slice) and makes the soup of the day ($1.95/$2.95), which could be anything from Hungarian mushroom to chicken gumbo.

Lunch offers a basic sandwich lineup, including a hamburger ($5.25, with fries, soup or salad), a Reuben ($6.50), and fresh-roasted turkey with cranberry sauce and cream cheese ($6.50).

Lebow unveils a more adventurous menu at dinner. Among the appetizers might be chili-coconut shrimp ($7.95), or bruschetta with tapenade and chevre. Entrees might include crab cakes with sweet Thai chili sauce ($14.95), Brazilian black beans with chicken and shrimp ($13.95) or Creole seafood gumbo ($14.95), or a more straightforward ribeye steak with mashed potatoes and gravy ($15.95). The trendy tone seems at odds with the cafe's homey interior: tile floor, wood posts, plastic tablecloths and a pale yellow walls trimmed in classroom green.

The early struggles in Duvall, Lebow said, helped equip him for challenges ahead.

"A ma-and-pa restaurant is really a scene,'' he said. "Everybody should do it once in their life. It changes your view of the world. You have a million things going at one time; anything can break, go wrong, whatever.

"You have to be prepared. You learn how to deal with crisis. After that, you can do anything."

P-I restaurant critic Gregory Roberts can be reached at 206-448-8356 or gregoryroberts@seattle-pi.com