Courthouse Cafe Keeps Litigious Crowd Well Fed

In the lunch halls that serve our halls of justice, the objective is similar to that of a defense attorney: acquittal. One doesn't need to have jurors (diners) shouting in righteous unanimity that the accused (sandwich) is the most spectacular person (sandwich) they've ever heard testimony from (eaten); one simply needs to establish that maybe, just maybe, the accused (sandwich) didn't commit the heinous crime he or she is accused of (induce vomiting). If the accused (sandwich) didn't do the crime (induce vomiting), all is well and fine.

By that measure, both the Courthouse Cafe and Dennis' Snacks pass muster. What's amazing, however, is how far above muster the Courthouse Cafe performs. For starters, there's the setting: The gleaming new Federal Courthouse on Stewart Street looks more like a luxury office tower than a place where punitive restrictions are meted out. What's more, unlike the King County Courthouse (home of Dennis'), one needn't pass through any sort of contraband detector simply to buy a Snapple—the Courthouse Cafe has its own, separate entrance and a 46-inch plasma-screen television tuned to CNN. The nattily dressed clientele at the Courthouse Cafe may or may not have any business to attend to in the gleaming tower at all. The Courthouse Cafe, were it not attached in name and structure to its litigious edifice, would hold up just fine as a self-standing restaurant, irrespective of geography and affiliation.

Not so Dennis' Snacks, which is more what you'd expect out of a modest lunch counter situated in a government building. Here, the modus operandi seems to be to hit the Minute Plus button on the microwave for any and every dish, its clientele almost exclusively clerks, jurors, or downtrodden folks accused of petty crimes. While this'll be a deal breaker for a lot of folks, the flip side is the public defender, juror, or aspiring criminal on the go will never have to wait very long for a sausage, egg, and processed-cheese sandwich at Dennis' Snacks. He'll get it within a minute, advance to the register, and then get back to the business of assigning, abolishing, or courting blame.

As if pound-for-pound comparison were necessary to further establish the extreme poles from which our federal and county lunch counters gaze at one another, I tried the French dip at both establishments. King County's lunch counter just nuked a roast beef sandwich ($4) on a flimsy hoagie with no sauce and lukewarm au jus, while the Feds' French Dip ($5.75) received actual preparation by a chef, replete with sauce, cheese, hard roll, and steaming, flavorful au jus. And the accompanying fries were seasoned to perfection.

What, then, does this say about our justice system? Simple: If you're going to rob a bank, aim high and hold up a Federal Reserve branch. In the likely event that you eventually get nabbed by the long arm of John Q. Law, at least they'll serve cappuccino. mseely@seattleweekly.com