ZOEY BLUE PLATE BISTRO 2800 First, 448-8555 6:30 a.m.-11 p.m. Mon.-Fri.
Zoey Blue Plate Bistro is a strange place even before you get there—shouldn’t there be an apostrophe and an “s”? What is a restaurant doing in the basement of a labor union building? The Weekly sent us, the intrepid yet appropriately obedient interns, to check it out. And Zoey is strange, indeed. It’s in the former location of Gompers Steak House (which we hear was also strange) in the Labor Temple in Belltown, the building with the colorful neon sign down past the Catholic Seamen’s Club. Zoey is just plain funky; from the street, you walk down a stairwell that’s so nondescript you wonder if you’re in the right place. Trust us, though, you are.
Descend the stairs, look left, and you’ll see a dark, smoky bar dotted with pairs of chain-smoking off-duty laborers and strategizing unionists. Your eyes scan the room for Jimmy Hoffa and Samuel Gompers (the namesake of the previous incarnation), but all you see is a single, solitary beer on tap (Mac & Jack’s), its loneliness magnified by the 36-foot mirror behind the bar. Proceed further into the cavernous establishment and you’ll find yourself in a restaurant that looks more like an old ski lodge than a bistro, with dark wooden A-frame beams, balsa-wood crafts on the walls, and clusters of square tables with wide, comfortable chairs.
Chef Eleni, the owner, cook, and “everything else,” will greet you promptly and explain the numerous daily specials. The food is OK—mainly Greek, with a few cafeteria staples like a meat loaf sandwich ($6) and various soups. A few standouts, if only for their ethnic tendencies: sticky, weirdly dill-pickley dolmathes (rice wrapped in grape leaves, $6) with a tasty Greek salad of feta, olives, and onions; a tender but gamy tzatziki-soaked souvlaki ($5) with a green salad with a delicious balsamic vinaigrette; and a “Pizza Just for Me!” ($6)—a personal feta and green pepper pizza with house-made tomato sauce that tastes curiously like ketchup.
The food isn’t the greatest in Belltown, and the digs are definitely not the swankiest, but Zoey pays attention to the little things: a communal chalkboard above the urinals in the men’s bathroom (sans chalk); outdoor courtyard seating that combines the flowery essences of Tahiti (palms! Tiki torches!) with the concrete reality of a penitentiary yard; breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus (an idea foreign to Belltown); and above all, friendly, attentive service. If you’re in the neighborhood and looking for an edible meal without annoying Belltown pretentiousness, descend the freaky stairs and do it like the unionists do.
Perhaps there’s somewhere obscure to eat that you’ve been meaning to check out for a long time. Let us know and we’ll SEND THE INTERNS! E-mail food@seattleweekly.com or write SEND THE INTERNS, care of this paper.
