The Mud House Coffee & Kitchen in the Cherokee business district has won both local and national recognition for its jive and java. Accolades from near and far include recognition by Travel and Leisure magazine.
A jaunt through the eclectic Cherokee business district is always an adventure. There’s enough funky boutiques, trendy restaurants, and antique shops to amuse and amaze the most jaded of visitors. The Mud House Coffee & Kitchen is especially beckoning. The neighborhood coffee shop opened in 2009 and has since become a mainstay of the community, serving breakfast and lunch all day.
Cyndy and I stopped in for lunch last week. There’s a familiarity about the place that makes you feel at home, enhanced in no small measure by the pleasant vibe of the background music, not so much by the animals heads on the wall. Even so, the decor makes you chuckle, the servers give an upbeat greeting, while regulars—hovered over laptops and books—ignore the intrusion.
The Goat Sandwich contains goat cheese spread, green cucumbers, apricot chutney on toasted wheat.
You don’t miss the meat in this Portobello Reuben with its smoked mushrooms, Swiss cheese, onion marmalade, Russian dressing on toasted rye.
Mud House Red Pepper Soup was the soup of the day. Delish!
“I’ll Have The Goat, please.”
We decided on a sandwich. The Goat for me. For Cyndy the Portobello Reuben. The soup du jour, Red Pepper, was not one I often see on menus, so I went for it. Perhaps I should explain that The Goat Sandwich was not actually goat meat. It was a goat cheese spread, with thin slices of green cucumbers smeared with a bit of apricot chutney on toasted wheat. Delightful! Vegans would fair very well at Mud House.
The taste reminded me of the dainty cucumber sandwiches they serve with afternoon tea in England. The taste, that is, not the size, which was quite ample. But the sandwich did have a whiff of Old World charm that moved lunch out of the ordinary. The jewel in the crown of Cyndy’s faux Reuben was the onion marmalade, that playfully complemented the smoked mushrooms and Swiss cheese.
Breakfast Anytime of the Day
I seldom go out for breakfast (retirees tend to be lunch-out people). But the menu offering, especially the breakfast burrito is appealing enough to make me reconsider. The full English breakfast (two sunny eggs, sauteed mushrooms and greens, baked beans, bacon toast, and jam) might put you in the mood for travel.
Or stop in just for a pause in your day. Have the barista brew you a Lavender Mocha Latte or one of their many other choices. Then sit near the window and enjoy the neighborhood scene or, if it’s a good day, lounge street side. You’ll be relaxed in no time.
No booze at this bar. It’s strictly a coffee bar.
Cozy corners add to the charm of The Mud House. I normally drink water for lunch, sometime iced tea. So I didn’t try the coffee. This was a huge mistake and one worth rectifying with a mid-morning visit sometime soon.
Here’s a scene from out of the past: finger-powered typewriters. I learned to type on one of these old Underwood machines. When the type started to fade on the page, you had to change the cloth ribbon—always a messy procedure. In the day before copy machines, the typist had to be agile enough to pound out eight, or more, carbon copies. Too often, those last few pages were barely legible.
A young Bob Dylan adorns the walls of The Mud House.
If you’re at a loss for what to put on your walls, there’s lots of funky ideas at The Mud House. But old paint brushes, really??
Mud House Coffee & Kitchen, 2101 Cherokee St. Open: Mon-Fri 7a-4p; Sat-Sun 8a-5:30p.
