Robin Garr's LOUISVILLE Restaurant Reviews

60	Colonnade Cafeteria Starks Building Fourth & Muhammad Ali (502) 584-6846

Sometimes cafeteria fare hits the spot, and there's no question that the Colonnade's rich and lengthy local history has earned it a multi-generational crowd of loyal fans.

This much-loved old place in the basement of the Starks Building has probably been there just about as long as the 90-year-old building has, and I've been eating there for probably half of that time myself!

But judging it from a culinary standpoint, I have to confess that I've been consistently underwhelmed in recent years. "Down-home" doesn't have to translate as "boring," but by any reasonable standard, I find the dishes here are too often uninspired, only occasionally rising above the level of generic steam-table chow, not improved by that familiar cafeteria smell that blends long-cooked vegetables with maybe just a whiff of disinfectant.

The room is wide and low, with mirror walls reflecting the crowded scene to make the place seem even bigger than it is. Square pillars look sturdy enough to support the big building above, and beige colors make for a somewhat institutional setting. Clean and simple, it's a handy place to grab a quick lunch, and if crowds are any indication of success, management has no reason to tamper with a formula that fills the oversize room at noon every business day.

That formula involves plenty of choices, with something for just about everyone: Pick up your tray and utensils in the center of the large cafeteria section, which is arranged in the shape of a large U with counters along three sides and more in the middle. Then: Where to begin?

Along the right side of the U you'll find salads and a selection of desserts. At the back you've got vegetables, soups, hot sandwiches and main courses. On the left, a deli counter features Boar's Head brand meats and cheeses on sandwiches to eat in or take out. Out in the middle a chef prepares a special of the day to order; on our recent visit it was gringo-style burritoes, oversize tortilla wraps loaded to order with ground beef, cheese, chili sauce, black olives, jalapeñoes and such.

In standard cafeteria format, there's no central menu, so you'll have to walk around and check the trays and signs posted over individual sections to get a sense of what your lunch is going to set you back. A few examples: Dinner salads of iceberg lettuce topped with fried chicken or Buffalo-style chicken were $4.50; sliced tomatoes were $1.60 for three thin slices. A pale and rather desiccated looking wedge of iceberg lettuce was $2.10, as was a bowl of canned peach halves with cottage cheese. Where else in Louisville can you still get Waldorf salad ($1.90)?

Entrees are a set $3.50 for a daily selection of cafeteria standards: roast beef, corned beef, Mexican spaghetti and English meat loaf on one recent visit. Side dishes included green beans, macaroni and cheese, carrots, kale, cabbage, corn, fried okra and baby shell pasta in tomato sauce, plus your choice of biscuits or cornbread. Vegetable beef or vegetarian vegetable soup is $2.25 for a cup, $2.75 a bowl.

Deli sandwiches range from $3.50 (for American cheese, Benedictine or cream cheese and olives) to $4.25 (for just about everything else). Hot sandwiches are $4.95 for a garden burger, grilled country ham, roast beef and swiss, grilled cheeseburger or turkey Reuben.

A cooler box holds bottled soft drinks ($1.19); self-service dispensers offer fountain soft drinks and fresh-brewed iced tea.

Make your selection, lug your tray to a clerk who calculates your charge and gives you a bill to be paid when you leave.

We fashioned a typical Colonnade meal for two, beginning with a dish of tomato aspic ($1.35), a local tradition that consisted of two jiggly round molds of jellied tomato juice (or maybe V-8, judging from the celery-salt flavor) served on a limp lettuce leaf. Simple and tangy, they actually weren't bad.

An entree portion of roast beef ($3.50), sliced to order, looked pretty good - lean and still slightly pink at the center. It tasted OK, but an odd mushy texture, almost as if it had been frozen and thawed after cooking, detracted from its appeal.

I'm not sure what makes meat loaf "English," but a $3.50 entree portion proved to be the highlight of our lunch. A thick oblong serving was beefy and moist, loaded with tasty bits of onion and green pepper, with a little rice to add texture but not enough to suggest that they're "stretching" the meat with starch.

Side dishes varied from passable to worse. Bite-size bits of fried okra had been rolled in cornmeal and likely fried earlier in the day; they were lukewarm and flabby after serving time on the steam table. Carrots were overcooked to the stage of mushy softness, salty and sugary sweet. Kale was passable, but barely so, very long-cooked and apparently seasoned only with salt. Mashed potatoes hit the bottom of the barrel, unpleasantly gummy and dense, with an odd flavor that suggests they came from a box. A square of yellow cornbread was OK, simple and slightly sweet, and unsweetened iced tea was fresh but watery.

Lunch for two, with iced tea and a Coke, came to $14.50, plus 20 cents for a baby Reese's Cup and Peppermint Patty from the jars on the cash-register counter. $

(July 2003)