Club Broadway Offers Food, Entertainment

----------------------------------------------------------------- Restaurant review

Columbus Cafe and The Coconutz Dance Club and Eatery in Club Broadway, 1611 Everett Ave., Everett. Serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. Open 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., Sunday through Thursday; 9 a.m. to 11 p.m., Friday and Saturday. Major credit cards accepted. Smoking permitted in The Coconutz Dance Club. 259-2756. -----------------------------------------------------------------

Even before you walk into the Columbus Cafe in Everett's red-brick Club Broadway, you get the feeling that you're no longer in the 1990s.

Just through the cafe doors, the restaurant is a quiet room of eight booths, three tables and furnishings that look more like my grandmother's kitchen than a dance-club dining room. The meals are served on off-white ceramic plates with a tiny floral-print border reminiscent of styles popular in the 1940s. Even the daily soup special - squash - reminded me of an age gone by.

Through a short hallway from the cafe is the more boistrous and festive Coconutz Dance Club and Eatery. The Columbus Cafe and the Coconutz share the same menu and kitchen, but that's where similiarities end.

With palm branches creating a pseudo-roof over a stage for a live band, The Coconutz Club creates an nighttime atmosphere in which you almost expect Ricky Ricardo to jump onto the 1950s-style dance floor and start singing to Lucy. Big Band is king here.

Our dining party chose the more sedate Columbus Cafe, a fine place with a basic selection for a pre-theater dinner across Everett Avenue from the Everett Community Theater.

All dinner entrees are about $10 and served with soup, tossed green salad, rolls and butter. Three daily specials are featured along the five-item entree menu, including sauteed prawns, lasagna, chicken Dijon, pepper steak and chicken salad stir fry.

We were happy with the salad - chunks of tender marinated chicken breast mixed with water chestnuts, mushrooms, slivered almonds and other vegetables on a moderate-sized lettuce bed. The chicken, a Washington bird baked in a creamy Dijonnaise, was prepared well, too.

Not all is nostalgic here. Appetizers include nachos ($4 for a small order; $7 for a large plate), and cheeseburgers and bacon burgers ($4.50) are more contemporary.

The Columbus Cafe begins serving breakfast at 9 a.m. with seven omelet varieties, ($3.50 to $4.25) including a tasty Russian version: three eggs with diced bacon, potatoes, onions and mushrooms topped with sour cream. All omelettes are served with hash browns. Another option is the breakfast club ($4.70), a broiled sirloin steak and two-egg creation, also served with hash browns.

At lunch, five cold sandwich choices range from $3.25 to $5.50; all come with a cup of soup. Our friends recommend the veggie sandwich, a French bread creation stuffed with cucumbers, tomatoes, mushrooms, alfalfa sprouts, Bermuda and green onions, carrots, avocados and cream cheese.

Five hot sandwich selections run $4.25 to $6.25, and eight salads vary from $5.25 to about $9.

It surprised us that no desserts appear on either the lunch or dinner menu. Since Club Broadway is near the Everett Community Theater, it seems a logical place for an after-show dessert and cup of coffee.

But as venues insides this renovated building celebrate their second anniversary, it appears the emphasis is on in-house entertainment.

Built in the late 1800s by the Knights of Columbus and listed on the National Historic Register, Club Broadway was renovated two years ago by Snohomish County restaurateur Allen Hemmat. Careful attention was paid to preserving the building's original architecture and vintage woodwork.

A nine-foot crystal chandelier illuminates the elegant Manhattan Room, which features pricier dinners and entertainment. Call 259-3551 for details.

In the Coconutz Room, couples sway to the rhythm of Big Band dancing from 8:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m., Wednesday through Sunday.

Entertainment is more contemporary in the Starlight Room. A few weeks ago it began featuring comedy acts at 7:30 p.m. each Friday and Saturday.

The casual Olympic Sports Bar offers karaoke at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and live classic rock performed at 10 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays.