Coffee Messiah Gathering A Faithful Congregation

The neon halo of a glowing crucifix and a sign promising "Caffeine Saves" tempt your coffee-craving soul inside.

Past the pinball machine and standard-issue pincushion barista, your eye catches on the unexpected: velvet tapestries of the Last Supper, a clutch of crucifixes, sundry devotional canvases. Postmodern slivers of cathedral arches stretch above the heads of patrons, like the one this day who is sipping and reading - could it be? It is! - Dante's "Inferno."

Each independent coffeehouse in Seattle creates its own quirky character, but the Capitol Hill java haunt known as Coffee Messiah, which opened in July, may be the final word in coffee-culture kitsch.

"I think the coffee craze can end now; it's all been done," claims Tim Turner, co-owner of the cafe near the corner of Denny Way and East Olive Way, said with a laugh.

From the purple ceiling and faux marble floor, to the garish, gilt-framed paintings, Coffee Messiah exudes a calculated baroque chic, rather like one of those flavor-du jour New York City dance clubs.

Turner proudly shows off the bathrooms to a visitor. Alas, he's out of money at the moment, so patrons must forgo the john soon to be transformed into Heaven and instead sit in Hell: a jet-black throne surrounded by paint-bleeding wallpaper that would give Hieronymus Bosch the willies. Put a quarter in a slot and a glitter ball spins and "Disco Inferno" plays, accompanied by maniacal laughter. Or it did play, before someone ripped the machine off the wall.

What does any of this have to do with coffee? Absolutely nothing, says Turner, who freely admits the whole religious motif is "a gimmick." As his showman's patter unspools before a guest, it's not hard to imagine that in an earlier life, this 31-year-old sporting a Hawaiian shirt and dramatically long, black hair might have been a circus ringmaster. That is, if he believed in reincarnation.

What he does believe in, he says, are coffee and the beauty of the Church's lush iconography.

So far, the windup nun who shoots sparks from her mouth and the mini-shrine where patrons have left a small bottle of Jack Daniels have evoked an outraged letter to the editor in the Seattle Gay News, but not much more talk of blasphemy - not even from the group of Jesuits that recently stopped by for java, he says.

On a recent afternoon, Steve Piercy, a soccer referee and slave to the bean, sat in Coffee Messiah and says he drives from Wallingford for coffee five days a week. "I was born and raised in a Catholic family, so I don't think it's disrespectful," says Piercy, 30. "It reminds me of my grandparents' house."

The customer reading the "Inferno," Jonathan Brown, says he, too, shows up "just about daily." As a gargoyle glowered at him from a nearby table, the 25-year-old student pointed to a statuette rising into the firmament. "I like the way that's hidden off in the skylight," Brown says, "that and the fighting nun." He was referring to a boxing puppet wearing a habit.

Coffee Messiah's decor partly evolved as a reaction to Turner's strict Mormon upbringing. "I have a huge amount of respect for people and their beliefs . . . but at the same time I hate organized religion and what it does," explains Turner, who co-owns the company with a silent partner.

The two may need a miracle beyond good beans and biscotti to hang on for the long run, since Coffee Messiah has at least three competitors within a two-block radius. The heat this summer didn't help business, either.

"Cold, miserable weather is what I'm praying for," Turner says. That is, if he were a praying man.