Yet Another Bit Of Seattle Disappears

Excuse me while I mourn the passing of yet another Seattle institution. Tomorrow The Bon Marche will close forever the Cascade Room, the white-tablecloth restaurant on the flagship store's sixth floor.

It's the last place in Downtown Seattle where a shopper could order a chicken pot pie and iced tea and come away with change from a $10 bill. It's also the last bastion of gray-haired shoppers, ladies wearing hats and gloves and giggling over such sinful pleasures as a lunchtime glass of wine.

What will become of the waitresses and waiters, many of them longtime employees and favorites with ladies-who-shop? Veteran waiters like Wesley (last name unknown) and Mark Gibson?

The Bon has said some of the employees will be offered jobs at the deli, also on the sixth floor, and at Cafe Frango, which now will move into the restaurant site. (The Bon last week closed Northgate's Legend Room and the Cascade Room at the Tacoma store.)

When I heard Downtown's Cascade Room was closing, I arranged a final visit. Last Saturday, I sat down with a friend. We both ordered the trio salad (chicken salad, shrimp and fresh fruit with date-nut bread). As usual, it was more than I could eat, especially with the lump of nostalgia that had lodged in my throat.

Happy returns: Former Seattle Mayor Charles Royer is back in town after five years as director at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Yesterday he was unpacking boxes at his northeast Seattle residence.

Royer reports he's joining RXL Pulitzer, a Washington video-telecommunications company. His title: director of network development. He'll focus on Ideanet, a consortium that provides more than 20 hours of daily educational-TV programming to schools in 40 states.

"I'm glad to be back," Royer admitted. "It's lonely back there (in Cambridge, Mass.). People are very busy and seem to have time only for job and family."

Suggestion box: King County Executive Gary Locke's office this week received a call suggesting a use for surplus construction material left over from Kingdome repairs: Why not donate the material to earthquake-ravaged Kobe, Seattle's sister city?

Locke likes the idea. He is asking the Kobe-relief task force, formed by Seattle Mayor Norm Rice, to consider the offer. Among the surplus items Locke thinks could be useful: 23,000 square feet of plastic tarp, 5,000 feet of nylon rope and an undetermined number of hard hats.

Doctors in the House: Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Seattle, is getting company. The American Medical Association News points out that Dr. McDermott, a child psychiatrist, no longer is the sole physician in Congress.

But McDermott may not have much in common with the four new congressmen who are members of his profession. The newcomers - Tennessee Sen. Bill Frist, Oklahoma Rep. Thomas Coburn, Iowa Rep. Greg Ganske and Florida Rep. Dave Weldon - are all conservative Republicans who campaigned on Newt Gingrich's Contract with America.

Car talk: Metro driver Mark Foss reports spotting a silver Mercedes-Benz with a vanity plate from Alaska that read URLAUB. But don't bother trying to decode it. Foss says, "It means vacation in German."

Jean Godden's column appears Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday in the Local News section of The Times. Her phone is 464-8300.