Lawrence.com

Posted by Tom King August 25, 2003 at 1 p.m.

Milton's

Prelude I don't go to [Milton's][1] often enough these days. I used to live directly across the street from it, a couple of years ago, in one of those spurious "luxury" apartments above Kinkos, and I'd watch the crowds lining up for breakfast on the weekends--you could count on a 45 minute wait after ten in the morning. After the rush was over, I'd slip into a booth and take my time; grazing a well-made omelet, swilling excellent coffee and mulling over the Sunday paper. The food was good, the atmosphere relaxed, the staff pleasant and the customers happy. Then, as is natural in the loopy rhythm of restaurant opera, the beat faltered. Chef Sula moved on and imposing internal situations diverted management's attention from restauranting. The business hours became erratic, and the quality of both service and product dipped into haphazard dissonance. Even the coffee, always a high note at Milton's, rang harsh and murky. I slipped out.The Comeback Dave Lewis lived for a time in Mission Viejo, a swimming town in Southern California, between Los Angeles and San Diego. It was there, in 1992, that inspiration unfolded. Sitting in the Pacific Coffee House in Irvine, Dave decided on a life in the restaurant business and began sketching his ideal. In June of 1997, in Lawrence, Kansas, Dave Lewis opened the doors of his first coffeehouse, with blues and jazz in the air and on the walls. He named it for his father, Milton Lewis. John Owen was a dishwasher then; now, he runs the kitchen.Gossip in Lawrence has evolved into an act of telepathy--about a year ago, word of a Milton's comeback popped up on the street. There was talk of expansion, of a major investment in the form of a masonry pizza oven imported from Italy, and consultation with master baker Thom Leonard. Dinner was now being served; consistent business hours now maintained; new fires were burning in the spirits of both the front and the back of the house. "Yes, we went through a slump", says Dave Lewis, "and better things came of it." The line kitchen at Milton's is extremely small, extremely hot and very clean. Three cooks find it hard to move efficiently in the small space--usually two cooks are on duty. Not only did this little kitchen handle high-volume meal services, but also endless food prep and the scratch baking of scones, cinnamon rolls, muffins and Challah bread. When the space next door became available, Dave Lewis made his move. In went the pizza oven, a couple of convection ovens, a cold table and several long prep tables. The burden of prep, baking and cold service was transferred to the spotless new space and new hands were hired to lighten the work. Milton's now employs about forty people.A few months ago, KU approached Dave about operating a coffeeshop in the Kansas Union. He decided to offer a bid, it was accepted, and a Milton's satellite is slated for an imminent opening on campus. A Tight Combo A pared-down menu is a good thing, both for the house and it's patrons; it's always better to do a few things well than many things poorly. A trim, carefully constructed menu is production-friendly and cost-efficient. Numbers don't lie--if the bottom line isn't properly serviced, the business closes. Or worse, delivers bad product. Milton's has distilled it's current late lunch menu to essentials: five pizzas, two sandwiches (veggie and 3-meat Italian), three salads (House, Caesar and Mediterranean--each available in half-sizes), a daily soup of seasonal ingredients, a Hummus and Pita plate. The current wine list is equally discreet: four reds and four whites, with glass prices around five dollars and bottles from sixteen to twenty dollars. Both menus will be expanded in the next couple of weeks but the new formats will remain consistent with the Milton's ethos--keep it simple, make it well. A few more pizzas, salads and sandwiches will be added to the lunch and dinner menus, with the wine list shifting from indifferent to interesting.Lunch Lunch service begins at 11 a.m. It was 2 p,m. on a Wednesday and I went for the Half Mediterranean Salad ($4.25), and an Onion and Gorgonzola Pizza ($4.00). In these parts, the use of the word "Mediterranean" on a restaurant menu usually means that olives and feta or goat cheese are involved in the dish. And so it is at Milton's. The Mediterranean salad does indeed feature punctuations of chevre and meaty kalamata olives, but there are also slivers of red onion, some roasted tomato, a handful of capotes--larger "capers" (usually pickled nasturtium buds), used in salads--and crisp, mixed baby greens. The only hitch in the composition, and a minor one at that, was the zippy taste of the artichoke quarters in the salad. A thorough wash and drain would easily eliminate brine residue and the metallic suggestion of the can. But any such picayune transgressions are completely redeemed by the extravagant crostino of Wheatfields' ciabatta which crowns the soups and salads at Milton's--lightly brushed with oil and perfectly toasted, its a generous and thoughtful lagniappe. An obviously fertile mind has been assigned to the preparation of salad dressings: Creamy Avocado, Orange-Basil, Honey Balsamic, Italian Tomato and a Daliesque Jalapeno-Lime-Blue Cheese are the current choices. Creamy Avocado sounded like a grudging compromise to the Ranch guzzlers and it was, much more cream than avocado. To my taste, a salad is more about the greens and vegetables than the dressing, and I missed a simple red wine vinaigrette. Salad dressings are served on the side at Milton's, another smart move. Many people prefer to dress their own salads, and, if there's a mix-up, the kitchen doesn't have to waste and remake an entire dish. Then the pizza arrived. They'd be lining up for this kind of pizza in New York and L.A.--the perfect merende (Italian snack food)--an eight inch round of ethereal dough, nearly as thin as a cracker crust, but soft and light, with a bouncy chew. Italian pizza is not the heavy, cheese-oppressed mattress we favor here; in Italy, cheese is used to enrich and to season, with a light and discriminating hand--sauces and toppings are the foci. The Onion and Gorgonzola Pizza at Milton's is a sexy little unit: a strew of sweet, dark caramelized onions, a judicious scattering of fresh rosemary and a few limpid pools of melting gorgonzola are the alchemic ingredients, and the result is a rich contrast of tastes--funky-sweet and resinous--a big experience in a small package. At four dollars apiece, these pizzas are one of the best food deals in town. I was so impressed that I ordered another one to carry out, and the next day, after allowing the pizza to come to room temperature, I found it had suffered little in character.Bravo There are a couple of junior drawbacks in running a decidedly lean menu: politely enduring the flaccid complaints of a few options-spoiled Americans, and a slight deprivation of creativity in the kitchen. But one person's tedium is another's zen, and consistency of product is critical to a restaurant's success and longevity. Any poseur can vamp up an insensible arrangement of trendy ingredients and haughtily fudge it's validity, but the cook who consistently delivers well-considered, good-tasting, high-quality food--on time, and with good humor--that's a skilled and focused person whose work doesn't beg validation. You can taste it. Hats off to the crew in the Milton's kitchen.Breakfast Breakfast is served from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Huevos Rancheros. I love them. The Milton's kitchen combines eggs (two, any style), black beans, green chiles, red onion and spinach, with a dusting of ancho chile powder and ground cumin, and wraps it all up in a warm, crisped flour tortilla. This Californicated behemoth is then topped with generous dollops of sour cream, a guacamole version and a sweet and potent housemade guajillo salsa, and served with a Bunyan-sized portion of breakfast potatoes--baby new potatoes, skin-on, boiled then sauteed--mild and tender and delicious. It costs $6.75. Two Eggs and Toast will set you back $3.25 ($4.50 with bacon, sausage or potatoes). Salmon and Eggs, a luxurious scramble of eggs with smoked salmon, red onion and dill, comes with toast and breakfast potatoes for $6.95. The French Toast--whose mention inspires rapturous waxings from numerous "eaters" I know--costs $3.75 ($4.95 with bacon, sausage or potatoes) and the Fried Egg Sandwich ($3.75), with red onion, tomato, greens and chipotle mayo, is a great to-go item for an active morning. Baked goods are yet another highlight at Milton's. Bakers arrive at five a.m. to turn out Challah and wheat bread for the kitchen, and their popular scones, muffins and chewy, fragrant cinnamon rolls for the early morning take-out crowd.Repeat customers keep a business alive; the more regulars, the stronger the foundation. Certainly, in a town the size of Lawrence--with a restricted pool of eating-out dollars and many competing options--a restaurant won't make it without strong community support. Milton's seats about 70 people, and does three, sometimes four turns during breakfast service. "It's nearly 100% regulars", Dave says. The Jangle People usually express definite opinions about coffee. Milton's buys it's coffee from the upstanding Thanksgiving Coffee Company of Fort Bragg, California. This ethical organization, the work of Joan and Paul Katzeff, has been in operation for 25 years, expertly roasting certified organic, certified free trade and shade-grown beans. I often hear talk of the superiority of "David's Blend" at Milton's--as an anti-flavored coffee proselytizer, I balked at a sample. And no, "David's Blend" isn't named for Dave Lewis. But there's plenty more where that came from: an impressive menu of over thirty coffee drinks lists house specialties served iced or hot, regular or decaffeinated, with whole or skin milk, and range from the House Blend ($1.50) to a well-executed, jolting Espresso ($1.25) to the decadent Turtle Mocha (praline and caramel syrups with chocolate, topped with whipped cream, $3.00). The affable baristas have been well-trained and take obvious pride in their work, warmly receiving the steady stream of regulars and serving without orders. A large pile of newspapers covers a table by the door, and the front window table is a cattish place to sip and idle, watching the lazy summer action on Massachusetts Street. Service The fast pace of our technology-enhanced lives has led to a "national impatience"; anything less than instant gratification is now referred to as "slow". And the most common complaint I hear about local restaurants is "slow service". Most people are mystified by the processes of a restaurant kitchen, and are reluctant to acknowledge that other customers are just as important as they are. Too many people nowadays are unreasonably and selfishly impatient. It's unfortunate for these folks that a restaurant is subject to the physical laws of planet Earth: that a medium steak requires about twelve minutes to prepare; that their server is juggling seven other tables; that a fresh pot of good coffee takes a good ten minutes to brew; and that the people ahead of them must be attended to first. And so, impatience translates to "slow service". My service credo is "Efficient, warm, well-timed, well-informed and non-obtrusive". Perhaps I've been unusually lucky, but I've always had good service at Milton's. Even during peak rush, service times are always reasonable; in off times, service is downright speedy. The service manner is free of those superficial, pat affectations which clutter and detract from trend-inspired places; the energy of Milton's is the soft bustle of a genteel urban diner, a hard-working dignity, a higher standard, and breezes of California creativity and flexibility . To me, it's plain to see that the people who work there really want to do a good job.Endurance is Insurance There are few things as inspiring as a righteous resurrection; re-invention and re-vitalization are essential to good living, as necessary as good thoughts, good food and good company. To see Milton's bounce back from adversity in such a formidable manner is a beautiful thing for a restaurant person to behold. Restauranting is a business game of peaks and valleys--you'd better be learning from your mistakes or you're doomed. Dave Lewis is learning from his mistakes, still following his dreams and now, watching them grow. "It couldn't happen without the good people working here", he says. It appears that, for a while, hard times will stay away from Milton's. But they'll be back someday, before the next level can be attained. For the immediate future, however, the hardest thing about Milton's will be getting a table. NOTES lagniappe Pronunciation: 'lan-"yap, lan-' Function: noun Etymology: American French, from American Spanish la apa: the lagniappe Date: 1844 : a small gift given a customer by a merchant at the time of a purchase; broadly : something given or obtained gratuitously or by way of good measure. Merriam-Webster [1]: http://calendars.lawrence.com/places/113/