Zak's Café owners serve up consistency and kindness

Amid the sizzle of halibut in the deep fryer, the methodical pounding of James George's knife against the cutting board and the fervent chatter of the Zak's Cafe lunch rush, there was one noise that eclipsed all others: Norman Greenbaum's 1969 hit "Spirit in the Sky."

Katherine and James opened Zak's Cafe in the summer of 2001, a year after getting married. James handles the back of the house and Katherine the front. As for everything else - such as dishes, cleaning and any tasks required to run a restaurant - "whichever of us has the time," Katherine laughed.

James may decide the day's specials, but Katherine decides the music. Last Wednesday, as James cooked up turkey sourdough melts and panko shrimp baskets, Katherine blessed the ears of the cafe's clientele with the melodies of Marvin Gaye, Rupert Holmes and the Jackson Five.

"I was just in the mood for Guardians," she quipped; all of Wednesday's song came from the "Guardians of the Galaxy" soundtrack.

On the kitchen side of the serving window, I stood next to James, trying to stay out of his way as he battered halibut for the cafe's fried shrimp and halibut platter. He turned, drowned the halibut in the fry oil and turned again to the salad station where he began to chop a head of lettuce locally sourced from Ivy Patch Produce.

"You know," he said, "I had no interest in seeing "Guardians of the Galaxy," but as soon as it ended, I wanted to stay in the theater and watch it all over again."

I laughed, but before I could respond James had pivoted back to the fryer, pulled up the halibut and turned toward the industrial gas range to check on the broccoli soup - another of the day's specials.

"How did you know it was done?" I asked, referring to the fried halibut.

"The sound," James said.

The explanation sounded insane to me at first, but I quickly realized James had heard the sound hundreds if not thousands of times. Now in his 24th year of frying halibut, James' ears can distinguish cooked halibut from uncooked halibut the way a concert pianist distinguishes an in-tune note from a chord off-key.

But it is this consistency that keeps Zak's Cafe's regulars coming back.

Richard Lentz has been frequenting Zak's every year since it opened and orders the fried halibut and shrimp platter two or three times a week. When Lentz walks in, Katherine doesn't need to ask him if he wants "the usual." She just writes his order on the ticket and gives it to James.

"I've never had a bad meal here in 24 years. If you ordered something 10 years ago, it tastes the same today," Lentz said.

When I asked Lentz if he could remember any noteworthy changes in his decades of patronage, he turned around and pointed to an overhead light: "That light used to be broke. They fixed it."

The inside of Zak's Cafe has changed as little as its menu. According to Katherine, the only new decorations are what people have given them. Chinese calligraphy drapes over the serving window, photos of loved ones adorn the walls, and reggae paraphernalia is everywhere - an homage to the music the couple holds in such high regard and the country they visit every February.

Though James has known his entire life he wanted to work in a kitchen, it was never because he loves to eat or even because he loves to cook. James cooks for the person ordering his food.

"People forget their problems when they're around food," James said. "If we were in it for the money we would have left this business long ago."

James and Katherine find themselves touched whenever folks decide to spend a special occasion at Zak's.

When I visited Zak's on Aug. 14, I arrived 20 minutes before they opened for lunch. After a couple of minutes of talking, James interrupted me: "Shoot! I'm sorry, I need to go make these burgers," and he scampered off to the kitchen.

I thought nothing of it until Elliott Barratt walked into the cafe 20 minutes later. It was her birthday, and she knew she was going to spend it at Zak's. What she didn't know, however, was that James planned on making her a birthday burger in the house. She woke up to a text from him asking what her favorite type of burger was.

"Be here at 11:10," James' next text said.

When Elliott arrived, two mushroom burgers awaited her.

"I was going to come here anyway," Elliott told me. She eats at Zak's about twice a week. "I hope it stays here forever. James and Katherine make everyone's days better."

Everyone I spoke with at Zak's echoed this point from Elliott. When Katherine walks up to your table and asks how you're doing, she genuinely wants to know how you're doing. When she asks if everything tastes all right, it's because she wants to be sure you get exactly what you came for.

For the regulars of Zak's Cafe, kindness keeps them coming back. But Katherine and James don't limit their kindness and generosity to their patrons. Since they opened, charity has been a pillar of the Zak's Cafe DNA.

Katherine and James routinely organize "pay what you can" nights where all proceeds go to different charities. The couple has given money to Heifer International and No Kid Hungry, charities dedicated to feeding the hungry. They've donated entire proceeds to children whose parents died in a plane crash and to fund the St. Frances Animal Shelter.

When they heard that some kids in town didn't have access to school lunch, Katherine and James left bagged lunches outside their stoop. Anyone who needed one could grab it without having to ask.

Before I left I spoke to Barbara Hommel, a 76-year-old regular, as she ate her bacon cheeseburger and fries. She told me how she came here the very first day Katherine and James opened the place, and how she has come for a bacon burger and fries nearly every day for lunch since she retired. At the end of our conversation, I asked her the same question I ask at the end of all my interviews: Is there anything else you think is important that I didn't ask you about?

"James and Katherine are special. They're worth writing about," she said.