Bites Nearby: Novato's Forks & Fingers is a Keeper

Each week, GraceAnn Walden picks a place to eat in Petaluma or Novato that is worth checking out. Here's this week's choice:

372 Bel Marin Keys Blvd, Novato; 415-883-1900; www.forksandfingers.com

Overview: Amazingly, this café and full service catering company has been in business more than 30 years. The original owners Paul and Susan Stienau founded it in 1978 and moved it to the burgeoning Bel Marin Keys office park in 1980.

In 1993, Matt Fuette, a former hotel chef, bought the business. But he didn’t buy it through a business broker.

“The Steinaus catered my brother’s wedding, that’s how I knew about it,” he explains.

In a year, Forks & Fingers does about 150 parties, says the company’s catering manager MerryEllen Redding-Osmer.  Many are weddings plus corporate events, a lot in the immediate area.

I doubt I’m getting married anytime soon, but the café interested me since I live close by. They serve breakfast and lunch weekdays only.

I tipped in and two other customers were already waiting for help. Finally, one of them walked in the back to get one of the employees.

There was no menu, other than a chalkboard and the food displayed in the deli case.

Décor: The main room is pretty pedestrian. It's where the food is displayed, the drinks cooler sits and where the utensils and napkins are kept with some grape clusters painted near the ceiling. It all looked a bit worn. That didn’t bother me as much as that one part of the floor that needed a good scrubbing.

The best part is the tables outside. Think: Lunch, sitting outside in the sunshine. Yes!

The second best part is in the inside, in the second room. Fuette displays a quarter of his collection of Disney figurines. He has been into Disney icons since he was a kid. He said he has the second biggest collection in the country.

The Drinks: The usual suspects: sodas, bottled water and tea, coffee, tea.

Appetizers: The caesar salad could be an appetizer; tossed green salad, also.

Entrees: At breakfast they have pastries, bagels and even waffles.

At lunch there are sandwiches, salad plates that are terrific and panini.  I saw a bunch of pre-made sandwiches that didn’t look too appetizing, but I found out later that they were fodder for the panini. I told Fuette that, when I interviewed him afterward.

He said they have the same patrons every day, so he never thought that someone wouldn’t know they were for the panini. He also added, “We have some people who come in here twice a day, for breakfast and lunch. In fact, he said, that when some people pull up in their cars, the counterwomen see them and start getting their bagel ready.”

I had a “meat” which could be tuna salad, curry chicken salad, regular chicken salad plus two or three salads. The curry chicken salad was wonderful with the inclusion of chopped apples, raisins and curry flavor plus big chunks of chicken. With it I chose a potato salad with red onions enhanced with a little onion, celery and mayo. There was a bean salad with what seemed like a cider vinegar dressing and a really good Chinese noodle salad with sugar snap peas and bell pepper.

Desserts: I had a dessert bar, kinda like shortbread with an apricot jam topping. The bar was so overwhelmed with cinnamon, I couldn’t eat it.

Service: Just OK.

Cost: A good lunch for $5 to $7.

Disabled accessible: Yes

Noise level: No problem.

Addendum: I told my concerns to Fuette in our after-interview and he said he was going to go taste the apricot dessert bars and check out that floor. Bravo!