Cafe Hon

Cafe Hon
1002 W. 36th St. (at Roland)
Hampden, Baltimore
410-243-1230
Traditional American
www.cafehon.com
Cost: $$
Reservations: Not Needed
Date of meal: July 2007
National Price-Quality Frontier: Inside It
Baltimore Price-Quality Frontier: Inside It

Before I moved to Baltimore, I had never heard of a Hon. So I looked into it a bit. Apparently, Hons are archetypal white, working class, big-haired, middle-aged women of Baltimore. They are given this name because they call everyone "hon". If you look around Baltimore, you'll see bumper stickers and signs with ", hon" as a suffix. For example, "Believe, hon" ("believe" is Baltimore's branding slogan), "Impeach Bush, hon", or my personal favorite:

Note that this combines Baltimore's madison avenue branding campaign, "Believe" and the slogan of the Church of Flying Spaghetti Monster, particularly appropriate for this blog since it is the only religion I know with a food-based diety (no, not a deity).

I digress; back to Cafe Hon. It is straight out of the 1950s. It looks like an idea place to share a root beer float if you were a 14 year old on a date in 1958. This is the restaurant's angle. They push it pretty hard, and pretty successfully. To my taste, they are trying a bit too hard (or not quite hard enough, waitresses could be in costume if they wanted to put a little ironic distance on it), but I think this is more taste than fact. If decor is your priority and this is the kind of decor you want, Cafe Hon is the place for you.

As one would hope, the menu is sandwiches, burgers, meatloaf, crab cakes (it is Maryland after all), and other things you'd expect on a traditional American menu. Prices for sandwiches, burgers, and salads were about what you would expect ($10 range) but some of the entrees were quite pricey; given food quality I think I'd avoid these. When we went for dinner, we found the execution of the food completely fine but nothing special. Quantity was large; quality was so-so. If I was in the neighborhood and was in the mood for that vibe, I might go again for sandwiches or burgers. However, there are tastier places to go for a soup and salad in Hampden.