Quirk gives flavor to local dining scene

Baked!

For students in the mood for cookies, there’s no better option than Baked! of Bloomington, where owner Jared Schneider said his cookies are handmade from scratch specifically for each customer.

After choosing a dough – sugar, chocolate, oatmeal, peanut butter or vegan – the sugar-seeking then pick any “fixin’s,” like chocolate chips, candies and nuts, and “afterbakes” to be added when the cookies come out of the oven, such as marshmallows, frosting and candy bar pieces. With five doughs – as well as an occasional seasonal dough like strawberry rhubarb or pumpkin – 11 afterbakes and 20 fixin’s, everyone can create a unique combination.

“They’re like my children, they’re all my favorite kind of cookies,” Schneider said, though he admits he’s partial to chocolate dough with white chocolate chips and Craisins. “It’s my mom’s chocolate-chip recipe, and I just adapted it.”
Besides a mural of the night sky on part of the ceiling, the decor at Baked! is also made interesting by the cookie boxes that line the walls and have been decorated by employees and customers.

“I’m starting to fill up the ceiling,” Schneider said. 

Baked! also delivers, accepts CampusAccess and offers 15 percent off with a library card.

Rachael’s Café

For a relaxed atmosphere, Rachael’s Café offers unique, homemade dishes daily, free Internet and a place to hang out with friends, study or just kick back and enjoy a hot chocolate. 

“We use chocolate chips for our mochas and our hot chocolate,” said owner Rachael Jones. “It’s not powder.”

Most will notice the restaurant’s eclectic atmosphere the moment they enter and face a larger-than-life angel statue. In addition to entertainment ranging from DJs to poetry to belly dancers, Jones said the restaurant has open mic nights every Sunday.
“I don’t think we’ve ever had country, but other than that, we’ve pretty much run the gamut,” she said.

For groups where some people want to drink but others are underage, Rachael’s provides a good compromise.

“We are all-ages, even though we have beer and wine,” Jones said.

Runcible Spoon

Taking its name from Edward Lear’s famous poem, “The Owl and the Pussycat,” the Runcible Spoon offers a variety of dishes and decor that draws people in. Well-known in part for egg dishes and “Irish” drinks – which are simply any given drink, like a mimosa, with Guinness added – breakfast is served all day and drinks are served even after the kitchen closes.

While Allan Gurevitz’s unique collages covering much of the walls will catch patron eyes first, what co-owner Matt O’Neill said will most stand out for many people is the “really tough goldfish” pond in the bathroom, created from a converted bathtub in 1978. Gurevitz also painted the aquatic mural in that bathroom. While it is certainly not the restaurant’s only restroom, O’Neill said patrons will stand in line to see it, if necessary.

“They want to say hello to the goldfish,” O’Neill said.

Part of the cause for the diverse decor is the lack of a specific concept for the restaurant, which O’Neill said has been around since 1976.

“It’s kind of evolved, rather than have an environment forced on it,” O’Neill said. “Place like this, you don’t really have an owner, more like a curator.”