Dairy Bar: fast, easy and good

I'm all in favor of any lunch that ends with a milkshake.

That doesn't happen too often, but it did the other day when I stopped by The Dairy Bar, the venerable eatery at 1602 Roseneath Road in Scott's Addition, the light-industrial area bordered by the Boulevard, West Broad Street, Interstate 195 and railroad tracks.

The Dairy Bar is nothing fancy. What it is is a fine place to get a good breakfast and a decent lunch -- and a milkshake.

An old buddy and I met there for lunch. Figuring it might be crowded at noon, we waited until 1 p.m. We walked in the door and were greeted immediately by a friendly hostess who took us to our table where a friendly waitress immediately brought our iced tea and water. She would have taken our lunch order immediately had we been the sort of people who can make decisions promptly. We're not.

Once we finally got around to ordering, our food was delivered within five minutes. I ordered the club sandwich ($7.69), which came generously stacked with ham, turkey and bacon, accompanied by chips and pickle slices. My friend, who's on a gluten-free diet, ordered the grilled-chicken sandwich ($6.99) without the bread -- sort of the opposite of Jack Nicholson in "Five Easy Pieces" when he ordered a chicken-salad sandwich on wheat toast but only wanted the toast. Man, if only my buddy had traveled around with Nicholson, they would have been quite the complementary pair.

At any rate, The Dairy Bar was much more accommodating than the roadside diner in the movie; the plain grilled chicken arrived just the way he ordered. Plus, no one asked us to leave.

The walls of The Dairy Bar are covered with pages of children's artwork. At lunchtime, you're likely to see guys in neckties at one table, and parents with children in high chairs at the next. It's a nice mix. Same with the lunch menu. It features the kind of solid, standard fare you might expect: assorted sandwiches, soups and salads, including the essential trio: chicken salad, tuna salad and egg salad. All are homemade.

And, of course, there's ice cream.

I seldom order dessert when I eat out, and I hadn't had a milkshake for months. So, the timing was right.

The Dairy Bar offers a wide array of milkshake flavors, and had we been the sort of people who like to be bold and daring when it comes to milkshakes, we might have tried something bold and daring. But we're not. We walked out of there with a couple of vanilla milkshakes ($3.99 apiece) to go.

They were, as my friend put it, "a nice touch."

Contact Bill Lohmann at (804) 649-6639 or .