Baker's, R.I.P.

When places like Baker's in Lake City close, it brings out my inner Emmett Watson. As Weekly food critic Jonathan Kauffman's wonderful "Wine's World" exclaimed, Seattle is no longer a beer and chowder town, it's a sleek, wine-savvy, cocktail-craving metropolis. Many consider this evolution to be a good thing, but not I. Since returning home after a four-year hiatus last March, I've found myself pushed to the outskirts of the city to find hints of the Seattle I loved and left -- pushed to places like Lake City. Here, for half-a-century, Baker's, via its Mt. St. Helens mounds of strawberries and whipped cream atop so many low-slung waffles, carved out a niche trading in the sweeter side of breakfast. It was a perennial favorite for little kids' birthday parties, as well as for cauliflower heads looking to salt away the day over coffee, chocolates and conversation. It will be missed, especially by this bottomfeeder.