The new Avalon Cafe and Kitchen, which partners with Mighty Good Coffee for the all-important caffeinated side of the enterprise, seemed in tune with downtown Ann Arbor immediately after it opened in mid-December. A few doors down is Shinola, which like Avalon Bakery is another Detroit success story. Across the street is Roos Roast, a local roast-and-brew enterprise on a similar trajectory as Mighty Good. Within a few blocks are several eateries also energetically navigating artisanal trends and sourcing locally. In fact, longtime Jolly Pumpkin chef Maggie Long is credited for helping create the dinner menu.

So what makes Avalon Cafe special?

Bread, for starters: most menu items come on an Avalon bun or with toast or a biscuit. But there’s also breadth: Avalon serves from predawn to late night, from morning coffee through breakfast, lunch, happy hour, dinner, dessert, and nighttime drinks. Not many places in the neighborhood do that. Plus, there’s a long, crowded wall of grab-to-go cafe drinks, salads, sandwiches, and baked goods, including an array of gorgeous (and organic) bread loaves. They’re all baked in Detroit, as they’ve been since Avalon International Breads began in a Cass Corridor storefront twenty years ago.

Salvaged metal letters spell out “Hearth and Soul” on the dining room’s wall, and the big space feels open yet cozy. Former tenant Mezzevino’s brown wood-box atmosphere has been tempered with sound-deadening burlap draped across the ceiling, some upholstered seating, and teal-and-burnt orange accent paint.

Channeling Van Morrison and other soulful artists from Avalon Cafe’s soundtrack, let’s review a potential day’s worth of food and drink–with impressive highlights and not-too-discouraging blips along the way.

My first visit was at brunch, in the holiday aftermath when you rarely feel hungry after endless festivities and treats. At a glance the menu seemed very bread-centric, starting out with “Fancy Toast” options with smashed avocado and lime, ricotta, jam, and more. But past the “Bun & Bread” and “Fork” subheadings, I found enticing salads under “Bowl.”

I loved the very fresh spinach salad with buttery warm mushrooms, bacon, and pickled shallots, well topped with buttermilk dressing. I tried a friend’s Green Goddess Cobb, also appealing with lots of chicken and shaved fennel. We salad folks decided to share a $3 order of Simple Toast (the last pick under Fancy Toast, ironically) and anted up a buck for the house-made chocolate hazelnut spread, which is not as smooth as Nutella but boasts more true chocolate flavor.

Other orders at our brunch table included a huge, satisfying breakfast sandwich of fried egg, bacon, and avocado on toasted farm bread with lightly dressed farm greens as the side. A big nest of shoestring fries was the classic side for the hefty burger on a challah roll, with raclette cheese making amusing upside-down drips on the top bun (they must toast it inverted); jammy sweet-onion barbecue sauce, bacon, and rosemary aioli turned the burger into a meal. The unusual-sounding “Trout Reuben” sandwich, recommended by our server, was fresh-tasting but not as full-flavored as the name suggests–instead of tangy sauerkraut it came with a mild root veggie slaw, and even a cornmeal coating couldn’t give the mild fish the salty kick of corned beef.

None of us were drinking that day, but I’ll come back sometime for the brunch Bloody Mary with creative garnishes like bleu cheese olives, bacon strips, roasted beets on skewers, and stalks of celery filled with goat cheese. As I learned at Everyday People Cafe on the shore of Lake Michigan in Douglas, this can be a vacation meal in a glass.

Our next visit was for after-work drinks and appetizers. Garlicky hummus loaded with snips of onions went great with a Triomphe Belgian-style IPA from Brewery Vivant. Four delicious but small pieces of grilled ciabatta weren’t enough to keep up with the big bowl of hummus; more came gratis just for the asking, with another side smear of cultured butter topped with big flakes of salt. Heavenly–and a clue into a strategy here: Avalon doesn’t just plop a basket of room-temperature bread on every table. Rather, their breads work strategically into most menu offerings. If you want more, just ask and they’ll bring it, warmed and insanely butterable.

Our other tasty appetizer was flash-fried cauliflower with hard-to-identify but vaguely Indian spices (jalapeno was called out in the menu, but not prominent). A pool of nice citrusy-garlicky vinaigrette was good for dredging both the cauliflower and last crusts of bread.

Our final visit was on a very cold day for dinner, where prices notch up along with entree sizes to the point where two people could easily share and maybe take home leftovers. Our appetizer was a warming and crispy salt-roasted sweet potato with light curry sauce. Among dinners, the fried chicken met the deceptively simple criteria laid down by famed Southern chef Bill Neal: a “crust that snaps and breaks with fragility.” A smaller portion fried chicken sandwich at lunch recasts the buttermilk biscuit as a bun, it costs $12 instead of $21.

Both roasted pork and grilled steak were fattier and chewier than I like. They tasted OK though–even the next day as leftovers. And the omnipresent pea shoot garnishes came into their own with more flavor when warmed with the pork.

After-dinner coffee, a strong, straight-up brew, was served in mismatched cups–purchased from the Salvation Army, our server explained with a smile. I found the different sizes off-putting and the kitschy designs more tacky than amusing, I’m a bit ashamed to admit. But all was forgiven when the amazing Reilly “Killa Beez” honeycomb ice cream arrived, with crunchy bits of honeycomb and gooey luscious streaks of honey from bees kept in Detroit by an Avalon provider. Trust me on this one–I can’t think of any ice cream I’ve liked more. There are also pies, dark chocolate bread pudding, and warm sea salt chocolate chip cookies, all of which could only be made better with a dollop of honeycomb ice cream.

In its early months, Avalon Cafe and Kitchen already excels at core competencies. There’s very little nostalgic “Detroit theme park” in the decor–it’s more hipster Detroit 2.0, embracing Ann Arbor expectations and managing to feel welcoming to all (an accessible ramp runs alongside stairs from the lounge area to dining room). In addition to the Hearth and Soul inscription on the wall, another motto–“Eat Well. Do Good”–appears on servers’ T-shirts and around the building. Reportedly established for the bakery, the sentiment carries over fine to the cafe. We ate well. And they did good.

Avalon Cafe and Kitchen

120 E. Liberty

263-2996

avalonbreads.net/avalon-cafe-and-kitchen-ann-arbor

Mon.-Thurs. 7 a.m.-10 p.m.; Fri. 7 a.m.-midnight; Sat. 8 a.m.-midnight.; Sun. 8 a.m.-10 p.m.

Toast and appetizers $3-$9, sandwiches and salads $7-$14, dinner $18-$25, dessert $7-$8.

Handicap friendly