I came to Egghole on the recommendation of a friend, who was supposed to meet me there, but didn’t make it. So as usual, this grumpy old man ate with the only person guaranteed not to annoy me: me.

Egghole is a local chain of sandwich shops, with branches in Kent, Lakewood, and Puyallup. We’d arranged to meet at their Kent location, which turned out to be in a depressing strip mall, with more strip malls at every corner of the intersection. It’s in the same building with a Jimmy John’s — a competitor sandwich shop — and across a parking lot from an O’Reilly Auto Parts.

Walking in, my first thought was that it looked like a dance hall — industrial lights, a dark, glistening floor with lots of open space. I glanced up at the ceiling, half expecting to see a mirrored disco ball.

There were about twenty other customers, all white and in their 20s, scattered between tables, some playing games. Each table had a different non-electronic game on it — a wooden free-standing Connect-4, or other games I didn’t recognize.

Five big-screen TVs were mounted all around the large room. One was showing ads for Egghole, while the other four showed Guinness World Records, which I hadn’t known was a TV show and wish I still didn’t know.

Good news: the sound from the TV’s was off. Bad news: there was music, of a louder style and noticeably louder volume than I’d prefer. At Egghole, they want folks to loiter, have a good time, not merely grab a sandwich and go.

There are 15 self-serve beer taps, all along the wall between the door and the counter. Mostly fancy brews, including Stillwater’s Insetto (dry hopped sour ale with Italian plum), and Left Hand Belgian White Nitro (a Belgian-style wheat beer brewed with coriander and orange peel). I have no interest in beer with lunch, and in the 45 minutes I was there, nobody poured from the taps on the wall. Egghole’s hours are 8AM-3PM daily, so it’s not a nightclub, and beer on tap seems… odd.

Customers order from a tablet/kiosk at the counter, like Amazon — no human contact. Using the touchscreen, I clicked through a dozen pages, and selected two sandwiches, a sausage-egg-and-cheese for breakfast, an egg salad sandwich for lunch. And to stay awake, a cup of coffee. Paid with plastic inserted into the kiosk, and tipped when the software asked me to tip.

Referencing Egghole’s website as I write this a few days later, it brags, “Experience our hospitality today: We’re looking forward to welcoming you to our restaurants and café, where you’ll be treated to warm, friendly service in a cozy setting.” Nothing about the kiosk seemed warm, friendly, or cozy.

After ordering, I sat a table that had a wooden tic-tac-toe board in the middle, but I didn’t play with myself.

After a few minutes, a youngish woman brought my coffee, smiled and seemed human enough. Guess she’s the person I’d tipped. When I asked about cream and sugar, she wordlessly pointed to a corner shelf where all the essentials were stocked — cream, sugar, plastic utensils, etc. I fetched some cream, returned to the tic-tac-toe table, and the coffee was good.

After a reasonable time (more than five but less than ten minutes), my number was called. I went to the counter for my sandwiches. Again, no human contact, but human contact is overrated.

Both sandwiches were modest in size, but quite good. In the breakfast sandwich, the egg was still moist and slightly runny, the sausage mildly spicy and precisely browned, the cheese melted and oozing. The egg salad sandwich had a slight hint of exotic herbs and spices, and twice as much egg salad as it needed. After finishing it, I returned to the essentials shelf for a plastic fork, to devour everything that had squeezed out of the sandwich.

The bread was a toasted brioche that looked vaguely bagel-esque, which worried me. A lot of teeth have wandered out of my face over the years, so chewy bread is a problem. At most sandwich places, my teeth will snag-and-drag lettuce or tomato out of a sandwich and make a mess on my face, but to my very pleasant surprise, Egghole’s bread is light, and easy to chew through.

Several gnats swirled around my food and hovered over my coffee. At any place with doors, flying critters will come in, and there’s nothing to prevent that, really. But there were four gnats at my table, which seems more than random. I noticed a few people at other tables trying to whoosh their bugs away, too.

Remember that promise of “warm, friendly service”? No coffee refills were offered, and no employees came to check on me. Shrug. I don’t expect superb table service at a sandwich shop, even when the website promises it, and I rather enjoyed being left alone to read a few chapters of a book, before, during, and after the meal.

Egghole is not a place I’ll ever return to, mostly because of the soul-deadening neighborhood. But the food is quite good, the prices OK.

Of course, the table games, the music, and the place’s entire vibe says it’s for 20-somethings, not 60-somethings, so if you’re not me you might love it.

Egghole
229 Washington Ave N, Kent, WA
Food & drink: better than ordinary
Price: ordinary
Service: non-existent, by design
Transit: #165, #194
Verdict: NO, for me. MAYBE, for you.

10/29/2024

Cheap Seattle

Affordable eats

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