By Erin Mccoy
Between the spontaneous table collages, the three-paneled display of local art hung by the bar, and the crowd of hookahs shelved above the wine rack, the theme of Cafe 360 reveals itself: the word is “all-inclusive.”
Even the table settings seem sporadic: some tables have Tabasco, a few bloom with flowers, at some there are champagne glasses for the butter and jelly while others use bowls. And when the food comes out, there’s ethnic cuisine from Indian to American to Mexican, as well as plenty of vegan and vegetarian options.
Somehow, though, there is a method to this apparent randomness. The decor simply suits. It is the perfect environment for the infinite variety of people who straggle in to this 24-hour restaurant-bar-hookah lounge at all hours of the day and night.
Cafe 360 opened at 1582 Bardstown Rd. in April with a very ambitious mission.
“There is no place for young [people] to hang out in an environment like this. There’s no hookah bar in Louisville,” said owner and founder Sanjay Taxak. “When you go to college you don’t have that much money to go to an upscale restaurant – and we thought we’ll create our own market.”
Taxak built it and apparently, people came. Talk of Cafe 360 has infiltrated the University of Louisville campus. The restaurant has already accumulated its share of regulars, including many U of L students.
“The response is overwhelming,” Taxak said as he relaxed during a 3 p.m. lull. “It’s packed most of the time.”
Indeed, 1 a.m. Friday night (a.k.a. Saturday morning) can be busier than dinner time. A coconut tobacco hookah, $6 for two people and $8 for four, lasted me and two friends over an hour, so the restaurant enjoys a relaxed atmosphere where good food makes you come and good conversation makes you stay.
The prices are also encouraging. No menu item runs over $10, and a large percentage are in the $3.99 range. Even the breakfast, which is served all day, is marked with an ethnic flair, with options like the Breakfast Taco, Chinese Omelet or Greek Scramble. Teas, smoothies, mango lassi, juices and coffee fill out the Coke products. Many of the salads are vegan, but if you’re in the mood for a sandwich or some stir fry, any meat ingredient on the menu can be replaced with tofu.
In this age of rocketing appetizer prices, the appetizers at Cafe 360 average about $3 per. The tofu in the vegan spring rolls was creamy and accented with noodles and carrot shavings. All of it was wrapped in soft rice paper and nicely arranged with dabs of red sauce that alternated pleasantly between spicy and sweet.
The pappadums with spicy onion chutney appetizer does live up to “spicy,” but the crispy, thin bowls of bread filled with flavorful chutney may even woo the sweet-toothed. The spice wasn’t overpowering, and both chutney and bread tasted freshly prepared.
The Teriyaki Stir Fry, the most expensive item on the menu at $9.99, had the option of three different types of meat with yellow rice and vegetables in pad Thai sauce. The sauce made the dish a bit sticky, and nearly overpowered even the distinctive taste of salmon. Nonetheless, the crunchy veggies and interesting flavor combination gave this dish a delicious twist.
Quesadillas are available as an entree or an appetizer. The helpings are generous, especially compared to other restaurants, which now tend to serve three meager slices for an entire meal. The quesadillas could have used a few more veggies, but they were soft and nicely seasoned.
Still, Cafe 360 has a few downfalls. The service can run pretty slow – you’ll rarely get your meal less than 30 minutes after ordering, and the bill can take a while to arrive. This is exacerbated by the fact that after you’ve been smoking a hookah for an hour, it’s hard for the server to notice when you’re done.
And, of course, it’s not for people who don’t like smoke. By nighttime, the room is visibly clouded.
Sophomore Ashley Merkle has visited Cafe 360 once. She said she didn’t like the fries but said she would go back just for the queso dip in her appetizer.
“It was a good late-night atmosphere. We went later at night and we didn’t get full meals, but it’s good snack food,” Merkle said.
There are about 12 flavors of hookah, most of them fruity, but there’s also cappuccino- and cola-flavored. For anyone who’s never smoked a hookah, it’s fun even for non-smokers because it lacks the sharp grittiness of cigarettes. Instead, it’s smooth and sweet, more an inhaled aroma.
Taxak said that Cafe 360 sanitizes the nozzles of the hookah hoses between every use, and gives the hookahs more thorough cleaning every Sunday. Taxak expects that the new Louisville Metro smoking ban will not affect Cafe 360.
A hookah bar and dance floor are scheduled to open upstairs at the end of September.
The bar downstairs is well-stocked with liquors at $3-$5. “We have all the liquor you want. There’s nothing we don’t have,” Taxak said.
Taxak feels he’s already well on his way to creating the type of restaurant he envisioned. “For a young crowd there should be a place where they can go any time: when they’re writing a paper, they have an exam or they have a test tomorrow, they’re studying all night, they want to eat. Any time they come in, they eat and enjoy.”
