Java on Sherman

** THIS RESTAURANT IS PERMANENTLY CLOSED **

When Jane and I first came across it over a dozen years ago, Java on Sherman was simply a great coffee house serving such efficient caffeine delivery systems as the Keith Richards (4 espresso shots, coffee, and Mexican chocolate), the Bowl of Soul (espresso, coffee, cinnamon), and the Hammerhead (espresso and more espresso). To accompany the strong coffee there was a small selection of house-made pastries.

In May, 2014, Java moved up the street from its old corner store to new digs that include a broad outdoor patio, lots of indoor seating, and a full kitchen. You still can get terrific pastries: scones, macaroons, croissants, and in particular an abundantly healthful millet muffin just barely sweetened with orange juice and spangled with a thousand sunflower seeds. But now there also is a full menu of knife-and-fork meals – lunch and breakfast, the latter including broad, fluffy pancakes, from-scratch granola and oatmeal, benedicts and breakfast sandwiches, and sweet potato hash that is laced with chewy squiggles of onion and bits of green pepper. Best of all are donuts, which are made to order and served piping hot with crisp skin that envelops creamy insides. Buy them by the half-dozen or dozen; they are silver-dollar size and available plain or blanketed by cinnamon sugar or powdered sugar.

Java is a happy place to be, with a staff that is either hopped up on coffee or just actually perky and glad to be here. Dogs are welcome on the patio; and when we visited, the canine population included the biggest Leonberger I’ve ever seen – near 200 pounds, a teacup-Chihuahua, and a few normal-size bowsers of indeterminate ancestry.