We love Cascone's for the basics: two eggs over-medium, bacon, hash browns, toasted Italian bread with loads of butter, a couple of pancakes on the side, orange juice and coffee. That's just a standard Saturday morning for us -- and half the rest of the city. But on weekday mornings, plenty of wheelin' and dealin' accompanies the eatin' in those hard plastic booths. Cascone's is a favorite fuel-up for pretty much anyone who has any business with City Hall. We couldn't help marveling at the selection of power brokers we saw there on the morning of Mayor Kay Barnes' State of the City speech back in May -- including cooler-than-Joan-Jett City Clerk Millie Crossland at one table and a posse of development lawyers at another. "I try to make sure that I eat there at least once a week," says City Auditor Mark Funkhouser. "It's the place I like to meet people to talk business outside of City Hall." For Funkhouser, the place is a textbook model of efficiency. "It's a well-functioning organization -- they have the same staff, there's no turnover. I doubt there's a policy procedure or a training manual. I'm not a gourmet. It's just good food, quick, at a reasonable price, in a "Hi, Mark, how are you?' kind of atmosphere." It takes a lot to earn Funkhouser's seal of approval. Breakfast of champions, indeed.
