Deco Café

Instead of the predictable, indifferent atmosphere associated with overrated Starbucks coffeehouses, high-end restaurateur David Kurtz blessed the small historic town of Inverness in northwest Florida with an imaginative, yet diminutive coffee shop called Deco Café (109 Courthouse Square, 352-341-5400). It is outfitted with wingback and other relaxation-inducing chairs, café tables and an Art Deco motif.

The coffee menu is poetry backed by soups; salads; wraps filled with fresh tuna or chicken salad; scrambled eggs on home-baked croissants and other tempting oven-baked goods; and an array of creatively concocted sandwich choices.

Counter service is cheerful, as are the budget prices that include all sorts of niceties.