Homey goodness for neighbors and visitors at Volunteer Park

In the olden days, before there were malls, there was the corner store. Sure, it sold sundries or groceries, but more than that, it was a place where people intersected with their neighbors in the course of everyday life.

The building at 17th and Galer on Capitol Hill began as just such a place. It was built in 1905 as a meat market and grocery to meet the needs of early-20th-century homemakers.

Today that corner store has been reincarnated as Volunteer Park Cafe & Marketplace. Opened in January by Ericka Burke and Heather Earnhardt, it offers what the 21st-century families who frequent it crave — fresh, wholesome, home-style food, preferably prepared by somebody else.

The cafe offers breakfast, lunch and, as of May, dinner. It's charming in a funky sort of way, a little bit Berkeley, a little bit Norman Rockwell. The wood-paneled exterior is the color of corn pudding. On fine days, round red tables propagate on the sidewalk, crowding a tilting blue mailbox and encroaching on the solitude of a shady bench. You'll often see a pram parked at the front door and a preschooler busy at a pint-sized coloring station inside, where glass-topped tables showcase vintage burlap flour sacks, and grown-ups lounge for longer than they mean to in cushy window-seat banquettes.

At dinner there's table service (erratic but kindly), but breakfast and lunch orders are placed at the counter. There can be a line, which accounts for the fingerprints clustered at toddler height on the oak-trimmed pastry case. It's loaded with evidence of Earnhardt's prowess as a baker: muffins, scones, cookies, cakes, brownies and more.

A cranberry-pecan muffin, sprinkled with raw sugar, crumbles beguilingly in your fingers. Banana bread is heavy with fruit and nuts; the intensely bittersweet chocolate bundt cake begs for a cold glass of milk. Finely chopped peanuts enhance sturdy, fork-pressed peanut butter cookies; fragile jam-filled thumbprints are frilly with toasted coconut.

Earnhardt's expertise extends to biscuit dough for pot pies, which might be made with lamb one day, chicken the next, as well as pastry shells for quiche. Both are a feature of the daytime bill of fare, along with soups, salads and superb panini sandwiches. (What they don't have the space to make here, they source well, like bread from Columbia City Bakery and croissants from Le Fournil.)

Quiche flaunts a voluptuously crimped crust, remarkably flaky and spiked with thyme. A warmed-to-order wedge with chopped prosciutto, fresh tomato and Gruyère was exceptional. There is always a meatless variation, too, not surprising since Burke was formerly executive chef at the vegetarian restaurant Carmelita.

Panini combos provide plenty of scope for vegetarians, too, among them, Nutella with strawberries and fresh mozzarella with tomato. But I made a beeline for the BLT, stacked with thick pepper bacon, shredded romaine and slices of fresh tomatoes that really tasted like tomatoes. Roasted Roma tomatoes and arugula accent an equally good chicken panini made with moist, boneless breast meat under a melt of mozzarella and fontina. Both sandwiches were pressed on the grill between thick boards of country bread spread with basil aioli.

Breakfast panini are part of a morning menu that runs from granola to waffles, a weekend-only treat. It's worth a visit for this lofty, golden brown Belgian beauty whose deep pockets capture a tumble of sweetened strawberries and blueberries under a rapidly melting raft of fresh whipped cream.

And speaking of whipped cream and berries, you'll have to come in the evening to taste Earnhardt's exquisite shortcake, sweet and soft inside its crackling shell.

Dinner also means pizza built on a fine, breadlike crust. Salads carry over from lunch, including a Caesar, its creamy dressing jolted from the ordinary with preserved lemon.

Daily entree specials aim to please the hungry. The mom with three teens in tow appreciatively eyed my plate of chicken (Thursday/$16), half a bird sprawled across lentils braised with spinach, carrot, onion and garlic. With asparagus and a grape-tomato salad on the side, it was a veritable feast. The skin was blackened as though it had been finished under the broiler, but the flesh was moist.

I, in turn, coveted my neighbor's meatloaf (Wednesday/ $14), which turned out to be soft and herby under its crusty exterior. It also came with asparagus and rich whipped potatoes.

Nibblers should consult the list of small plates. "Mini Mac" — a bubbling little casserole filled with a silky blend of Gruyère, cheddar and fontina smothering torchlike noodles topped with jagged Parmesan breadcrumbs — is both too much and just enough.

Bruschetta du jour ($10) was memorably topped one night with thyme-flecked sautéed mushrooms, fava beans and curls of pecorino cheese. Three pieces paired with citrus and oil-dressed arugula and olives was a perfect repast.

The bucket of grilled bread was the best part of the charcuterie and cheese plates ($13 each). Neither the meats nor the cheeses were the quality you expect for the price, but the cheeses were nicely varied with some sweet accompaniments.

Judging from the cross section of people who frequent Volunteer Park Cafe & Marketplace, it's already a neighborhood hub. I'd guess most of the customers live within walking distance, but it has the potential to become a destination.

Providence Cicero: providencecicero@aol.com