Brunch at the Loading Dock is quiet.  There's a silver food cart sticking from the side of the building, the same model you'd see dishing out lamb over rice on some avenue.  Inside is empty except for one person standing at the counter, and a chef vaguely visible in the kitchen-cart.  Without smiling, the counter guy asks what you'd like so you pick up a menu.  This front room is flimsy, just a wooden floor with plastic walls looking onto a loading dock, and the kitchen hanging off the side.  Someone opens a door into the dining room.  "Want to sit in there?" the guy asks and you step into a vast gallery space.  Tables are set with hot sauce and salt, and there are seats for forty people, but every one is vacant.  The walls are high and white and lit like a museum.  Art is everywhere: fuzzy black and white photos, a blob of sculpture, cartoony drawings of hipster hairdos.  Two sherbert-colored canaries are nibbling seeds in a big cage.  Charmed, but not wanting to sit alone, you reconsider the front room and install yourself there at the coffee table by an antiquey wood stove.

It's the first real fire you've seen in a long time, and you're hypnotized by its consuming glow and by the murmur of conversation behind you.  Two men in puffy coats have come in to order take-out.  They talk about getting older and being called 'Sir.'  They leave with their food as your quesadilla arrives, a golden half-disc cut into wedges.  The cheese is oozing hot and the salsa is cold and spicy.  Black beans stick to your fingers.  It is four dollars of perfection.

The counter guy crosses the room to poke the flames and puts on another log.  You say how nice it is to warm your shins like this and he tells you how he used to light fires in his backyard.  Someone else comes in, not to eat but just to talk, and they stand at the counter discussing the artistic process and their next jobs maybe.  There's no beer so you order coffee but can't find the sugar.  Sit with your nose in your cup and stare at an oil painting of dogs.