Sugar Rush Cafe in Newark

2 B Spicy sandwich and buffalo chicken baked potato from Sugar Rush Cafe. (Credit: Jessica Bratton)

Lunchers on Main Street in Newark have a new spot to work into the rotation -- if they know it's there. Sugar Rush Cafe is just off of Main Street, on Chapel Street, behind Santa Fe.

Walking in, you'd never know that during my college years, we used to gather in this same spot for our late-night, post-bar, dough-and-cheese fix at D.P. Dough. Now, a set of mosaic tables and chairs sit outside the door, and inside it smells of coffee instead of calzones. There are several small tables, along with a large wooden table that almost invites people to sit at it and get to know each other.

The menu has all the basics you'd expect at a sandwich and salad spot -- the chicken caesar salad ($7.95), the turkey club ($7.35), the panini with grilled chicken, fresh mozzarella, tomato and pesto ($7.55). Other menu items go beyond the basics.

Instead of the chicken caesar salad, try the Arizona caesar salad ($7.95), that spices up plain grilled chicken. Or go with the Norwegian salmon salad ($8.55), a bed of greens topped with smoked salmon, roasted red peppers, red onion, tomatoes, Parmesan cheese and a balsamic vinaigrette.

Roast pork is paired with jack cheese, honey mustard and greens in their porket sandwich ($7.35). One of their more intriguing paninis was the artichoke prosciutto ($8.25), prosciutto and provolone with tomato, marinated artichokes and balsamic dressing.

The first sandwich our lunch bunch tried was the 2 B Spicy panini ($7.55). Spicy chicken, plum tomatoes, roasted red peppers, onions, blue cheese crumbles and a homemade cajun sauce came in between two pieces of crisply grilled bread. The spice was present, but not overwhelming on this tasty (but messy) sandwich.

Next up was the Monte Carlo ($7.55), piled high with roasted turkey breast, provolone cheese, greens and tomatoes, then drizzled with caesar dressing. The turkey was juicy and the caesar dressing added a welcome jolt to the sandwich. It came, however, on a regular roll instead of the sun-dried tomato roll that the menu description included.

The maple smoked ham sandwich ($7.95) was another simple, but delicious sandwich. The roll was filled with generous amounts of ham, bold asiago cheese and honey mustard. The honey mustard was dressing style, rather than like the French's honey mustard, which is what I prefer.

I had the Sugar Rush cobb salad ($8.25), a blend of greens topped with grilled chicken, bacon, asiago cheese, tomatoes, avocado and fat free Italian vinaigrette.

All of the components of the salad were fresh and nice and cold just like I like my salads. But even though we were eating in, my salad was served in a metal take-out container, which made cutting and mixing up the salad more difficult than necessary.

There are also baked potatoes on the menu, and we tried the buffalo chicken potato ($4.95). The spud was loaded with spicy chicken, tomato and cheddar cheese, and was a welcome departure from the average lunch. It was good, though slightly undercooked, and therefore not as soft as it could be.

You'd expect a place called the Sugar Rush Cafe to have plenty of desserts, and they deliver. A refrigerator case was filled with a variety of cakes and pies. The cake we tried had a center that tasted like banana bread, with chocolate cake and mousse on either side -- a sweet ending to a satisfying lunch.

Insider tips:

Cheap lunch

If you're stopping in for lunch on a weekday, between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., you can get a combination of two of the soup, salad or half a sandwich for $4.95.

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