There’s no easy way to Union Square, but the Sherman Café makes the ramble through Somerville worthwhile: even a Tuesday evening here has the slowness and simplicity of a Sunday morning. You can tell the moment you walk in that this is a place where people linger, where they come with newspapers, books, and laptops in the morning, and drink coffee and eat sandwiches or scones until well into the afternoon. On a recent Tuesday evening, a girl was curled up on one of the couches, reading, her sandals kicked off on the floor; an empty mug on the table looked long since finished. Another couch usually sits on a platform by the front window, but right now the space is filled with a tangle of toy tanks and plastic guns surrounded by sandbags, part of the Somerville Windows Art Project, which runs through mid October. But even the weapons and war toys don’t detract from the calm. The stereo plays old blues — Robert Johnson, maybe, or Blind Lemon Jefferson. On a recent Sunday, it was Elliott Smith.

Husband-and-wife team Ben Dryer and Karyn Coughlin own and run the place, but the Sherman is not their first shared effort: they founded the Onion-esque newspaper the Weekly Week, and articles with headlines like GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM OPENS NEW MUSEUM IN SAUGUS and MAD SCIENTISTS SEEK ONLY ACCEPTANCE, WORLD DOMINATION serve as wallpaper in the café’s bathroom. Unlike a great many coffee shops, the Sherman, which opened in January, is without pretense. Floor-to-ceiling shelves line one wall, and the cabinets behind the counter look as if they might hold cereal and soup, just like in your kitchen at home. From the counter and from certain seats, you can peer into the kitchen, where everything besides the bread is made from scratch — muffins, scones, cookies, brownies, biscotti. The Sherman uses almost entirely local, all-natural, and organic ingredients without making a fuss about it. No big deal, it’s just the way they do things there. The ice cream comes from Toscanini’s, the wireless Internet is free, and the coffee, as the menu notes, is cheaper than at Dunkin’ Donuts ($1/$1.40/$1.80).

There are 11 kinds of fancy-sounding sandwiches, but it’s the good old egg salad, with or without bacon (better to opt for it; $3.25/half; $5.25/whole), that stands out. The menu has certainly mastered flavor combinations, like the pressed Gruyère, caramelized onions, and mustard ($3.75; $6.25); the PLT — pancetta, lettuce, tomato — with pesto mayo ($3.75; $6.25); or the Somerville caprese with mozzarella, tomato, basil, and black-olive tapenade ($3.75; $6.25). But at the risk of sounding greedy, the kitchen could stand to be a little more liberal with the fillings; thick bread can overwhelm the flavors. The combination of half a sandwich and a salad (go with the beet and goat cheese) or soup ($6.35) makes the perfect lunch.

The Sherman Café, located at 257 Washington Street, in Somerville, is open Monday through Friday, from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., and on Saturday and Sunday, from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Call (617) 776-4944.