The patio at Karen's Bakery Cafe on a recent noontime was sunny and warm and a great place to hang. It's surrounded by flowers, small trees and the increasing charm of historic Folsom, and there's a calm feel from just being somewhere bright and comfortable.

My friend and lunch partner, Jolaine Collins, was telling my why she was partial to this spot – not that it wasn't obvious – when Mary Ann McAlea of the Folsom Tourism Bureau walked up. The two had leftover business and made a phone date.

That's about when owner Karen Holmes wandered over.

"If you hug me," she warned, "I smell like a chimney. I've been smoking a turkey."

Collins looked back at me.

"That's another thing," Collins said. "If you sit here for a while, everyone in Folsom comes by."

Karen's is one of those crossroads spots in this region that become backbones for their neighborhoods or communities. They emerge because of location, or the setting, the food, the service, or sometimes from sheer momentum.

Whatever the reason, they're places seemingly everyone passes through at some point. And they're more than just habits. They're real-world versions of Facebook that carry and create local chatter, forward social or business connections, and just give people a safe place to sit for a while.

They're all over, and include spots like Bella Bru on Fair Oaks Boulevard in the Five Points area, which on any weekend morning is filled with neighbors, runners, walkers and cyclists. There's the Starbucks in Gold River, Tower Cafe on Broadway, the outdoor tables in the Rocky Ridge Town Center in Roseville during good weather. All crossroads.

But there may not be a place that is a better fit, and more the beating heart of the surrounding community, than Karen's is for old town Folsom.

Usually that sort of connection is happenstance, but in this case it's directly because of the creativity and efforts – the seriously tireless work ethic – and the earnest hominess, smoky turkey smells and all, of Karen Holmes.

"What I wanted," she said the other day, "was for people to feel like they were coming over to my house and to just be comfortable. It's casual and relaxed. People do business, but it's not filled with business suits.

"We get cyclists, runners, friends running into friends, and people coming in to see their neighbors. Jim Pelley can hold court here."

It's true. Pelley is one of the founders of Folsom Lake Bank, which is just up a short street from Karen's, and he's a guy involved with a lot of doings around Folsom. Maybe most important, he launched the Karen's Bakery Facebook fan page.

"I kept telling Karen to have one of the kids working here make one, but she waved me off. Finally I did it," Pelley said over lunch a week ago at, of course, Karen's. "I just put it up and left it. By the end of the day there were 40 fans."

So here's a business person, though, possibly the world's least "businessy" business person – Pelley also teaches Laughter Works seminars on using laughs to make a better workplace – who comes to Karen's to connect.

"It's perfect as a meeting place," he said. "It feels like you're in Karen's living room."

Not in look, but in feel. The look is all cafe – open, airy with lots of windows, and food cases filled with unique salads, sandwiches and, best of all, baked goods. Oh, the baked goods.

Holmes' culinary background includes her years as a pastry chef for Rick Mahan at the former Folsom Paragary's and The Waterboy. That explains the pastries.

Clearly, if she's smoking turkeys, she can handle savory foods, too. After The Waterboy, Holmes opened a catering business in Orangevale in 2000, and moved it in 2003 to this spot on Leidesdorff Street because she saw the crossroads potential near an entrance to the American River bike trail and on one end of Historic Folsom.

"We're so lucky to be where we are," Holmes said. "The city is putting a lot of energy into this district. It's going to be charming, charming, charming."

So first, yes, Holmes is an enthusiastic person. She's also right. Historic Folsom already rates at least one "charming." Going there, even for work reasons, is a tiny holiday. Those blocks have a this-place-is-an-escape sensibility.

And it's blooming. There are a few new wine bars and pubs, there are restaurants, and the core stretch on Sutter Street has become more than a lineup of antique and crafts stores. There's a new parking lot, plans to open up Sutter Street, and some energizing commercial developments in the works.

Will all the coming options make Karen's any less a gathering spot? Hard to believe they will, and surely not if you go by the Lincoln Hills Cyclists.

That's a club of bicyclists living in Sun City Lincoln Hills who've made a weekly 50-mile round-trip ride to Karen's for the past four years. More than a dozen people make the ride, stopping to refuel at Karen's.

"We've tried other places along the way. They're not as good," said club president Steve Valeriote. "Have you tried her pastries?"

Call The Bee's Rick Kushman, (916) 321-1187. Listen to him Tuesdays at 8:40 a.m. on NewsTalk 1530 (KFBK).