Nifty Thrifty NYC: Beacon’s Closet

Tags

Beacon's Closet, Chelsea, Clothing, Manhattan, Park Slope, Second Hand, Thrift Store, Union Square, Vintage, Williamsburg

So you want to go shopping in NYC, but you’re looking for a bargain. What should you do? Of course, you can always keep a look out for sample sales (Chelsea Market, Clothingline, and Racked NY are great resources to find information about sample sales), but if you don’t want to wait for the biannual J. Crew or Theory sample sales, head on over to Beacon’s Closet, an upscale second-hand clothing store. Whatever your style is, Beacon’s Closet has something for you.

With a little digging through the racks upon racks of second hand and brand new items, you can find reasonably priced treasures to take home. I picked up these leather gladiator-ish sandals at Beacon’s last weekend for $20! I can’t wait to wear them during the summer.

Prices: Beacon’s Closet is a little more pricy than Buffalo Exchange, but a pair of FRYE boots for $40 still sounds like a bargain to me.

Locations? Hours? Click on the picture below for more information.

Stumptown Coffee, it’s everywhere!

Tags

63Bites, Balthazar Bakery, Brooklyn, Cafe Pedlar, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Coffee, Crespella, Manhattan, NYC, Park Slope, Stand & Deliver, Stumptown, The Roots Cafe, Upper West Side, Williamsburg

Stumptown coffee (Ace Hotel, brewed in Red Hook BK) has overtaken Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs. As rumors run wild of a new Stumptown coffee shop opening in Manhattan, be sure to check out the links below to find the cafe offering Stumptown nearest to you so you too can know what the fuss is all about.

Cafe Pedilar-210 Court Street, (Cobble Hill) Brooklyn, NY

Good for: work, study, rest, coffee with friends, meetings.

Balthazar Bakery, 80 Spring St. (SoHo), NYC

Good for: grab n’ go (and you can buy the Stumptown Balthazar blend with your credit card and not just cash like you do at the Ace Hotel).

63Bites-5 W. 63rd St (UWS), NYC

Good for: grab n’ go

Crespella-321 7th Ave (Park Slope) BK

Good for: grab a crape and coffee, sit for a few minutes, then go.

Roots Cafe– 639A 5th Ave (Park Slope) BK

Good for: kicking your feet up and reading/hanging out for a while, it’s a good spot to work, meet up friends, and relax.

Stand & Deliver cart-70 N. 7th St. (Williamsburg), BK

Good for: grab n’ go

Roots Cafe, Park Slope

Tags

Brooklyn, Coffee, latte, Life Music, Park Slope, Roots Cafe

Roots Cafe: 19th street and 5th Ave just east of Prospect Park.

Before I got a big-girl job at SMG, I worked retail in every girl’s heaven: Anthropologie. Even though I didn’t take home much of my paycheck, I loved the job and got to know my HR manager, Randi, fairly well. Randi and her husband Jamey are passionate about community, coffee, food, music, and Brooklyn. The fruit of their love produced Roots Cafe, a venue for all of the above.   Super community cafe feel, more of something you might find in a smaller town. When you step into Roots, you feel like you’ve stepped out of NYC. Gluten free and vegan options. Roots is a really cutesy place with mismatched furniture and artwork, memorabilia, and random objects are placed all over the walls, turning them into a giant collage.

How do I get there? Take the R to Prospect Ave and walk two blocks south.

What I love: You can grab a colorful mug from the rack on the left wall and have the barista make your drink in it!

Price: Bring some cash (or a card for purchases over $5) and you’ll pay $4 for a latte, $2.5 for a cup of coffee, or $7 for a sandwich, so pretty much the usual.

Wi-Fi? Yes! You van stay here as long as you’d like: it’s a cozy place to write, draw, read a book, meet up with friends, have an informal meeting, or just relax.

Live music and BYOB every Wednesday @7p and Friday @8p.

Music Monday: Fleet Foxes Sing

Tags

Animal, Blue Ridge Mountains, Bon Iver, Brooklyn, Cover, cover band, Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes Sing, hipster, I Wanna Dance With Somebody, James Blake, Mike Snow, New York, Park Slope, Rihanna, Ruthie Bird, We Found Love, Whitney Houston

Animal (Mike Snow Cover), Fleet Foxes Sing

We Found Love (Rihanna Cover), Fleet Foxes Sing

The weather in NYC is amazing. I can’t believe it…is it really February? Mild weekend weather always means an adventure, so yesterday, I HAD to explore. I’m a firm believer in the idea that life must have a soundtrack, so before I left my Harlem apartment for Brooklyn, I found some music to add to my “walking through Prospect Park” playlist. While I was perusing some of my favorite music blogs, I came across the band Fleet Foxes Sing.  No, this isn’t the famous indie/folk band Fleet Foxes that has overtaken hipster playlists, but a group of musicians who borrow (or steal?!) the Fleet Foxes’ signature sound and smother top-40 hits like Rihanna’s We Found Love and Mike Snow’s Animal, indietastic anthems like Bon Iver’s Holocene and James Blake’s The Wilhelm Scream, and a musical tribute to Whitney Houston thrown in for good measure. These soaring harmonies and wispy melodies sound exactly like the Fleet Foxes and makes the heart long to sing the blues among the thick, leafy foliage of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Is it weird? Does it work? You decide. Check ’em out:

Almondine, Park Slope

Tags

7th Ave, Almond Croissant, Almondine, Brooklyn, Cafe, Coffee, espresso, Fresh Bread, La Bergamote, latte, Macaroon, Park Slope, wifi

What is it? A quaint bakery on 9th street between 6th and 7th avenues (closer to 7th Ave) in Park Slope, Brooklyn. When my parents came to town over Thanksgiving we spent a Saturday in Prospect Park, then explored the brownstones on Carroll Street and strolled until we found our way to Almondine for an afternoon conversation over pastries and coffee.

How do I get there? Take the F or G to 7th Ave (Brooklyn).

What to order? These Macaroon’s are 4x the size of the ones at Laudree on the Upper East Side and I think they taste 10x better! Lattes are delicious, but sort of expensive ($4), all breads are exceptional and made fresh daily. The almond croissants at Almondine give the ones at La Bergamote a run for their money!

WiFi: Yes! Just open your laptop/iPad/iPhone and you’re good to go.

Sit down and stay awhile, there’s a fireplace, comfy couches, and several tables inside and outside to enjoy. Ambience: it’s quiet and not crowded inside. The walls are brick and crisp white, floors are a dark chestnut. The background is the biggest drawback to the place: the soundtrack is usually a top-40’s stream. The place would be better suited for Jazz or Easy Listening.

Cafe Grumpy, Park Slope

Tags

Adventure, Brookyln, Cafe Grumpy, Coffee, NYC, Park Slope

One sunny Sunday afternoon, my friend Greg and I went on an adventure to Park Slope, Brooklyn. We grabbed our MetroCards and swiped them through the Harold Square station to take the Q train to 7th Ave. Once in Brooklyn, we walked through Grand’s Army Plaza, all over Prospect Park, and soon found ourselves on 7th Ave right in front of a small shop with black exterior and a gray face that was frowning on the outside window. It was Cafe Grumpy, and of course, we had to go in.

Price: $ (from $2-$12)

WiFi: None, but there are newspapers to read and people to watch, if you’re up for it. Don’t bring your laptop, there is a strict “no laptop” policy.

Food: Minimal pastries

Locations: Four of ’em: 224 W. 20th St. (Btw 7th & 8th Ave), 13 Essex St (Lower East Side), 383 7th Ave (Park Slope), 193 Meserole Ave (Greenpoint).

Hours: Mon-Thurs 7am-7:30pm
Friday 7am-8pm
Saturday 7:30am-8pm
Sunday 7:30am-7:30pm

Tips: Order a latte. Also, if you feel like splurging, go for the $12 cup of Ethiopian coffee, hear-say says it’s to die for.

A beautiful Steven Weinberg painting now hangs in the Park Slope cafe, so take the F over the river, grab a cup of coffee (or two), pine for Weinburg’s mountainous landscape, then take a walk to Prospect Park.  That sounds like a perfect day to me!