My heart goes out to Grand Avenue. Come alive. Please, please come alive. There are such great little spots sprinkled throughout and I think Paisley Violin is my favorite. I've been there a couple times. Once at night while there was a band there, which was cool. I felt kinda bummed that time cause I had no idea they didn't serve alcohol, but I did find out that they were byob. The band was cool. Food is good. Tea is good.
I went during the day recently and had a really good lunch and was able to have a really chill lunch meeting. Our waitor for lunch was super friendly, helpful, and had a good pulse on when to check in and when not to.
The best part was afterwards we walked out back and the woman I was meeting with asked if I knew about the small houses/cottages out back. Apparently, they are cottages from the Japanese Internment Camps in California. And they were some of the larger ones for families. The man who had invested in the project (I guess the owner of Paisley came up with the idea and pitched it to this guy) led us around and told us about the space and how they were going to be renting them to artists. Kind of cool, I thought...cause in some ways incredibly dark and reminiscent of something horrible...but at the same time...a way to kind of capture and convert that energy and remind people of the atrocities that have been committed when motivated solely by fear rather than logic and reason.