From Soup To Manhattan

 Walked from our place down to the river...about 45 minutes.

 In the completely other direction...about a 20 minute bike ride from our house is a small neighbourhood called Bridgeport. It's at 31st and Morgan. About 20 blocks from us. Here is a wonderful coffee shop.

 I sat here for about two hours reading and drinking cafe au lait. I'm reading Andy Cohen's book which had me laughing out loud and other coffee shop patrons looking at me all weird. The soup tasted like "bisquits and gravy" and was crazy delicious!

Across the street from this coffeeshop is a bar called Maria's Packaged Goods..and a pastry shop specializing in meat pies.

 Aren't these light fixtures cool? They're made from brown bottles. This is Marias Packaged Goods. Packaged Goods means the bar is licensed to sell booze you can take off site. In Canada we call this "off sales and only a couple of provinces are allowed to sell booze this way.

 Maria's opened in 1986 and was renovated three years ago. It's very cozy with store you enter off the street with all kinds of beers and liquors for sale....then you walk into the next room and it's a cozy warm atmosphere and basically a classic bar. But behind that is a nice sittng room where you can have a table and bring in meat pies to have at your table from the shop next door. And if you walk even further back there is a big patio room closed in for warmth in the winter but opened again for the summer.

 I loved how they had the beer taps at Maria's...click on photo to see larger image.

 I judge a bar on an assortment of little details...one is if they have hooks under the main bar for coats and purses.

 I like to see what books are behind a bar. Back in the day bars had dictionaries and atlases...to end fights between patrons. Isn't that related to Guinness books of records? Now everybody has the internet on their phones.

I had the most delicious Manhattan at Maria's...note the very dark natural homemade marichino cherry.