Tim "Back in the US, the US, the US--" S.'s Profile

Very good! Quirkier than strictly necessary but they've got a good product delivered in a fun atmosphere with great aesthetics and service.

The restaurant interior looks like Money Was Spent and it makes a great first impression; the big, sunny, open space with brightly colored lamps and furniture is comfortable and inviting. The drip coffee is good but unexceptional. The pancakes seem kind of uneven, listening to other reviews here -- they slid our table a free pineapple 'cake and it was amazing. My red-velvet-&-espresso pancakes weren't as exciting. Maybe the latter just had less butter? It's a possibility! The cream cheese frosting really made them; I didn't pick up on the espresso flavor. Everyone else at the table had one of the several eggs benedict variants and gave them a single thumbs up. We all left satisfied, if not entirely overwhelmed.

I don't want to say the waiters were wearing "costumes" as such but I'm sure they all change before they go home. (Capes and sequined party hats: not in style.) They looked SuuPer-WackKy-Fun!!!!  and were rockin' out to the music as they walked away from tables, etc. But that was about the extent of the hokiness; our waitress had an apparently sincere 1200 W smile and treated us like perfectly reasonable grownups. (I was a little afraid baby talk was going to be involved.)

It's a fun place to take friends; I'd go back.

If you've ever been to Southern California you've already been to, at minimum, five or six of these restaurants. There's no escaping them -- the half-assed Applebees clones that throw a half-assed brewing operation on the side as a differentiation strategy and call it a day. But if everybody's doing it -- and everybody is -- and if everyone's doing it badly -- and they are -- it ain't so differentiating anymore, am I right?

The food is basically edible but tremendously uninspired. There's maybe a hint of creativity in (I can't believe I'm saying this) the corny asides on the menu, and I'm sorry to report that's about as good as it gets. The Ahi tuna steak sandwich was a waste of a good fish, seasoned aggressively and drowned in a mediocre bun with bland burger fixin's. The shoestring fries are just okay, mostly because they've apparently been packed in salt; the steak fries reminded me of my high school's cafeteria version. The mac & beer cheese side (with a pile of diced, raw supermarket tomatoes on top?) and the ale & cheese soups are coronaries in a dish -- avoid them if you value your arteries; they're just not worth it. The one exciting visual presentation of the evening was the cowboy burger, which came with two gigantic onion rings between the buns -- but that just ended up being impractical. The beers were, I guess, fine. Service was spotty -- nothing grossly incompetent, but just slightly frustrating throughout.

There must be better options.

A cute neighborhood shop. Good for bagel sandwiches & espresso.

The first thing I noticed about Purple is the friendly neighborhood vibe. I walked in around 10 on a weekday and there was a woman with a couple of kids at one table and some old men in shorts shooting the breeze outside. It's definitely not a study hall but you could enjoy some relative quiet at a table in the back.

Service was friendly; my latte was alright but unremarkable. (Don't expect none of that precision-foamed artisinal craft latte shit, here in PB.) Foodwise, I didn't see much of a bakery spread, but they have a sandwich selection. The pesto bagel was tasty but fragile (I dumped scrambled pesto eggs all over my table) and not cheap.

I'm not sure I'd order the drip coffee. It sits in big urns next to the register. One of them is flavored. Bad signs.

Overall? Satisfying, with room for improvement.

I went here to ship packages to my new address in the US. The woman behind the counter who helped me out was friendly and professional and I was in & out with time to spare.

But when I received the packages on the other end of my move, it turned out that both the street number of my new address *and* the phone number I provided for the package were miskeyed -- it's a lucky thing that a resourceful FedEx driver figured out where the packages were supposed to be going, or I'd be knee-deep in a world of hassle right now.

Attention to detail, folks! Ask to see the labels before they go on your boxes!

Yessssssss. This airy, spacious Gaoler's Mews shop is exactly what I've been looking for now that Wicked (my former go-to cafe) closed up shop. Coffeebar has pretty seriously good coffee, is open late (!!), has gorgeous aesthetics, friendly Wifi policies, and plenty of power points, and is big enough that there's room for me to camp out for a while without feeling too guilty about it. I don't mind taking a gander at the rest of the clientele none, either (or the folk at Caya next door), and it's a great excuse to spend some time in Gastown. And when Nelson the Seagull turns out to be closed, which seems to happen more or less at will, Coffeebar is an *entirely* acceptable backup. There's plenty of space to lock bikes up in front or out back, in the Gaoler's Mews walkway.

Downsides? The food is just acceptable; the sandwich and pasta selections are limited and nothing to write home about... they don't have a "prepared on site" vibe. (On the other hand, you're in the middle of Gastown: other options abound if you want to dodge out for a bite.) And the baristas aren't there to make friends. But you could do much worse for a little bit of mobile office space & a latte.

Reasonably tasty cheesecakes, non-extortionate prices, they try hard on atmosphere (love the live music), but -- both times I've been -- easily the worst dining service experiences of my life. Waitstaff were impossible to flag down and were juggling the orders all wrong; plates were being sent to the wrong tables. I don't know, should it take half an hour to bring a slice of cheesecake out? Probably not, right? Plus, tons of big giggling groups of students on a night out.

Ultimately just not that special. It's a unique concept, but if you had up to Broadway and grab the matcha creme brulee at Suika you won't be disappointed (and you'll find a better drink selection).

So Carolina-style BBQ is a thing with me. Summer trips down the coast to North Carolina's Outer Banks beaches were a cherished part of my upbringing in the American mid-Atlantic and, let me tell you, they know how to do up a pig. So I was pretty excited to hear about Peckinpah opening up in my favorite 'hood. Don't get me wrong: Memphis Blues ain't bad, but the thin, vinegar-based Carolina-style sauce does a number on the thick, smoky, tomato-based Memphis version every time.

Does Peckinpah pass the test? Well: it's at least West Coast good, which ain't bad, but if you want to eat like you're *from* here, there's some things y'all need to know.

HOW TO EAT BBQ AT PECKINPAH like you mean it:
1. Pulled pork sandwich with hushpuppies. You don't even need the menu.
2. While you wait, you'll notice that your table has two sauce bottles: one says "BBQ sauce" and the other says "vinegar sauce." It's a trap. Ignore the red "BBQ" sauce; it is a false prophet and will lead you astray from the path of righteousness.
3. Your sandwich will, oddly, arrive dry. Flip it over and pull off the bottom bun. Grab the vinegar sauce and douse the pork like you're putting out a giant, delicious pork fire.
4. You think you're done? That pork fire's still smolderin' pretty good there.
5. Did I tell you to stop? You want some flavor in there or what?
6. -- All right, there, that looks pretty good. Put the bun back on.
7. Enjoy!

Bevvies at Peckinpah are solid, if not strictly authentic. I can't believe that they don't have a proper sweet tea -- iced tea with so much sugar it makes your teeth hurt a little -- or maybe some bottles of Cheerwine. The excellent bourbon selection (a Tennessee concoction) is a little out of character for a Carolina-style pig place, but surely there's no pleasure to insisting on tradition there. Me, I like to wash my sandwich down with a draft microbrew.

Good food, great atmosphere, friendly service, has hushpuppies. Will happily visit again.

Upscale decor and reasonably priced, but lousy pizza. The cheese tasted like it was Tombstone-quality and the crust, instead of celebrating its whole-grain heartiness, had all the interest of a crispy piece of cardboard. I probably got what was coming to me, ordering an artichoke and tomato pizza in the depths of winter, but I'll bet you money that the ingredients don't taste any fresher in summer. Service was weird and abrupt: they tended to disappear when we wanted them and re-appear when we didn't. And switched at least once.

Is it sad that my advice for the pizza joint is to not order the pizza? Because it doesn't compete with Megabite on taste, though it's a considerably nicer place to sit around at with a friend and a few beers.

Dawww. WHO'S the cutest little airport!? Is it YOU!? Is it YOU, Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport!? With your single baggage carousel, five (or maybe even six!?) gates, and your single-lane security screening checkpoint -- YES IT IS! It IS you, the cutest widdle airport. Come and get a belly rub.

Everything about CHO is kind of surprisingly pleasant. The terminal is new, gorgeous, and spotless, with the nicer bits done in the neotraditional Virginian style you might recognize from some of the flashier area vineyards (which, do take the time to tour a few, if you're visiting from afar). It's serious business: I'm talking complete with a rotunda inscribed with a gilded-inlay Thomas Jefferson quote, here. (Awwwww yeahhhh.) And, like P G. and Frederick L. mentioned, the glass wall in the gate waiting area facing out to the runway offers an expansive view of the Blue Ridge that registers somewhere between "beautiful" and "stunning" on a clear morning. It's almost enough to tear even me away from the free WiFi long enough to take in a leisurely gaze. And forget about long lineups, at least until you get to Dulles or ATL: in my five-ish trips through CHO so far, I don't think I've ever seen a queue more than five people deep. It's a pretty low-stress place; folks are friendly and happy to help.

But what, you say? Only four stars? Yeah, sorry, CHO. My connecting flight options are usually on a Saab 340 turboprop to Dulles or a Canadair jet to ATL, and I hate ATL only slightly more than I hate Saab 340's, which, in each case, is to say: a lot. I know, poor baby me, but it's rough to start the day bein' shaken like a Polaroid picture with the angry drone of a thousand hell-hornets crashing through my skull. The flight to IAD is so short I'm not even sure it's legal to use an iPod to drown it out. Plus it kills me to see an airport anywhere without public transit connections, and the downside of the short security queue is that the TSA folks seem to feel obligated to use every single one of their toys on me every time I walk through. Don't see many laptops and (empty!) steel water bottles out here, or what, guys? To be fair, they're pretty good-natured about it and it's not like I'm ever really in a hurry here (I can see the plane, and it ain't going nowhere) but it's always uncomfortable being under the microscope. And you should bring back the awesome "Where's Barb?" blog.

Pro tip: get a sandwich from the convenience store while you're waiting to board. I know they don't look like much (I will even forgive you for wrinkling your nose at the label advising you that they're from a gas station just a jog down 29) but they're, no lie, pretty seriously good.

Updates! Since I wrote my last review, Wicked and I have been getting along much better: I've found more excuses to do some weekend laptopping, the indoor temperature's moderated, and they've stopped closing on arbitrary Sundays. Huzzah!

Big change: as of this week the Clovers are no more. The girls behind the counter say they were getting too cantankerous and expensive to maintain. While it's true that, as Lauren pointed out, good coffee is good coffee no matter how you brew it, the illusion of choice was always satisfying. ;) My drip cup today was excellent, though, so I've no complaints, I guess!

I've been given to understand that the sandwich menu's undergone some considerable upheaval over the last few weeks, so your favorite sandwich might not be there anymore. Everything I've had has been good, though.

Wicked downtown ends up being a particularly good place to get some work done on weekends. Wifi's solid and the shop doesn't fill up like the ones in Kits and Fairview do, so I don't feel guilty camping for a few hours. It's definitely my favorite shop in downtown. Do get the waffles.