Downtown Asheville

June 11, 2013

We had the morning on our own, so we went downtown to explore.  We left early and ate breakfast downtown at the Early Girl Eatery.  It was a casual, laid back place with lots of organic and natural foods that included meats.  Looked like part of the employment requirements included tattoos and/or piercings!  But, everyone was very nice and the food was quite good.

Early Girl Eatery

After that, we spent hours walking around downtown.     There are many historic buildings that have been saved and lots of historic markers.  Seems that there are many condos and apartments above the retail areas with many mini-parks scattered about.  

A dog friendly city!

An interesting sign caught our eye!

One of the beautiful buildings is the Grove Arcade.  In addition to the millionaires Vanderbuilt and Pack, Edwin Grove made a fortune selling Grove's Tasteless Chill Tonic.  He built the Grove Park Inn, and also built the Grove Arcade - a public market downtown in 1929.  It has been restored and now houses retail, offices and residences.

Grove Arcade - street view

                         The Grove Arcade - inside view.

Street art - grape vine with grape clusters made of basketballs!

More street art - cat on a pole

After some more exploring, it was lunch time. We found a small cafe, Chestnut, and it turned out to be another winner.  A little more upscale than the others (no tattoos or piercings that I could tell), but very good food.  We've either gotten lucky, or there are a lot of good restaurants in downtown Asheville!  We then had a dessert coffee from a very unique coffee bar -  the Double D.  This is not a reference to the chest size of the waitress, but rather to the double decker bus it was housed in.  It is an old London bus turned into a coffee bar!  From there we returned to the hotel for an afternoon tech session talking about building engines. After a short rest, it was time for dinner and another trip downtown.  One of the places we were looking for was out of business so we walked around and found a place that looked good - The Southern Kitchen and Bar.  The outdoor seating area was packed, but the inside was empty!  So, we ate inside and tried some unique items on the menu and both were excellent.  We walked around a little more and eventually made it back to the hotel after a long day.  Tomorrow is the big show, so will get up early to clean all the road grime off of the car.  Weather today was beautiful and tomorrow is supposed to be more of the same.  Stay tuned.

Double decker bus coffee shop (with panhandler parked in front)