For the long Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, Sam and I went to Charlottesville, VA. We left DC on a chilly Saturday morning and headed south. Some of our friends went to UVA and we’ve been wanting to explore this college town. For the latest restaurants and fun things to do, I reached out to a fellow food blogger, Kath from Kath Eats Real Food. She has a great Charlottesville page– with descriptions of places to check out.
We spent Saturday afternoon walking around the Pedestrian Mall on old Main Street.
There are many restaurants, boutiques and shops. Walking from the west to the east end, we browsed around and checked out some storefronts.
At the east end of the Pedestrian Mall there is a Charlottesville Community Chalkboard:
The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression was created so members of the public may express their views on any subject that they choose.
I have yet to see a spot like this anywhere else, so it was cool to check out and read what others have written!
Our first stop was Skybar.
We wanted to check out Commonwealth (the connected restaurant below) but it wasn’t going to open for another 30 minutes. So we walked upstairs to find a covered bar (with heaters), I’d love to hang out at this place when the weather is nice. Both of us tried new beers, shared a cured meats plate and some truffled fries:
This is a Blue Mountain Kolsch from Afton, Virginia. Both of us really liked it, so the next time we’re in the area we’ll definitely have to visit this brewery.
The next place we checked out was Miller’s, it’s known for Dave Matthews starting his band- Dave Matthews Band– while working here as a bartender.
It’s a great dive bar, with a large beer menu (this is only 1 side of the list):
There are many choices, one of the one’s we tried was:
It’s Sixpoint Craft Ales brewery from Brooklyn, and they have a number of different beers. If you ever see it on a beer list- definitely give this one a try!
And to fill us up, we got a giant nacho plate- although it was the 1/2 order (also known as the 54 1/2 nachos). I’m glad we didn’t order the bigger one, since we didn’t finish this one!
By then we were tired after a long day, and decided to head to our hotel.
Good-bye Miller’s!
In the next post we’ll share what we did on Sunday…
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