Union Square Night Out

May is a tough month for me.  There's a lot of school stress.  You've got MCAS prep, then the test, and then trying to keep kids focused even though it seems like the year is over.  And my calendar is always completely packed with contests, recitals, meetings, ballets, etc.  Throw in an unexpected house guest and some last minute plans and May got out of hand real fast.  These things are all fun (except maybe the meetings) but it leaves little in the way of free time or even time to do school work and life work.  JO is pretty good at recognizing when May is beating me down and intervening with city fun!

On one Monday night in May JO suggested we skip climbing and head to Union Square to grab a patio table for dinner.  It was a beautiful night so this was an easy choice for me.  We were lucky to get a table at The Independent.  They have a great patio.  It's enclosed by a pretty high wooden fence.  This blocks out all of the street noise from Somerville Ave and really makes you feel like you are away from everything.  I was disappointed they took the steak salad of their menu (this was our go to item) but they've done a nice job with their menu so it was easy to find something to eat.  We even enjoyed some oysters!

After dinner we both decided to keep the night going so we headed over to the Bow Market.  We'd been wanting to check this place out since it opened a few weeks prior.  The developers describe the place as, "Once a storage building, Bow Market provides small scale storefronts to established and aspiring food vendors, retailers, and artists from Somerville and Greater Boston."  Since it had just opened a lot of the storefronts are still empty but we did check out Remnant Brewing since they had a nice patio.  The indoor space is pretty nice too with lots of seating and a nice industrial feel.

Remnant Brewing is taking part in the new trend (which I wholeheartedly approve of) of being a coffee shop by day and taproom by night.  I also love the fact that you can bring your own food.  We each got a beer and sat on the patio relaxing.  The beers were pretty good and we both agreed that we would go back.  We also joked that we would probably never be able to get back on the patio becuase everyone would find out about this place.

On the walk home we passed Gracie's Ice Cream and couldn't resist stopping in for a toasted fluff cone!  I never get ice cream cones but the fluff cone is delicious!




The whole evening was relaxing, delicious, and a nice dose of city life in an otherwise crazy month.