Books are Magic is a great local spot for bookworms. The staff is warm and friendly with regular events happening monthly. 

The reputation of Mission Chinese Food is for being cool, weird, and extremely eccentric, which tends to mean that you either love it or hate it (an assessment that is at least somewhat correlated to your personal tolerance for spice).

A dark (and decidedly hip) bar on the LES, the only light at Beverly’s comes from the glow of its neon signage. The walls of this watering hole are lined with artwork by local artists, but only those whose art has previously been exhibited in galleries. The drinks are cheap and the music is good, and the vibes are perfect for hanging out, chatting, and maybe even getting drunk enough to start a dance party.

This is the place where I ate my first burger just 2 hours after I arrived in 'tha hood' I loved the place immediately because of the supersweet employees. And the fact that they have al this vintage machines in the place: like an old COKE machine and a cigarette machine as well as a jukebox from the sixties. The fact that they serve ALL DAY LONG BREAKFAST really made me happy, probably because I lived in Berlin before I moved here and there people are endlessly chilling and having breakfast the whole day long anyway! On wednesdays Wally organizes film evenings with funny nineties classics and on thursday evening you can eat a 5 dollar burger menu. While eating your inexpensive burger think of Wall.E.

When I first got here my peers at work made me a list of places in our neighborhood. This restaurant was one of them and it's now one of my favorite local spots. This Italian restaurant has never disappointed me so far.