Watertown, Mass. – In New England, sometimes it gets wicked hot in the fall.
These are those times.
I was recently explaining this to my seven-year-old, who is frustrated that Mother Nature is not cooperating with the calendar.
“Dada, why is it sooooo warrrmmmm outsideeeee?!?!”
Now, by wicked hot I mean 70 degrees, but it’s all about the temperature change.
With the warm weather here for a bit, I decided it was a good time to check out the fairly new outdoor mall, Arsenal Yards, in Watertown, Mass.
I have a friend from Watertown and she agreed to show me around in exchange for lunch and a venti triple shot pumpkin spice latte nonfat no whip.
Deal.
Arsenal is one of those newer outdoor “urban villages” w/ shopping, dining, working, people watching, dog walking and living space. It reminds me of Market Street in Lynnfield, where I recently captured a rainbow outside Davio’s on a warm and muggy night.
Side note: I will eventually explain the crazy weather and climate change to my kiddo once her attention span surpasses that of a goldfish.
My buddy Taylor and I met at City Works, a fun sports bar with walls of flat screens (think Tony C’s) and modern American food classics.
We both had the $16.00 chopped salad (Grilled chicken, romaine, iceberg, red leaf, hardwood-smoked bacon, tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, bleu cheese crumbles, avocado, sweet herb vinaigrette). It was great. I don’t know how to review food, all I can say is that the salad tasted great and I didn't get sick.
I do know a thing or two about cleanliness and this place was spotless, which is especially impressive given how large and crowded it gets on weekends.
And, the service was very good, too. I asked for one of their round booths and we were seated right away without incident.
Getting seated without incident is not something to take for granted. I used to work as the host at the now closed Chart House in Marina del Rey, Calif. Often times, celebrities would come in and sit where they want to sit. So, naturally, some of the servers would get angry with me if I over sat or under sat their section, but what do you want me to tell Florence Henderson??!?! It’s Mrs. Brady and she was so nice and she wants to sit where she wants to sit.
I didn’t test the City Works WiFi, but there was a guy with his laptop at the bar on a Zoom call. Speaking of WiFi, the service at Planet Fitness in Reading is still very bad. I was in a local Stop & Shop recently and the WiFi there was super fast. I feel a future WiFi review post coming on soon.
Back to Watertown.
Following lunch, we crossed the street and found a coffee shop called Starbucks. Unfortunately, this was not a “Dumb Starbucks” location.
It was time for Taylor to collect her beverage, the aforementioned ultra-high maintenance venti triple shot pumpkin
spice latte nonfat no whip. She got it hot, I basically got the same thing in the iced version. I will say that it was quite tasty and I had a free drink to burn on the app, so there.
Given that it was 70 degrees and sunny, we strolled around a bit and settled into some nice Adirondack chairs to people watch.
Before we get to that, Taylor had a lot to get off her chest about the Kura Revolving Sushi Bar, which opened in March 2022 and is a stone’s throw from Starbucks and City Works.
The sushi, she said, was surprisingly average. She repeated this a few times. After reading a press release about the restaurant’s opening, my gut is telling me that these people are relying way too much on selling tech vs. food.
I asked Taylor to provide a few words on this via text. As you can see, I was also initially really excited about a potential all-you-can-eat wasabi situation.
If I find myself in Watertown again, I will try out Kura and report back here.
Following some good sushi talk, we settled into our chairs in this outdoor space that looked like it could host summertime concerts. People were filling in and getting very comfortable on the green turf.
It was only 12:30ish and there was an unusual amount of people eating ice cream. I chalked it up to the nice weather and Arsenal Yards’ Ben & Jerry’s location.
We watched one lady very happily and enthusiastically inhale an ice cream cone – she had at least two scoops and aggressive licking had it down to one within five minutes – I was amazed at how fast she plowed through that thing.
Taylor was more concerned about timing and thinks noontime is way too early for ice cream, which she says is better enjoyed in the afternoon or evening. No argument here, Captain.
Our afternoon ended on a bright note - we both had ladybugs that landed on us. Taylor says that's good luck and she's not wrong, according to Google:
If a ladybug lands on you then that's very lucky. In some cultures it is believed that whatever the ladybug touches will be improved. If you see a ladybug that means good weather is near or that a person will soon have luck with love or money. If you kill a ladybug you will have bad luck.
We had a nice weather, so now comes the love and money.
Song of the Day: Snoop Dogg's "Snoopafella" from the 1999 album, Top Dogg.