About Town

In a recent blog post, my colleague Steve Fennessy weighs in that despite new museums and civic boosterism, Downtown still isn't the place you want to be come nightfall.

Perhaps, but it's not such a bad place to be come five o'clock, thanks in large part to redevelopment on either side of Ivan Allen Boulevard. Here are three particularly great after-work options in Downtown's northern corridor:

1. Marquee Tuesdays at FAB (French American Brasserie). This one lasts as long as you do. Every Tuesday from 5 p.m. to 12 a.m., enjoy complimentary rooftop hors d'oeuvres, $5 Lychee Goose Martinis, and $4 Kronenbourg 1664 beer. A DJ spins until 2 a.m—pretty ambitious for the second day of the workweek.

2. Sushi and Sips at Room at Twelve, Thursdays from 5 to 10 p.m. This one comes with dinner. For $12 you get "first-tier" wine, draft beer, or house sake along with a sushi roll and two pieces of nigiri or sashimi. Haven't had your salad yet? Order a cucumber mintini, carrot gingerini, red pepper mojitotini, celery & honeydew martini, or some combination thereof.

3. If beer and pizza is your pairing of choice, you'll warmly welcome the new flagship location of Mellow Mushroom, opening this month in the base of Twelve Centennial Park. (As of today, MM HQ projects a "mid July" opening.) While I've no doubt the high-profile, two-story dining space is aimed at hungry tourists, surely the 1,800-square-foot patio was designed with the thirsty after-work crowd in mind. I'm already salivating for a tall, cool Budweiser and some of that exquisite Parmesan-dusted crust.

Love it or hate it, the maxi dress is the trend of the summer. It's in every boutique window from Downtown to Duluth—which I can tell you because I've been to every single one of them in the past month (long story). Personally, I love it. It's as low maintenance as they come, and it's feminine in an earth-mother, goddess sort of way, quite unlike its Lolita counterpart, the mini dress.

I've actually been admiring the maxi dress for a couple of seasons now, as it's nothing new for the women of Miami—which I can tell you because Miami is my home away from home (my boyfriend is in grad school there). The look is equal parts chic and beachy, just like the people of Miami. Which got me thinking: What other style lessons have I learned from that beautiful, bronzed populace? To name a few:

-Long hair is always sexier than short hair. For a while I tried channeling Cameron Diaz circa There's Something About Mary (set in Miami), but I felt like a pariah amongst all the gorgeous, flowing South Beach tresses.

-Never underestimate the power of a pair of oversized hoop earrings to spice up an outfit. It's one of the eighties' only lasting fashion contributions.

-White (clothing) + tan (skin) = red hot

-Straight guys, the road to dressing well starts with a nice, and nicely fitting, pair of jeans.

I could supply a list of Miami-inspired "don'ts" (tight capris, banana hammocks, etc.), but that's another blog post.

In the meantime, if you're interested in acquiring today's highlighted trend, I've spotted especially cute ones at Adrene Boutique (242 Peters Street, 404-688-8876), Fashion Cafe (2140 Peachtree Road, 404-355-0730), and Sage (37 West Paces Ferry Road, 404-233-8280; 1245 Peachtree Street, 404-815-0555, sageclothing.com). Sage, in particular, is known to get in a big shipment of dresses every Friday, and during summer they host Happy Hour Fridays the last Friday of every month (hey! that's today!) from 5 to 8 p.m. You get 20 percent off your purchase along with summery drinks and a complimentary toe polish change from Luxe Beauty Company. Sage is also quite affordable; I bought into this trend for a breezy $69.

Style inspiration courtesy of Young Fabulous & Broke

Meet Zoey. The apple of my eye and bane of my existence.

She has a tail. Really she does.

Zoey is my roommate’s dog, but my roommate travels a lot for work, so Zoey is my dog, too, in all respects but the vet bill.

Never mind the $600, two-week, total-immersion training camp Zoey attended. Name an undesirable behavior and she probably does it: She jumps on visitors, barks for attention, pulls on the leash, tinkles when excited. Her separation anxiety is such that even in a tiny apartment, she must sit by you wherever you are, the toilet included. (To her credit, she’s a great car dog, and she has a way of curling up behind your knees that makes all of her transgressions seem forgivable.)

Fellow dog owners may sympathize when I say that Zoey’s worst time of day, by far, is between 5 and 8 p.m. Amped up after an eight-hour nap, she's suddenly possessed by evil doggie demons; she’ll latch onto the heel of your shoe or leg of your pants, adjacent flesh be damned. When I heard about a special happy hour series, Canine Cocktail Hour on the patio of Midtown’s Hotel Indigo, I welcomed the opportunity to exorcise those spirits while soothing my own.

It was, hands down, the cutest event I’ve attended in the name of this blog. Upon walking in, we were immediately greeted by a passel of puppies, up for adoption, from the Atlanta Humane Society. Guests of all ages sipped cocktails and took in cover tunes from the hotel’s house band, and their canine charges got acquainted via civil sniffs of the butt. Zoey was surprisingly mellow, which I’ll attribute to the unfamiliar surroundings and code red smog alert. She was more interested in sampling her way down the Ruffage Bar—a complimentary spread of vegan dog treats—than in making friends.

Canine Cocktail Hour, now in its third year, takes place every Tuesday during summer (ends last week of August) from 6 to 9 p.m. The hotel itself, on the verge of opening two more locations in Atlanta, welcomes dogs of all sizes and is a popular choice for business travelers with pooches. If only my roommate could stay in such a place now and then.

Just kidding, Zoe girl (and Erica).

Hotel Indigo, 683 Peachtree Street, 404-874-9200, midtownatlantahotel.com.

Can you believe she'll be a big Boxer some day?
Kellie, a Boxer mix from the Atlanta Humane Society

So I had a particularly, um, busy weekend, and I awoke feeling slightly subpar Saturday, Sunday, and, um, today.

Hangovers are like hiccups—everyone claims to know the cure, but it’s usually some special combination of tricks that works for each person. For instance, I could tell you that a smoothie and James Taylor usually succeed in banishing the demons from my body (hangovers, not hiccups), but you could try it and end up with nothing more than a brick in your stomach and a Pavlovian hatred for "Carolina in My Mind."

Which brings me to the question: What is your secret weapon for combating a hangover?

Here's a really good article in the AJC about the toll the so-called "blue jean bandits" are taking on local shops.

Leaving aside the violent and scary methods some of these criminals have employed (beating and pepper-spraying clerks in broad daylight, mowing down storefronts with vans and trucks), what angers me most is that they are crippling, perhaps irreparably, the livelihood of many small-business owners.

The article quotes Karin Keeling, owner of six-year-old Market in Buckhead: "'I just can't do it anymore,' she said. 'You follow your dream, you're so proud of yourself, and someone just comes in and takes it from you.'"

I know I'm oversimplifying, but it's clear enough that tailing and arresting the perpetrators won't get the job done. Police have made fourteen arrests this year, and the break-ins keep happening. If they can somehow put a stopper in the black market—which apparently operates openly in nightclub parking lots and at traffic lights, as another story states—and pin a steeper penalty on buying or selling the goods, maybe the boutiques will get a break.

In the meantime, I'm sick of the cutesy Hamburglar nickname. Let's just call these people what they are: low-life crooks who've never made an honest buck and probably never will.

So I'm two days tardy with this, which means we've only got nine days left:

In case you didn't get enough beer** at Draft on Taft, East Atlanta Beer Festival, or Creative Loafing's Beerfest***, the amazing Brick Store Pub in Decatur is ringing in its eleventh anniversary with "11 Days of Kegs"—tapping at least one limited-edition keg each day through June 24. Mike at Brick Store was kind enough to send me the lineup, which got off to a frothy start this past weekend. Kegs are tapped at 3 p.m. daily, and chef Eric Ottensmeyer will be pairing daily food specials with each beer. Bottoms up!

• Saturday, June 14: J.W. Lees Lagavulin Wooden Pin Cask (2001), Regenboog t’Smisje Guido
  
• Sunday, June 15: Harviestoun Ginger and Lime, Regenboog t’Smisje Catherine the Great
  
• Monday, June 16: Highland Brewing (Summit Dry Hopped) Kashmir IPA
  
• Tuesday, June 17: Terrapin Southern Fried Brown Ale (oak aged brown ale with muscadine grapes)
  
• Wednesday, June 18: Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti with Espresso
  
• Thursday, June 19: Oskar Blues Chubbourbon (old chubb aged in bourbon barrels), Allagash Rosa (tripel aged in oak with brettanomyces wild yeast)
  
• Friday, June 20: Victory Wild Devil (Hopdevil with brettanomyces), Strubbe Double Tripel
  
• Saturday, June 21: Harviestoun Ola Dubh 30 year, Alvinne Balthazar
  
• Sunday June 22: Avery Uber Svine (double dry hopped Hog Heaven), Regenboog t’Smisje Kerst
  
• Monday June 23: Sweetwater Brewing Firkin
  
• Tuesday, June 24: North Coast Barrel Aged Old Stock, Allagash Rosa (tripel aged in oak with brettanomyces)****

*Really, really good beer
**Not actually possible
***I love summer
****For all I know, Mike just sent me a list of gibberish and I printed it. Cheers!

Last night I was lucky enough to attend the invitation-only preview party for H&M in Atlantic Station. Unfortunately, so were hundreds of others, which meant the line snaked around the building and the shopping experience entailed pushing through masses of people while toting eight garments while holding champagne while not stopping to socialize with anyone, not even for a second, because you are on a mission. (I did pause briefly to compliment a coworker on the scarf she'd selected, which incidentally she'd never seen before because it had hitched a ride on her mess of hangers. Chaos!)

Still, with model-turned-DJ Sky Nellor spinning tunes (she was last spotted at the W Midtown bash), a full open bar, and more importantly a 25 percent discount on the night, it was worth all the stress and schwitzing, and I'd do it again tonight if it could. Here are some shots from the event:

Alas, the bar is not a permanent fixture

From the second level looking down         My good friend Sarah Forte poses
                                                                          with a more, um, "high fashion" piece

As for the monster shopping bag I came home with, I'll be returning at least half the items. It's my own fault; I couldn't bring myself to stand in the mile-long dressing room line, and it turns out H&M sizes run a tad small. I did, however, pick a few winners, my favorite being a stretchy black dress that, though you can't tell in the picture below, has a flouncy petticoat beneath its leotard-like material. The way it hits above the waist inclines me to stand with the posture of a ballerina:

I also love these two-toned T-shirts, chic in their simplicity, and this super-soft, newsprint-colored scarf. (Never mind my dog's hind-side in the picture.)

In other H&M news, I spoke with rep Jennifer Uglialoro this morning, and she gave me the exciting news that Japanese label Comme des Garçons, headed by Rei Kawakubo, will be designing men's and women's fashions for H&M this fall and will even roll out a unisex fragrance. She explained that all H&M looks are mass produced on an international level, which means what you get in Atlanta you also get in Paris and Stockholm (which may explain Sarah's jumpsuit).

Uglialoro also mentioned that over in Atlantic Station today, employees are busy replenishing stock for tomorrow's official opening. "Atlanta really welcomed us last night," she laughed. That doesn't surprise me in the least. Welcome to Atlanta!