COFFEE BEANS & BEINGS / QUAINT NORWAY CAFE THAT CO-OPS & CARES

Ask Bergen, Norway locals and you’ll hear the same adjective, said with the confidence of the initiated: hyggelig. Warm, friendly, unshowy. That is Albatrossen Cafe in a word.

Bergen Norway has a way of making you grateful for shelter. The rain arrives on schedule, the air stays honest, and a warm room with a decent cup begins to feel like civic architecture. 

Speaking of architecture, this coffee house is the epitome of quaint.  You'll find it in  the Kronstad district, a short walk from the Bybanen Line #1 between Kronstad and Brann stadion. 

Above, Albatrossen Café address is Inndalsveien 47C. The space used to be a hat shop and a jeweler’s premises, which feels oddly fitting (apologies for the pun). It still trades in small pleasures and careful workmanship. The counter leans toward the local and the made-by-hand: sourdough buns, cakes built from straightforward ingredients, sandwiches that taste like someone hated to part with them. Cinnamon bread is a house signature. Chai lattes show up on cold afternoons with a kind of gentle insistence. 

The coffee, from BKB, is treated with respect, not theater (more on BKB below). 

What distinguishes Albatrossen is the way it handles people. Albatrossen works in partnership with Stiftelsen Albatrossen Ettervernsenter (see below) to offer work practice and competence development for individuals who have had a rougher run at employment. This is training that happens in public, in plain sight, without pity as décor. 

Skills get learned at the same tables where students revise papers and neighbors catch up. The café also links arms with local welfare programs and nearby community centers to support inclusive events, so the room keeps widening its welcome. 

Ask Bergen locals and you’ll hear the same adjective, said with the confidence of the initiated: hyggelig. Warm, friendly, unshowy. Reviews tend to land around 4.9 out of 5, praising the pastries, the service, the calm neighborhood view. Numbers, of course, only describe the surface. Albatrossen is a reminder that coffee can be both refined and useful. It can taste good and do good without announcing itself. In a city built on weather and persistence, that combination feels less like branding and more like belonging. 

MORE ON BKB COFFEE: Bergen Kaffebrenneri, better known locally as BKB, has been roasting coffee in Bergen for more than a decade and holds a special place in the city’s slow but steady specialty coffee scene. Locals appreciate that BKB roasts its beans on site in small batches, a practice that lets residents literally smell fresh roast drifting through the Møhlenpris neighborhood and serves as a weekly marker of craftsmanship rather than mass production. 

The roastery (left), doubles as a coffee bar where visitors can choose beans with help from knowledgeable staff and participate in Thursday morning tastings that bring people together around the smell and taste of new roasts. Patrons praise the approachable, friendly atmosphere and the way BKB’s offerings — from straightforward single-origin bags to more adventurous seasonal selections — feel like a conversation rather than a commodity, making it not just a supplier of beans but a local meeting place in Bergen’s evolving coffee culture.

MORE OF SAE: Stiftelsen Albatrossen Ettervernsenter provides structured aftercare and work training for people rebuilding their lives after addiction or hardship, partnering with Albatrossen Café to restore skills, dignity, and connection for Bergen residents.

1 PIX = 1K WORDS / A NATION DIVIDED (BY WEATHER]

 

Mid-winter in along San Diego's Mission Beach Boardwalk

FRIDAY FREEBIE (A DAY EARLY) / "REBECCA" FREE TO DOWNLOAD

Rebecca, an Oscar winning film, 1940 starred Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier with Judith Anderson as the maid.

Free books are common enough in the digital age. 

Free masterpieces are not. 

For readers who have somehow missed Manderley, or who have been meaning to return, a small literary windfall has arrived. Amazon is offering a Kindle edition of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca free for a limited time, a rare chance to download one of the 20th century’s most durable novels without charge. In a marketplace dominated by new releases and algorithmic buzz, the sudden reappearance of a classic at zero cost feels almost subversive. 

The promotion applies to the Kindle edition and, as with most such offers, may vanish without much notice. Amazon’s free classic promotions tend to last only a few days. Readers interested in securing a copy would be wise to act quickly. The book can be found by searching “Rebecca Daphne du Maurier Kindle” at Amazon.com or by visiting the Kindle Store and navigating directly to the Rebecca product page, where the listed price will reflect the current promotion. 

Published in 1938, Rebecca opens with one of the most recognizable first lines in modern fiction: “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” In that single sentence, du Maurier establishes the novel’s mood of longing and unease. The story begins in Monte Carlo, where a shy young woman, serving as companion to a wealthy American, meets the recently widowed Maxim de Winter. Their courtship is swift, their marriage impulsive. What follows is less a romance than a psychological reckoning. 

At Manderley, Maxim’s grand estate in Cornwall, the new Mrs. de Winter finds herself in competition with a ghost. Rebecca, Maxim’s first wife, is dead before the novel begins, yet her presence permeates every hallway and ritual. The housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, keeps Rebecca’s memory polished and weaponized. The unnamed narrator, uncertain of her own worth, begins to sense that the house itself resists her. Du Maurier builds suspense not through spectacle but through atmosphere, tightening the emotional vise chapter by chapter until the novel shifts from social anxiety to outright mystery. 

Rebecca was an immediate international success and has never gone out of print. It occupies a singular place between genres: gothic romance, psychological thriller, domestic drama. Its influence can be felt in everything from midcentury suspense fiction to contemporary tales of marriage and identity. At its heart lies a question that still resonates: how does one live in the shadow of someone else’s legend? 

Controversial is a good word to describe the career of English novelist and short story writer, Dame Daphne du Maurier (1907-1989).

Daphne du Maurier, born in London in 1907 into a family steeped in the theater, published her first novel in 1931, but it was Rebecca that secured her reputation. She spent much of her life in Cornwall, whose moody coastline and shifting weather find their echo in Manderley’s brooding landscape. Over a career that spanned decades, she produced novels, short stories, and plays marked by emotional intensity and a keen sense of place. In 1969 she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. When she died in 1989, Rebecca remained her defining work. 

The novel’s cultural afterlife has been equally robust. Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 adaptation, produced by David O. Selznick, won the Academy Award for Best Picture and remains a touchstone of cinematic suspense. Hitchcock understood that the real drama of Rebecca lies not in overt horror but in suggestion, in corridors half lit and conversations half finished. A 2020 adaptation introduced the story to a new generation, proving that Manderley still exerts its pull. 

For contemporary readers, the appeal of Rebecca may lie less in its gothic trappings than in its emotional clarity. Du Maurier captures the fragile psychology of a young woman measuring herself against an impossible standard. The novel is, among other things, a study of how myth can distort love and how secrecy corrodes trust. Its pages move with deceptive ease, carrying the reader from Riviera sunlight to Cornish gloom with steady assurance. 

For those who have long meant to discover why generations have returned to Manderley, or for those who want to revisit its corridors once more, the moment is at hand. A search through Amazon Books in the Kindle Store for Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier will lead to the current offer. If the price reads zero, the dream of Manderley can begin again. 

WEDNESDAY FUNNIES / CARTOON FALLOUT FROM PRESIDENT'S SPEECH

Meanwhile Across the Pond...

TRAIN TRAX/ AMTRAK'S SHINY NEW AIRO SERVICE

Airo Green Cascades added to Amtrak's usual silver, blue and red.

Amtrak’s new trains are arriving soon. Here’s what to expect. 

GUEST BLOG / Text and photos by Washington Post Reporter Andrea Sachs--This summer, if all goes according to plan, Amtrak will begin rolling out the first trains in its sleek new Airo fleet, an eight billion dollar investment the company hopes will usher in a more modern, comfortable and accessible era of rail travel. 

 It is a big order in every sense. In August, Amtrak launched the NextGen Acela, an upgrade of its high speed service along the Northeast Corridor. When the original Acela debuted in December 2000, it offered business travelers a racehorse alternative to the corridor’s workhorses. Airo represents the next phase of that evolution. 

In June 2021, Amtrak ordered 73 Airo trains from Siemens and later added 10 more. Eight six car sets will serve the Cascades route, running from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Eugene, Oregon. 

 The Northeast Corridor is next. The remaining trains will operate from North Carolina to Maine, including routes in New York and Pennsylvania, Amtrak President Roger Harris said at a recent preview at Union Station in Washington, D.C. The company plans to integrate Airo into Northeast Regional service in 2027. So far, executives say, the project remains on budget and on schedule. 

 The timing appears favorable. Ridership has climbed steadily over the past three years. A record 34.5 million passengers traveled last year, a 5.1 percent increase over 2024. 

 “The Airo fleet will set a higher standard for regional and intercity travel, replacing trains that are up to 50 years old,” Harris said. “Our North Star for this whole project can be summarized in two words: the customer.” 

 If the customer experience truly is the guiding light, did Amtrak succeed? 

During media preview of the train, we reclined seats, unfolded tray tables and inspected the bathrooms to determine whether Airo is really built for us. 

 For starters, green is the new silver. With its forest green and bark brown exterior, Airo evokes the woodsy landscapes and outdoorsy lifestyle of the Pacific Northwest. The snowy mountain graphic is open to interpretation. Is it Mount Hood, Mount Rainier, Grouse Mountain, or a composite of all three? 

 Inside, the palette is soothing, with a hint of hygge rather than plaid flannel. Seats are a light gray reminiscent of a bright overcast sky. A strip of green peeks out from behind each headrest like a Douglas fir rising between city buildings. 

Tables and tray surfaces echo the blond wood tones favored by Scandinavian designers. The train feels more spacious and brighter, thanks to taller ceilings and large panoramic windows. Travelers get a full view of the passing landscape instead of the truncated scenery framed by the older split window design. 

 Each six car train holds 317 seats, with 72 in each coach car and 50 in business class. The seats are not as plush or wide as those on older models. You will not sink into them, but you may find your posture improved. 

 The thoughtful details stand out. Tray tables adapt to shifting needs. A smaller shelf slides out for a device and drink, complete with a separate cup holder. For a meal and a movie, the full tray unfolds, and a small ledge with a latch secures a tablet in place. 

Personal reading lights keep illumination focused on you rather than your sleeping neighbor. Every seat has its own power outlet in the center console, eliminating the awkward negotiation with a seatmate for a charge. And instead of reclining backward into the space behind you, the seats slide forward within their own footprint, preserving the personal space of the passenger in the next row. 

 Accessibility moves to the forefront, from sweeping design changes to smaller details such as adjustable tables and braille seat numbers. “All of our new trains are highly accessible, and we’re spending two billion dollars on making our stations more accessible,” Harris said. “It’s really a core theme for Amtrak.” 

 Boarding is easier, with integrated wheelchair lifts in coach cars to handle low level platforms. Inside, 32 inch accessible corridors allow greater mobility than standard passageways. Entryways and restrooms provide a 60 inch turning radius, ample for wheelchair users. 

 New seating configurations also accommodate mobility devices. Near the bathrooms, a window seat paired with an open aisle space allows a passenger traveling with a wheelchair to sit comfortably alongside a companion. Another configuration can accommodate two wheelchair users with a table between them, suitable for a meal from the cafe car or a snack delivered by cart. 

 Two large, clearly marked buttons call for assistance or activate lighting. The emphasis on usability extends even to the smallest details. Train restrooms are rarely a highlight of the journey. The Airo facilities, by comparison, feel like a meaningful upgrade. The lavatories are spacious, with touchless fixtures that eliminate the need for creative elbow maneuvers. A full wall baby changing table gives parents room to maneuver. A small shelf and three hooks offer space for bags and coats. Multiple hand grips provide stability if the train shifts. In an emergency, a clearly marked call button summons help. 

The cafe car is designed strictly for ordering. Without tables, the message is clear: purchase your items and return to your seat. The menu, still in development, will incorporate regional flavors and brands. During the preview, options included Tim’s Cascade Style Potato Chips, Bob’s Red Mill oatmeal, Alki Bakery cinnamon rolls and a grilled chicken Caesar salad. 

 A service cart is also in development, though Amtrak has not yet confirmed whether passengers will order via an app or during the cart’s rounds. Among the most welcome additions are filtered water dispensers, a familiar amenity in airports. The refillable bottle stations, paired with the upgraded restrooms, are a practical feature many travelers will appreciate. 

One final note. The Cascades trains carry this Pacific Northwest inspired design. On the East Coast, Amtrak executives say, the Airo fleet will retain the traditional red, white and blue livery.

RETRO FILES / THOUGHTS ON AGING FROM A LONG GONE SHRINK. CHANNELING CARL JUNG.

Every generation believes it invented anxiety about aging. The young fear becoming irrelevant; the middle-aged fear becoming tired; the old fear becoming invisible. Yet the older philosophical tradition — the one that predates self-help aisles and longevity supplements — treats age not as a failure of youth but as its final achievement.  

The essay we almost lost belongs to that earlier lineage. Its author does not promise eternal vitality, nor surrender to decline. Instead he proposes a harder idea: vigor is not energy. Vigor is orientation. A man in his seventies walking slowly toward the horizon may possess more vitality than a thirty-year-old sprinting away from time.  

Carl Jung would have recognized the argument immediately. He believed the first half of life builds the ego, but the second half integrates the person. And integration requires the cooperation of four faculties we spend youth using separately: thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition.  

Youth trusts sensation. It lives through the body — speed, appetite, attraction, reaction. Everything is immediate and therefore urgent. Later comes thinking, the architecture of careers and plans, the belief that life can be engineered forward like a bridge. Feeling follows more slowly, often painfully, when consequences arrive and relationships outlast ambitions. But intuition — the last and most unsettling faculty — only awakens when time becomes visible. Only when one knows the road is finite does one begin to ask what the road means.  

Modern culture tries to keep us in the first two stages forever: sensation and planning. Stay young, stay productive, stay expanding. Death becomes a medical failure rather than a human certainty. 

But Jung understood that a life lived only outward never becomes whole. The psyche, like a courtroom, eventually calls its missing witnesses.  

The retro philosopher treats death not as an adversary but as the judge’s gavel — the sound that brings testimony into order. Without an ending, experience would not accumulate into wisdom; it would scatter into endless activity. Mortality does not steal meaning from life. It concentrates it.  

This is why aging can feel calmer rather than smaller. Sensation quiets but becomes sharper: a single cup of coffee replaces a night of restless pleasures. Thinking softens into perspective rather than strategy. Feeling deepens because relationships outlive roles. And intuition — long ignored — begins connecting the story backward. Events once random begin to form a pattern, not imposed but discovered.  

The essay rejects the sentimental lie that old age is merely decline. It describes subtraction as revelation. When speed leaves, character becomes audible. When ambition narrows, attention widens. Youth asks what it can still become. Age asks what it has always been.  

There is freedom in accepting the boundary. Once death is no longer treated as a stalking enemy, life stops resembling a siege. Days regain proportion. Conversations lengthen. Urgency shifts from accumulation to presence. You stop trying to outrun time and start accompanying it.  

Jung’s final insight fits perfectly here: the goal of later life is not survival but wholeness. The psyche does not want endless extension; it wants completion. A good old age is not youth preserved but youth understood.  

Death, then, is not defeated. It is acknowledged — and in that acknowledgment loses its terror. The last chapter is written not to avoid the ending, but to justify it.  

Strangely, that may be the most youthful idea of all. 

SUNDAY REVIEW / SHORT STORY: MILLION WAYS TO DIE

SHORT FICTION.

By Thomas Shess.

Morning didn’t arrive. 

It intruded. 

 It came in sideways, with the sound first. A sound that didn’t belong to weather or traffic or anything living. A tearing noise, metallic and wrong, as if the day itself had split a seam and couldn’t be stitched back together. 

 The sky was already awake when people noticed—awake and burning in a way skies aren’t supposed to burn. There is only one way to be born. There are a million ways to die. That morning chose one. 

*** 

The Madrid runway--perhaps it was Orly in Paris or Rio--it didn't matter because it was supposed to be clean. And supposed was the word they used later. So, too: swept. Certified. Signed off in triplicate. Men in reflective vests had walked it at dawn, boots crunching softly, eyes down, looking for the obvious things: bolts, birds, shrapnel from yesterday’s carelessness. They missed a strip of metal no longer than a man’s forearm. Titanium. Tough. Patient. Waiting. It lay there without intent, which is how most disasters begin. 

 The aircraft that dropped it had already gone. Lifted cleanly. Continued its day. Passengers settling into their seats, adjusting belts, thinking about meetings, dinners, hotel rooms. The metal had no passport. No manifest. No reason to be noticed. 

 Then came the other plane. White. Elegant. Too fast for forgiveness. A machine built to outrun time itself, skimming the edge of what metal and fuel would allow. Its wheels were doing what wheels have done since the first man decided to roll instead of walk—bearing weight, trusting the ground. 

 One of its tires hit the strip. 

 At that speed, there is no such thing as impact. There is only transformation. Rubber ceased to be rubber. It became violence. A shock wave tore through the wheel well like a fist through paper. Fragments flew with the precision of shrapnel, obedient to physics and indifferent to prayers. 

 One piece struck the fuel tank. Fuel does not explode the way movies insist. It spills. It atomizes. It looks, briefly, like mist. And mist, when introduced to heat and friction and fate, becomes fire. 

 Someone in the cabin smelled it first. Not fear—fear comes later—but something chemical, sharp, unfamiliar. A smell with no context. A man glanced up from his newspaper. A woman tightened her grip on an armrest she hadn’t noticed holding. The engines were still roaring. The ground was still rushing by. The math was already finished. 

 In the cockpit, they knew. Of course, pilots always know before anyone else. Instruments speak their own language, one learned over years and paid for in nights away from home. The words came in lights and needles and numbers dropping where numbers should not drop. They did what pilots do. They tried. Which is to say, they fought the inevitable with checklists and muscle memory and will. 

 Fire climbed the fuselage. People on the ground would later say it was beautiful in a terrible way. A long arc of flame against the morning sky. A sound that didn’t fade when it should have. A silence afterward that pressed down on the chest. 

 The aircraft never made it out of the neighborhood. It did not disappear into abstraction. It fell among houses, among kitchens and backyards a small hotel and ordinary lives that had not signed up to be part of the story. Four people on the ground would learn that proximity is sometimes enough. 

 Afterward comes the sorting. Investigators arrive with notebooks and calm voices. They kneel. They photograph. They tag. They draw lines backward from the wreckage, following cause the way a hunter follows blood. 

They will say “chain of events.” 

They will say “contributing factors.” 

They will say “runway debris,” because language, like liability, prefers distance. 

 They will eventually find the guilty strip of jet age metal. They will note its composition. Titanium. They will trace it to an aircraft that departed earlier, to a design decision made years before, to a maintenance shortcut signed off with a pen that has long since run dry. 

They will debate whether the metal should have been there, whether anyone could have known, whether the risk was acceptable at the time. Acceptable to whom is never written down. 

 Families will gather in rooms that smell faintly of coffee and disinfectant. Names will be read aloud. 

Lives will be compressed into dates and occupations and the gentle lies of eulogy. 

Someone will say it was fate. Someone else will say it was nobody’s fault. 

Both will be wrong in ways that matter.

 Because this was not an act of God. It was an act of accumulation. A decision here. A cheaper part substituted there. A tolerance widened. A warning softened. A piece of metal freed from its purpose and left to wait. 

 Only one way to be born. 

 A million ways to die. 

 The morning--that morning chose metal over mercy.

The End.

Thomas Shess is the author of gritty noir novel "Cantina Psalms: available on online book outlets and soon to be released [Spring 2026]"Tough Love."

COFFEE BEANS & BEINGS / INTRO TO 100-YEAR-OLD ESSAY ON COFFEE'S UNIVERSAL APPEAL

Expatriate American writers Solita Solano (left) and Djuna Barnes enjoy coffee at a Paris sidewalk café in Montparnasse, circa 1928–1930. The street photograph, in a humanist style by Maurice-Louis Branger, captures everyday café life during the Roaring Twenties literary expatriate era.  

GUEST BLOG / By William H. Ukers, author of "All About Coffee, 1922--Civilization in its onward march has produced only three important non-alcoholic beverages—the extract of the tea plant, the extract of the cocoa bean, and the extract of the coffee bean. Leaves and beans—these are the vegetable sources of the world's favorite non-alcoholic table-beverages. Of the two, the tea leaves lead in total amount consumed; the coffee beans are second; and the cocoa beans are a distant third, although advancing steadily. 

But in international commerce the coffee beans occupy a far more important position than either of the others, being imported into non-producing countries to twice the extent of the tea leaves. All three enjoy a world-wide consumption, although not to the same extent in every nation; but where either the coffee bean or the tea leaf has established itself in a given country, the other gets comparatively little attention, and usually has great difficulty in making any advance. The cocoa bean, on the other hand, has not risen to the position of popular favorite in any important consuming country, and so has not aroused the serious opposition of its two rivals. 

Coffee is universal in its appeal. All nations do it homage. It has become recognized as a human necessity. It is no longer a luxury or an indulgence; it is a corollary of human energy and human efficiency. People love coffee because of its two-fold effect—the pleasurable sensation and the increased efficiency it produces. 

Coffee has an important place in the rational dietary of all the civilized peoples of earth. It is a democratic beverage. Not only is it the drink of fashionable society, but it is also a favorite beverage of the men and women who do the world's work, whether they toil with brain or brawn. It has been acclaimed "the most grateful lubricant known to the human machine," and "the most delightful taste in all nature." 

No "food drink" has ever encountered so much opposition as coffee. Given to the world by the church and dignified by the medical profession, nevertheless it has had to suffer from religious superstition and medical prejudice. During the thousand years of its development it has experienced fierce political opposition, stupid fiscal restrictions, unjust taxes, irksome duties; but, surviving all of these, it has triumphantly moved on to a foremost place in the catalog of popular beverages. 

But coffee is something more than a beverage. It is one of the world's greatest adjuvant foods. There are other auxiliary foods, but none that excels it for palatability and comforting effects, the psychology of which is to be found in its unique flavor and aroma. 

Men and women drink coffee because it adds to their sense of well-being. It not only smells good and tastes good to all mankind, heathen or civilized, but all respond to its wonderful stimulating properties. The chief factors in coffee goodness are the caffein content and the caffeol. Caffein supplies the principal stimulant. It increases the capacity for muscular and mental work without harmful reaction. The caffeol supplies the flavor and the aroma—that indescribable Oriental fragrance that wooes us through the nostrils, forming one of the principal elements that make up the lure of coffee. There are several other constituents, including certain innocuous so-called caffetannic acids, that, in combination with the caffeol, give the beverage its rare gustatory appeal. 

The year 1919 awarded coffee one of its brightest honors. An American general said that coffee shared with bread and bacon the distinction of being one of the three nutritive essentials that helped win the World War for the Allies. So this symbol of human brotherhood has played a not inconspicuous part in "making the world safe for democracy." The new age, ushered in by the Peace of Versailles and the Washington Conference, has for its hand-maidens temperance and self-control. It is to be a world democracy of right-living and clear thinking; and among its most precious adjuncts are coffee, tea, and cocoa—because these beverages must always be associated with rational living, with greater comfort, and with better cheer. 

Like all good things in life, the drinking of coffee may be abused. Indeed, those having an idiosyncratic susceptibility to alkaloids should be temperate in the use of tea, coffee, or cocoa. In every high-tensioned country there is likely to be a small number of people who, because of certain individual characteristics, can not drink coffee at all. These belong to the abnormal minority of the human family. 

Some people can not eat strawberries; but that would not be a valid reason for a general condemnation of strawberries. One may be poisoned, says Thomas A. Edison, from too much food. Horace Fletcher was certain that over-feeding causes all our ills. Over-indulgence in meat is likely to spell trouble for the strongest of us. 

Coffee is, perhaps, less often abused than wrongly accused. It all depends. A little more tolerance! Trading upon the credulity of the hypochondriac and the caffein-sensitive, in recent years there has appeared in America and abroad a curious collection of so-called coffee substitutes. They are "neither fish nor flesh, nor good red herring." Most of them have been shown by official government analyses to be sadly deficient in food value—their only alleged virtue. 

One of our contemporary attackers of the national beverage bewails the fact that no palatable hot drink has been found to take the place of coffee. The reason is not hard to find. There can be no substitute for coffee. Dr. Harvey W. Wiley has ably summed up the matter by saying, "A substitute should be able to perform the functions of its principal. A substitute to a war must be able to fight. A bounty-jumper is not a substitute." 

It has been the aim of the author to tell the whole coffee story for the general reader, yet with the technical accuracy that will make it valuable to the trade. The book is designed to be a work of useful reference covering all the salient points of coffee's origin, cultivation, preparation, and development, its place in the world's commerce and in a rational dietary. 

Good coffee, carefully roasted and properly brewed, produces a natural beverage that, for tonic effect, can not be surpassed, even by its rivals, tea and cocoa. Here is a drink that ninety-seven percent of individuals find harmless and wholesome, and without which life would be drab indeed—a pure, safe, and helpful stimulant compounded in nature's own laboratory, and one of the chief joys of life!

FRIDAY FLOTSAM / TWO RELICS TEMPEST TOSSED

Inverness, California (above) keeps its wreck above the waterline — stranded but visible, like a story still waiting to unfold. 

Inverness, Scotland (below) keeps its wreck aside the tide — teetering, like a story the weather remembers instead of people. 

The Pacific version feels paused. 

The Highland version waits for repair. 

Same name. 

Same fate. 

Same loneliness.

Different relationship with time. 

--F. Stop Fitzgerald, PillartoPost.org

THE FOODIST / BARRIO LOGAN ICON FAV RETURNS

 

Ex-whiskey joint will soon be new shiny Las Cuatro Milpas, the crown jewel of Mexican style cuisine in San Diego

San Diego doesn’t often get second chances with its legends. When Las Cuatro Milpas went dark after ninety years on Logan Avenue, it felt less like a closure than a neighborhood memory being boarded up. 

The lines, the hand-rolled tortillas, the quiet choreography behind the counter — suddenly gone. Now the Barrio Logan institution is coming back. The family has secured a new home just a few blocks away inside Mercado del Barrio on National Avenue, moving into the former Liberty Call Distilling space. 

After the sale of the original property ended its historic run in 2025, the reopening signals something rare in San Diego dining: not a tribute, not a reboot — the real place, still run by the same family, still making the same food. If construction stays on schedule, the doors should open within the next month or two. 

Back in the day

Margarita Hernandez, nearing 79, plans to be back at the register. In a city where beloved restaurants usually become memories, Las Cuatro Milpas instead chose relocation over obituary. Hopefully, San Diego won’t just remember it — it will stand in line for it again. 

Note: Milpa is a traditional Mesoamerican term referring to a cultivated plot where corn (maize), beans, and squash are grown together — so the name evokes a rustic, traditional farming heritage rather than just four random fields.

DESIGN / OLYMPIC HOCKEY RETRO FIT

The 2026 U.S. men’s Olympic hockey uniform was designed as a historical continuation rather than a modern fashion statement. 

USA Hockey and Nike intentionally modeled the look on the clean, block-lettered sweaters worn by the 1960 Olympic gold-medal team in Squaw Valley, the first American squad ever to win Olympic hockey. 

Instead of flashy graphics, gradients, or aggressive typography, the crest dominates the jersey and the striping stays restrained. The idea was to make the uniform feel timeless, as though it could appear in photographs from any era of international hockey. 

This approach also serves a psychological purpose for the players. Many members of the roster are NHL stars used to highly branded club uniforms, but Olympic hockey is meant to represent national identity rather than league identity. 

By simplifying the design and emphasizing heritage elements, the sweater places the athletes into a lineage that runs from 1960 through the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” and now to Milan-Cortina. The uniform becomes less a piece of equipment and more a symbolic jersey they are temporarily entrusted to wear. 

Fans reacted strongly because the design communicates mythology instead of marketing. Modern uniforms often feel corporate or temporary, while classic ones suggest permanence and memory. 

The 2026 sweater deliberately evokes old arenas, broadcast grain, and generational continuity. In short, the goal was not to introduce a new look for Team USA, but to make it appear that Team USA has always looked this way — and always will. 

WHERE TO BUY:

https://www.shopusahockey.com/collections/2026-olympic-jersey-collection

TRAVEL TUESDAY / PORT TOWNSEND: MECCA FOR THE LADIES

Port Townsend, WA Yacht Club

By Jennifer Silva Redmond, Author of Honeymoon at Sea. 

 Next in a continuing series of liveaboard (and off) adventures.

I loved Port Townsend the first minute I set foot in it. Part of that might have been the hype that came from decades of hearing about this waterfront town that celebrates wooden boats and boat building in general. All the way back in Baja California in my very first year of sailing, I started hearing tales of the art and artisans of Port Townsend. As we sailed north along Alta California from San Diego to San Francisco, the most recent time, in 2020, we ran into people who applauded our plans to spend a few seasons sailing up in Puget Sound. Almost every one mentioned Port Townsend as a destination, or at least a stop over. 

 In the winter of 2022, I was sitting on my boat in a peaceful slip in the Vallejo Yacht Club taking a break from figuring out how to get the boat to Puget Sound (we ended up trucking it up there, which is a story in itself, but was a good choice) when I ran into a fellow mid-life woman sailor and we talked about dream destinations. As she strolled away I was laughing to myself—she 'd not only mentioned how hard it was to find marina slips in Puget Sound, but she’d also mentioned Port Townsend. 

Down below I fired up my computer, hooked up to the wifi and searched for the Port Townsend Yacht Club. Yes, they had an agreement with our Southern California yacht club, and yes they had a reciprocal slip available. (Reciprocal slips are meant for one or two day stays, usually free to sailors from recognized yacht clubs.) I had already been working out month-long stays for our sailboat in the San Francisco Bay area now for about six months—would it be possible to do that up in Port Townsend in the fall? I sent off an email to the Port Townsend Yacht Club and soon I was sending off a check to the yacht club for four months rent in the coming fall and winter. 

 

Port Townsend, WA

The summer of 2022 flew by as we explored the towns, cities and water holes of Puget Sound, poking into every little bay and Marine State Park from Olympia up to Poulsbo. Soon we were approaching Port Townsend. As soon as we docked and secured our boat, we went out walking to check out the neighborhood. We’d visited PT before but we’d come by car, which is a very different thing, of course. 

 Across from the commercial shipping basin where our boat was docked, we spotted a West Marine store, which is always a good sign for boaters (soon we’d found a local chandlery too, for all the little bits and pieces every sailor needs to replace more often than she thought). 

Not far away was a Mexican restaurant, Hacienda Tizapan, that turned out to be as good as it smelled. I sampled the chips and salsa (both freshly made), Russel ordered an IPA from Port Townsend Brewing Company_another good sign—and soon we were chowing down on delicious shrimp fajitas. A block away was a convenience store with a gas station that carried diesel, something every boater needs nearby, and across the street was a Safeway grocery store. A co-op grocery was only two blocks from there. Even better, between the two stores was the Kai Tai Lagoon Preserve. I stepped off the busy street and into the preserve and fell in love at first sight. It isn’t a very big place—you can walk from one end to the other in less than five minutes, if walking so quickly wouldn't defeat the whole purpose of it—but the perfect little chunk of waterfront nature is the ideal neighborhood park for morning walks and sunset ambles. 

One of my favorite touches was the picture book for children that was presented page by page on plaques along the lagoon front walkway. I found out that it changed monthly, which was even better. 

Our first foray into Port Townsend proper was the next day. We walked a block to the bus stop near the Safeway where we took the free shuttle into “downtown” PT. The bus also goes to “uptown” or you can access uptown by walking up a steep flight of stairs from the charming fountain park near the historic Bishop Hotel. At the top of the long staircase is yet another plaque with the history of staid and proper uptown and the racy waterfront downtown—site of brothels and taverns. 

Finistere Restaurant

Both sections of town now abound with eateries, boutiques, sweet shops, art galleries, and pocket parks. We dined at the Old Whiskey Mill which soon became a favorite, along with the more high-end and lovely Finistere, and of course we had breakfast the next day at the Blue Moose Cafe, which is very handily located in the Boat Haven boat yard. 

As the days went by in Port Townsend we explored more and more, finding the working museum that is the Maritime Center and the epitome of movie houses that is the charming Rose Theater. I browsed through the antique shops and gift stores on my own, as well as venturing into the library and each of the two bookstores. Yes there was more than one bookstore, which I always consider a miracle. 

Speaking of miraculous, the vibe in the town is super friendly and welcoming, something you don’t always find in a place that attracts a year-round stream of tourists. People smile when they give me directions, drivers wait at corners and wave me across streets, and the bus drivers often give me snippets of history along with the ride. In fact, most people I encounter in Port Townsend seem to see me, a petite woman in my early sixties, as worthy of their attention. And it isn’t just in shops where you’d expect the owner to be focused on sales, but everywhere I go. I have been engaged in conversation at the bus stop, listened to thoughtfully in the library, and even consulted by another shopper in the book store who saw me pick up a copy of a popular new book. I was not able to give her a positive review of that one (I am not a big Sally Rooney fan) but I did turn her on to a brilliant local author, Anna Quinn. 

However, the thing that impressed me the most was the reception I got in the boatyard, the chandlery, and the marina office. For once, I was not seen as the wife of the boat owner, I was treated as a co-owner, which of course I am. My opinions about products and services are hard-won after 36 years of living and working on small sailboats, and for once, I don’t need to argue that point. 

People in the PT boating world, men and women, assume I know what item I am asking for and how to use it—they save the ‘splaining for someone who actually asks how to use something. It turns out there’s a really good reason for all this respect coming at me here in Port Townsend—the place is chock full of women who run businesses, and many, but not all of them, are in the marine trades. 

Yep, the Women of the Working Waterfront, as the group was dubbed, are a force to be reckoned with in PT, in fact, in March of 2022, almost 200 women gathered on the City Dock to have there photo taken for the Port of Port Townsend’s economic Port Report. 

From Diana Talley, who is counted as the first female shipwright in PT back in the 1970s, to the current head shipwright at Boat Haven Boat Works, Esther. The Board Chair of the local Northwest Maritime, the local Marine Center, is a woman. And the women who make Port Townsend go are not just involved in boats and marine trades. The head of Finance for the Port is a woman, so is the head of the local Historical Museum. (About 30 percent of businesses in Jefferson County, home of Port Townsend, are woman-owned and operated, which I love.) 

 So, whenever I walk down the street in Port Townsend, whether it is on Water Street in the town’s historic downtown neighborhood, or striding across the busy small town that is the Boat Haven boatyard and marina, I will carry my head high, knowing I am one of the Women of the Working Waterfront.  

Blue Moose Cafe

Port Townsend Ferry

MEDIA MONDAY / PAM BONDI'S CRINGE MOMENT(S) IN FRONT OF CONGRESS

Bondi with her back turned to those Jeffrey Epstein victims as Representative Pramila Jayapal asked them to stand and raise their hands: "if you have still not been able to meet with the DOJ"—and they all raised their hands.
--Associated Press Photograph

The attorney general's congressional hearing was so bad, Fox didn't even cover it. And it may not even have been the worst thing she did last week! 

GUEST BLOG / By Michael Tomasky, Editor, The New Republic--During and right after Pam Bondi's House testimony Wednesday, I flipped on Fox News and Newsmax to see how they were covering it. I was expecting to see a celebration of how the attorney general really put those America-hating libs in their place. 

To my surprise, I did not. I saw mostly ads, to be honest, but the little programming I did catch was devoted entirely to the Nancy Guthrie kidnapping story. 

 Disappointed, I flipped back to MS NOW and didn't think much of it. But Wednesday evening, The Daily Beast reported that my experience was not aberrational: Bondi testified for about five hours, and Fox News ran roughly 10 minutes of it live. 

Of course, it's an old, old Murdochian ploy: When there's news that doesn't suit the agenda, just ignore it. I've seen this movie many times. Back in a different era, Rupert's favorite politician was Al D'Amato, the hacky and corrupt Republican senator from New York. Whenever there was a new allegation about D'Amato's ethics, or a Senate report reviewing same, it would be on the front page of The New York Times and get prominent play in the Daily News—and in the New York Post, there usually wasn't a word. 

Fox's near silence on Bondi is an admission that the hearing was an indefensible horror show. And it gets worse if you really think about it for a few minutes. Think of all the planning and strategizing that went into that performance. Employees of the Department of Justice, working on our dime, spent hours prepping Bondi on exactly how to insult each and every Democratic member of the committee. They came up with the idea of requiring each House member to have an individual log-in to peruse the Epstein files so the DOJ could spy on them. They spent hours assembling Bondi's little burn book. She had to have been coached for hours about exactly how to ignore the questions and try to turn the tables on her interrogators. 

In other words: Her aides, whose salaries we pay, probably thought this would be great. That she'd walk away with a catalog of sound-bite knockout punches. 

Instead, Bondi walked away with the image that will haunt her for the rest of her life: her back turned to those Jeffrey Epstein victims as Representative Pramila Jayapal asked them to stand and raise their hands "if you have still not been able to meet with the DOJ"—and they all raised their hands. 

That image looked horrible Wednesday; as more and more details about the Epstein story leak out in the coming weeks and months, it's only going to look worse. And yet, for all this? In substantive terms, her performance at that hearing may not even have been the worst thing Bondi did this week! 

The morning after the hearing, she fired Gail Slater, the head of the department's antitrust division. Slater actually had a decent reputation—she was part of the populist-MAGA anti-monopoly movement, and she brought a high-profile case against Google over its monopolization of the ad tech market. Many progressive anti-monopolists were cheering for Slater. 

Said Senator Elizabeth Warren upon hearing this news: "A small army of MAGA-aligned lawyers and lobbyists have been trying to sell off merger approvals that will increase prices and harm innovation to the highest bidder. Every antitrust case in front of the Trump Justice Department now reeks of double-dealing—Ticketmaster's stock is already surging." 

That last sentence is so true. If you're interested, you can read here about why this is so bad. 

The bottom line is that Bondi's firing of Slater is a big nail in the coffin of the idea that Trumpian right-wing populism is willing to take on powerful interests. It may—but only as long as they're designated enemies of Trump. To circle back to Fox News: If they're going to follow the old Murdoch edict of ignoring all bad news, pretty soon they're going to be reduced to airing nothing but scare stories about woke Olympic athletes and Spanish-speaking superstars. 

 It's not even clear Bondi had the worst week among Trump Cabinet officials. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth got seriously pulverized twice this week. First, when a grand jury refused to indict six Democrats for their earlier video reminding soldiers that they had a duty to disobey illegal orders; as Chesa Boudin and Eric Fish point out in a Times op-ed last Friday, grand juries convened by the mighty Justice Department almost never fail to return an indictment. 

Second, when a federal judge blocked Hegseth from punishing one of the six, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, writing that Hegseth had grossly violated Kelly's First Amendment rights. "Rather than trying to shrink the First Amendment liberties of retired servicemembers, Secretary Hegseth and his fellow Defendants might reflect and be grateful for the wisdom and expertise that retired servicemembers have brought to public discussions and debate on military matters in our Nation over the past 250 years," Judge Richard Leon wrote. "If so, they will more fully appreciate why the Founding Fathers made free speech the first Amendment in the Bill of Rights!" 

 And Kristi Noem had to endure the indignity of seeing rival Tom Homan, the border czar, make her ICE-men goeth out of Minneapolis. Thursday night, The Wall Street Journal posted a long and devastating story about the mayhem at the Department of Homeland Security under Noem and her rumored lover, Corey Lewandowski. 

It's the kind of Washington story that appears only when inside sources decide to start running to reporters to spill saucy details they once sat on—a clear sign that no one is scared of her anymore. None of these people, of course, belongs in a high position in the federal government. They're psychopathic monsters. There's no doubt Bondi and her advisers think she knocked a home run on Wednesday. But one day, we'll all learn what she's hiding about the Epstein story. Can't wait for that hearing. 

SUNDAY NOIR FICTION / "SOMEBODY FAMOUS"

SHORT STORY PREVIEW:       

“Somebody Famous” from Tough Love: Modern Noir Romances By Thomas Shess

 London, rain-slicked and anonymous. A man turns forty alone in a foreign city, carrying the quiet fatigue of an international reporter who has seen too many departure gates and too few reasons to stay anywhere very long. A last-minute concert ticket. 

A raw American voice tearing the ceiling off the Royal Albert Hall. And then, by accident or appetite, a late-night detour into the Playboy Club on Park Lane—velvet booths, cigarette smoke, champagne, and the hum of people pretending they aren’t lonely. 

 At a small table sits a woman who does not explain herself. What begins as flirtation becomes something more intimate and more dangerous: a shared meal at the Ritz, a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, the unsettling thrill of being mistaken for ordinary when you are anything but. She is American. She is bored. She flies Concorde as casually as others take taxis. And she refuses—gently, almost kindly—to give her name. 

 “Somebody Famous” is a story about anonymity and desire, about the strange relief of being unknown, and the quiet ache that comes with recognition. It explores the collision between celebrity and privacy, youth and fatigue, glamour and the hunger for something unremarkable and human. In classic noir fashion, the night is brief, the connection electric, and the truth withheld just long enough to matter. 

 Tough Love continues the Cantina Psalms universe (Shess' first novel) with a collection of modern noir romances—stories where attraction is sharp, dialogue cuts close to the bone, and intimacy arrives without promises. These are not love stories with clean exits. They are encounters that linger, echo, and leave their mark. 

 Arriving early March 2026.  Internet bookstores.
 

E-Book Arrival: If you'd like a personal email notice of "Tough Love" landing in bookstores like Amazon and Barnes & Noble please contact author: Thomas.Shess @gmail.com

RETRO FILES / AMERICAN ROMANCE REMEMBERED

They are not posing here. That is the quiet miracle of these images. John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy are simply walking, talking, negotiating the small choreography that binds two people together in daily life. 

A sidewalk conversation. A half-finished thought. The shared pace that comes from knowing one another well enough to fall into step without trying. New York was their hometown not by birthright, but by choice. It was where anonymity could briefly outrun legacy, where love could be practiced in public without ceremony. 

They moved through the city the way couples do when they believe time is abundant. No urgency. No performance. Just the unspoken intimacy of errands, opinions exchanged, laughter deferred to the next block. 

JFK Jr carried the weight of history with uncommon grace, but here he looks unburdened. Carolyn, so often reduced to iconography, appears thoughtful, grounded, present. Together they project something rarer than glamour: normalcy earned and protected. Their bond reads not as spectacle, but as refuge. 

What makes these images ache is not what we lost, but what they were still building. They were learning each other in real time. Learning how to argue and reconcile. 

How to walk a city without being swallowed by it. How to be married amid expectation. 

Gone since July 16, 1998 but not frozen in tragedy. These photographs preserves them as they lived at their best: mid-sentence, mid-stride, fully alive to one another. 

A reminder on this St. Valentine's Day that love, even briefly held, so often leaves a permanent warmth in the world. 

THE FOODIST / ACE PAIRING / NEW RESTAURANTS BOOST NORTH PARK'S REP

RESTAURANT UPDATES / By Holden DeMayo, PillartoPost.org dining maven--For nearly two decades, North Park’s reputation rested on taps. You came for IPA, stayed for a second IPA, and ate whatever food was available nearby. This week, within a single crosswalk of each other, two restaurants opened that argue the neighborhood now expects a table instead of a barstool. 

For nearly two decades, North Park’s reputation rested on taps. You came for IPA, stayed for a second IPA, and ate whatever was available nearby. This week, within a single crosswalk of each other, two restaurants opened that argue the neighborhood now expects a table instead of a barstool. 

On February 9, Bacari North Park (pictured above) unlocked the long-dark former Urban Solace building at 3823 30th Street — a site many locals credit with igniting the area’s first modern dining boom back in the oughts. 

À L’ouest's major domo Brad Wise

Two days later, at the marquee corner of 30th and University, chef Brad Wise’s French brasserie À L’ouest debuted after nearly two years of anticipation and construction, filling one of the most closely watched restaurant vacancies in the district. Walk by and see what a $4.5 million investment looks like.

A L'ouest's team has brought life to a dead prime corner; a Dickensian flop house is gone.  New life exists where cockroaches ruled for two decades. For that alone Brad Wise--Lordy bless and keep you!

The openings feel coordinated even though they were not: Bacari arrives from Los Angeles with a style that sits somewhere between Venetian wine bar and California dinner party. The menu is structured around small plates meant to accumulate rather than courses meant to progress. Grilled flatbreads come layered with burrata and truffle honey or lamb ragu. Stone-fruit salads share the table with crispy branzino, roasted chicken, and short rib glazed to a lacquer. 

There is a persistent sweet-salt contrast running through the cooking — dates with bacon, strawberries with cheese, figs with prosciutto — designed less for culinary orthodoxy than for appetite momentum. Cocktails lean bright and citrus-driven, and the wine list is built for repetition: approachable bottles you order again without thinking. 

À L’ouest takes the opposite path: a modern French brasserie filtered through Southern California technique. Wise keeps a French backbone but bends rules, from deeply enriched onion soup to live-fire cooking and a late-night sensibility designed for drawn-out dinners rather than quick turnover. 

The restaurant pairing matters less as coincidence than as timing. North Park has added destination kitchens steadily over the past decade, yet the district still functioned socially as a crawl. These openings, side-by-side and deliberately ambitious in design, signal a shift in how operators see the neighborhood: not as nightlife overflow from downtown or Hillcrest, but as a primary dining market capable of supporting full-scale restaurants with investment-level buildouts and reservation books. 

One building resurrects the neighborhood’s first restaurant era. The other bets on its next one. Yes, North Park still pours beer. But now, increasingly, dinner comes first. 

North Park Major League Dining 

Bacari North Park 3823 30th Street 

Los Angeles hospitality group Bacari restored and reopened the former Urban Solace building in last week and brought its Venetian-style small-plates format: burrata flatbreads, branzino, pork belly, bright cocktails and repeatable wines creating an instant clubhouse built for lingering rather than turnover. Since 2026. 

À L’ouest 3002 University Avenue at 30th 

Chef Brad Wise’s modern French brasserie anchors the district’s main intersection with late-night dining, live-fire technique and classic dishes filtered through California product. A statement restaurant that treats North Park as a primary dining neighborhood. Since 2026.

Mabel’s Gone Fishing 3770 30th Street 

Basque-Spanish seafood bar whose oysters, conservas and cocktails proved diners would wait for a reservation restaurant, not just a tap list. One of the first places to normalize planned dinner nights in the neighborhood. Since 2022. 

Leila 30th Street corridor 

Consortium Holdings’ Persian-Middle Eastern room built as an immersive bazaar environment with breads, kebabs and perfumed rice dishes. Immediate demand turned it into one of the toughest reservations in San Diego--period.  Since 2024. 

Deckman’s North Park at 3131 University Avenue 

Michelin-starred Drew Deckman brought Baja-Med cooking from Valle de Guadalupe: wood fire, regional seafood and sustainability-driven sourcing. A chef-centric anchor linking San Diego dining with Baja’s modern culinary movement. Since 2024. 

The Lafayette Hotel Dining Complex 2223 El Cajon Boulevard 

Consortium Holdings’ restored 1946 landmark reintroduced grand dining rooms to the area, including Quixote and Lou Lou’s Supper Club, pulling special-occasion diners into the North Park orbit rather than downtown. Reopened: 2023. 

AND HERE IS PILLARTOPOST.ORG FAV [to date] IN NORTH PARK.

Finca: North Park Way and Grim Avenue

It's called Finca.

The corner of North Park Way and Grim finally behaves like an address instead of an intersection. At the base of the Nash apartments, Finca showed up like a whisper among friends--then those friends kept the secret to themselves.  Finca opened in 2024 by sommelier Dan Valerino, chef Joe Bower, and restaurateur Ricardo Dondisch, the restaurant skips the usual North Park reflex toward volume and goes straight to conversation. 

The menu leans Spanish through a Southern California pantry — conservas, vegetables with acid and smoke, seafood, charcuterie — plates meant to overlap and circle the table instead of march in courses. The wine list drives the experience, bottles chosen for time spent rather than tables turned. Which is exactly why it works here. A residential tower needs a dining room, not a spectacle. Finca gives the block a place residents drift downstairs to and neighbors walk toward on purpose. Not hype. Habit.

A ROSTER OF NEAR BY TRUST RESTAURANTS

Trust – Park Blvd, Hillcrest 

The original 2016 flagship that launched Wise’s restaurant group and effectively began the modern Hillcrest-North Park upscale dining corridor. 

Cardellino – Mission Hills Italian-leaning neighborhood restaurant, chef-driven but casual-elegant, draws the same diners circulating through North Park evenings. 

Fort Oak – Mission Hills (Presidio area) Live-fire cooking centerpiece; the prestige anchor of the group. 

Rare Society – University Heights (and others) Modern steakhouse; the closest “celebration dinner” room feeding North Park’s reservation culture. 

À L’ouest – 30th & University, North Park The group’s French brasserie and the clearest signal the district is now a true dining neighborhood. 

 The Wise Ox Butcher & Eatery – Utah & El Cajon Chef butcher shop, deli, pantry and prepared food counter supplying restaurant-level proteins and sandwiches. 

INSIDER NOTES FROM PILLARTOPOST.ORG'S iconic no-name dining reviewer.  Trust Restaurant Group’s high-end kitchens quietly extend into take-home dining through The Wise Ox Butcher & Eatery (Utah & El Cajon). Steaks, sausages and prepared items mirror restaurant sourcing — effectively fine-dining takeout disguised as a neighborhood butcher. Secret diner’s tip Yes — the high-end Trust kitchens quietly sell take-home food through The Wise Ox. You can walk out with the same sourcing and technique the dining rooms use: steaks, sausages, sauces, sides, and ready-to-cook cuts. It’s essentially restaurant take-out disguised as a neighborhood butcher shop. 

Plenty of parking space at 30th and North Park Way parking structure (entrance on 29th street)

DON'T BE A PARKING CHEAPO: North Park’s restaurant surge did not happen by accident. Yes, chefs like the density, the walkability, the proximity to the old craft-beer corridor and the mix of casual and ambitious dining already in place. But the explanation people politely skip over is simpler. 

Parking. 

Hillcrest would steal it tomorrow if it could. Back in the 1990s, North Park boosters pushed through a multi-level public garage within easy walking distance of the main restaurant strip. It was not glamorous urban planning, but it turned out to be decisive and fortuitus urban planning. An eight-story promise that gets you to the dinner table instead of circling the block a dozen times. If you're picking up the tab don't ruin by being a parking cheapo.  Tomorrow's Valentine's date does not deserbe a thirty-minute slog through alleys and red curbs looking for a freebie parking spot on Saturday night. 

A neighborhood does not become a reservation district if the first course is frustration. And let’s be honest. If someone is prepared to spend fifty dollars on a respectable steak and ten dollars to step out of the car and walk straight to the door that is not extravagance--it's called playing smart.  It is a small luxury that separates the men from the cheapos.