This was my second Halloween living downtown, and it again did not disappoint. While last year I hosted a kickin' urban Halloween party followed by downtown shenanigans in our costumes, this year I went more low key and still had a good urbany night.
Pro tip for urban adventures: know where to get your info. I follow "Downtown Salem," Archive, Gov Cup, etc on Facebook and am otherwise on the look out for fun activities I see other people "like". I also check my new favorite website, gosalem365.com to see what's happening. All of my sources led us to a fun Halloweekend Saturday.
My evening started out meeting up at my apartment with some costumed friends and walking downstairs through the alley to my neighbor, 1859 Cider Co. I had seen on Facebook that they were hosting a pumpkin carving contest which was appealing because I love: 1859 Cider, Halloween, bringing out my inner child, creative endeavors, and fun downtown activities. We arrived, picked out our pumpkins (which 1859 so kindly provided), and set to work.
My friends got the sampler of all the ciders - which I definitely recommend if it's your first trip here.
Here's our table as we got started.
As an added bonus, when I purchased my glass of cider (the "Statehood" variety, which is my favorite), they asked me a trivia question. I got it right and received a discount as my reward! Woo hoo!
We had fun designing our pumpkins, enjoying the cider, and communing with some other Salemites who were in on the fun. It was unseasonably warm and rain-free, which made carving on the outdoor patio just fine.
Pumpkin carving pro tip: invite your super creative friend who will bring fancy laminate and clay carving tools! My finished product:
When the time limit rolled around, the judges scored our pumpkins. Sadly, none of us won (I think the prize was an 1859 gift basket), but one of my friends did get third place!
Then we set off to our second stop of the night (still in costume of course) and walked down the alley a little ways to one of my favorite downtown dining locales - Urban Alley. Urban Alley is relatively new (it's in the location of the old McGrath's) and has an interesting and modern menu that I really enjoy. We sat in a booth in the bar and the staff was kind enough to turn the TVs to the World Series per our request as we ate. I tried something new this time - the Blackened Salmon, and it was tasty! I've never had a bad dish there! But, sidenote, my favorite item is no longer on the menu!!! They had this really great cherry chicken with curried cauliflower on a bed of spring pea puree dish that is no more. Sad :( But, there are still other good options.
After dinner we went roaming a little bit to pick our next Halloween location. First we looped back by our pumpkins to check them out in the dark.
Then we walked through the alleys and stopped in at Taproot but the band wasn't playing there yet and we decided to move on (but Taproot definitely deserves its own blog entry at a later date!). We walked past Archive and I peeked in the window and smiled to see that every single bartender was dressed as a lumberjack, which just seemed awesomely appropriate.
Eventually we ended up at Coin Jam, a bar/arcade that is always a fun stop during a night out.
They have beer and cider and a pretty extensive food menu, and a good variety of newer and retro video games. It's a laid back atmosphere with low lighting, not too loud, and a casual feel. We were there for the games and the Halloweeny atmosphere of hanging with everyone in costume. (The most interesting costumes I saw were some guys dressed as green plastic army men!) We hit up their pinball section, did a three way Mario Cart race, and I gave Frogger my traditional attempt, and died on the first level as per tradition. One day I will vanquish that game...or at least that level.
About this time dessert sounded like a good idea. We considered our options: Ventis, The Kitchen, or Archive. Archive isn't much of a dessert place, the Kitchen didn't have any activities going on that I knew of, but Ventis is newly remodeled (which none of us had fully experienced yet) AND gosalem365 had told me that they were having live music, so Ventis won.
We ordered creme brule (that's what got me in the door, honestly :)) and cheesecake and took a seat to eat and wait for the music to start. And, even though we are all in or nearly in our 30s, we grabbed Halloween kids' menus and decorated some pumpkins :)
As the time for the band to take the stage got closer, the restaurant started filling up with more creatively costumed people. I like the new, hip vibe of the remodel, and it's nice that they have room for a band now. We were definitely not disappointed by the music. The band was the Gabe Cox Band and they had this awesome blues sound that I don't think I've ever heard in Salem. It reminded of the music I heard when I was visiting Tennessee last year and went to live music on Beale Street. My favorite songs that they did were an acapella number that they started with and a rendition of the Beatles' "Come Together." I took a video of the first but was enjoying the second too much to think about capturing it!
After listening to part of their set, we decided that we'd had enough of the Salem Halloween semi-craziness (not really that crazy). Thankfully my apartment was just around the corner. Another successful downtown Halloweekend!
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