Dharma and Greg

Okay, yes, I'll confess I stayed up half the night on that one. But seriously, folks, don't forget to tip your waiters -- remind them not to smoke in bed.

There is some great discussion going on at Left in Lowell about downtown issues, closures, foot traffic, etc. I've been tied up with work all day but am getting ready to jump in with my old hobbyhorse about destinations for regular folks with regular tastes. I was glad to see Lynne's reference to Elm St. in Manchester...obvious parallels with Lowell but I think there's a key difference in terms of the location of the arena, and even a seemingly small distance matters a ton in this case (Providence and Worcester have us beat on this count, too). It's always great to read any of Corey Sciuto's stuff on Lowell or small cities in general -- no surprise that he got this ball rolling yesterday. By the way, Corey threw a great idea out there for a 'downtown summit.' I hope I'm not reading too far into what he meant but this could be as simple as a few of us sharing ideas over breakfast somewhere...not something self-serious with resolutions and Robert's Rules.

For what it's worth, Ratriey and I were a bit bummed about the Dharma Buns closure. For all the knocks they're now taking on-line, I will offer up that they had late hours (way too rare downtown), great delivery service, and hearty grub. They had Wi-Fi and a cool atmosphere that I think would merit nomination from anyone as a solid "Third Place." In fact, a month or so ago I met up with a buddy there on a weeknight (Brew'd was literally too packed to even enter) and it seemed like the place was doing great business.