Walk into West Town’s almost three-year-old Midwestern-focused Nettare and you’ll see different crowds depending on the time. The all-day cafe menu starts at 8 a.m. and offers seasonal lattes, breakfast sandwiches, and pastries served in the front retail area and throughout the large space, highlighted by a living wall and open kitchen. Remote workers settle in for lunch (Nettare was built with plugs, wifi, and room to spread out), and tiny lamps hit the tables after dark for a date-night dinner crowd. The bottle shop is filled with wines and locally made spirits to grab on the way out.
“It’s a way for restaurants to supplement revenue and take advantage of larger spaces and for guests to enjoy and sit for longer without feeling crowded,” says owner Conner O’Byrne. Happy hour runs 4-6 p.m. nightly, offering a burger and giardiniera martini for $20, and a “girl dinner” (a bottle of wine and two bites, like a Midwest cheese plate or stracciatella tartine, for $68), there’s an $80 pre-fixe for two on Sunday nights, and a tasting menu. “You can also come in, have a cup of coffee and a pastry, spend less than $10, enjoy the space and be part of the community. Accessibility was a huge motivator for us wanting to do this,” says O’Byrne.
You can also feel a sense of home in the 12,000-square-foot confines of the eight-month-old Milli by Metric. “It’s the idea that hospitality starts at home,” says culinary director Kirstin Alexander, who owns the all-day cafe with her husband Xavier Alexander and Darko Arandjelovic (the two founders of Metric coffee). They moved their original West Fulton roastery and cafe to Avondale and set up operations in a former antiques mart and warehouse, a project four years in the making.
Dining and Cooking