After the City Council meeting, my friend and I adventured downtown to a marketplace called Mercado Paisano which reminded me of the small shopping plazas in LA’s Chinatown, where my aunties had stores. 
The murals and collection of art/history inside was a delight. The shoppers and merchants were friendly and since we come from larger cities, we remarked how safe and clean it felt, unlike a lot of Downtowns we’ve recently been to like Austin, Los Angeles, or Toronto. 
It’s basically a collection of stores, restaurants, and exchanges for locals and you get to haggle a bit. We were looking for gifts for Cinco de Mayo to send to friends and family out of state and she was specifically looking for dresses for her daughter’s FIESTARR celebration at Lundy Elementary. 
It was small and cute and we found a store that had a lot of cute Mexican items and the shirts and dresses were $35 each. I’ve seen them for less at pop-up events around town, or for $25-$30 on Amazon, but honestly we were in a rush and we don’t mind supporting local stores. It was good quality and I’m happy with my purchases.
I’ll cover the diverse restaurants inside in another review; the food was delicious! 
We’ll definitely be back!
We’ll definitely be back!
