As you walk into the light and airy interior of Star Provisions, a café and marketplace in the Westside Provisions District it is hard to imagine the location’s past life as a meatpacking warehouse. Instead of what I can only imagine to be the unpleasant odors of raw sausage, the mingling aromas of baked goods and grilled sandwiches greet you. Of course all those delicious smells do not make figuring out what to order any easier. But, once you do manage that feat, I find the real fun begins.
The café’s adjacent shop is filled with everything from oddball trinkets, like dishware made out of driftwood, to entire rooms dedicated to cheese and charcuterie. Because of my undying love affair with cheese, the cheese shop is easily my favorite room and without fail I spend at least 10 minutes inside perusing the cheese selection. I have to restrain myself (with great difficulty) from trying and then buying them all.
But luckily, by the time I’ve sampled a couple of cheeses, my food is usually ready and I find a spot at one of the counters to sit down and dig in. I’ve never been disappointed in the food at Star Provisions, but I especially liked my most recent combination of the Mediterranean salad and pecan sticky bun. I told myself that on some level the greens canceled out the luscious dessert. And, to the credit of my often-spotty self-restraint, I only ate approximately a quarter of the bun by myself and shared the rest with friends who had come to lunch with me. Some other stars of the meal were the frittata with goat cheese, leeks, Brussels sprouts, and herbs and the catfish sandwich.
After finishing our food, we decided we were too full to simply drive back to campus so we walked around, exploring WPD more than I ever had on past visits. The complex is definitely upscale with stores like Billy Reid, Free People, and Anthropologie. But, even if all of your shopping consists of the window variety, as mine did, it’s still enjoyable to explore. And hey, a girl can always dream about the days when that Emory education pays off and she shops in the store not just outside of it.
