our neighborhood is seriously something out of pleasantville. there’s a town square, a community christmas tree lighting every december, and store-front lined sidewalks overgrown with blooming jackaranda trees in the spring.

over the last eight years i’ve lived in storybook suburbia, businesses have come and go -particularly restaurants. i’ve watched enough seasons of top chef to know how competitive the restaurant industry is and that more restaurants fail in their first few years than succeed. but epoch kitchen + wine bar seems to have defied the odds. in fact, they’ve become a local watering hole for residents of our community. so it was high time we tried it out on our weekly date night.

 

 

madewell dress || j.crew hat || target sandals || similar bag

 

 

as it is a wine bar first and foremost, we each started with a glass of vino -white for me, red for him (always). for our entrees, i opted for an order of their baked brussels sprouts and their chopped salad while S ordered a chicken pesto panini.

after dressing up for our date night last weekend, i decided to go more casual with my outfit. plus we actually walked to dinner, so i wanted to make sure i wore something semi-appropriate for (tame) exercise. i love how effortless this dress is, you can literally throw it on with a pair of sandals and go! aside from having the ruffled bib fly up and hit me in the face as we walked into the wind (it was pretty funny to be honest), it proved to be the perfect casual frock to wear on our romantic evening out. plus it has pockets!

 

 

though we loved our dinner, we made sure to save room for dessert because conveniently for us, there is a self-serve frozen yogurt shop just a few doors down from epoch. while i never have to justify sneaking a sweet treat after dinner, i will say the fact that we had to climb a hill back to the house made me feel like i had really earned that extra scoop of rainbow sprinkles 😉

 

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