Little Canal

Little Canal is a cafe and bar on the Lower East Side featuring specialty coffee, breakfast, lunch, bar snacks, dinner and craft beer and wine. The restaurant is located at Essex/Rutgers Street, right next to the F Train stairwell. Big windows on two sides create a fishbowl effect, offering customers a view of the bustling street scene. There’s a turntable behind the coffee bar. You can expect to hear music from the 60s, 70s and 80s.

The cafe offers a vegetarian-centric menu with meat options to satisfy the carnivores. Look for egg sandwiches in the mornings and breakfast bowls, sandwiches and salads for lunch and a “vaguely Italian” menu for dinner. The place is built to feel like a comfortable, casual hangout. The owner, Jereme Barnas has lived on the Lower East Side for the past eight years, so he’s got a good sense of the neighborhood.