An Afternoon on Church Street
Where’s the Church on Church street!
Church street, one of the busiest roads of Bengaluru has become a cultural hotspot for its young crowd. The street runs parallel to MG Road and connects Brigade Road with St. Mark’s Road; and is a major crowd puller on weekends. Filled with pubs and restaurants this is a happening place with the young and young at heart alike. I used to wonder where’s the church on Church Street?? However, years later I realised that the name actually refers to the St. Mark’s Cathedral situated nearby.
Pedestrian Only?
Parking is an issue anywhere on or near MG road. However, all is not lost for car and 2-wheeler owners in the CBD area of Bengaluru. Some parking space is still available 🙂 We parked our car at a public parking in the Public Utility building just 200 metres away from Church street and walked towards our destination.
Church street recently successfully experimented with being a no-traffic zone on weekends for a few months in 2021. It is a welcome change seeing the street evolve into a cultural hub of Bengaluru, especially for the youngsters to showcase their talent. Now, even after the traffic ban has been lifted, the street sees more footfalls on weekends with artists taking over the pavements with their artwork; music bands pulling in crowds with their creations; and skits being enacted for several social causes. The youngsters are enthusiastically sharing their wonderful amateur talent with the city.
A trip down the memory lane…
I visited Church street after many many years with my husband in tow and felt nostalgic recalling our memories together. For me, the street brings back memories of those carefree days when a visit to Church street happened almost every weekend for us. Eating, shopping and book hunting in Blossom were our favourite activities back then and we decided to just that on that fine Saturday afternoon – relive our memories of Church street.
The 750-metre-stretch of street retains its old-world charm with its cobbled roads and wide pavements lined with shops, pubs and restaurants on either sides. The street houses the iconic India Coffee House, the popular bowling alley Amoeba, and the ever popular bookstore, Blossoms, to its credit. Not to mention the the numerous other outlets which spring up on the street every now and then.
Good food & Blossom 🙂
We decided to try out the Church Street Social, a recent addition to the restaurant culture of the vibrant street, and were not disappointed. Overall, a place for the young crowd with good food, variety of drinks, DJ, live music and games. The meetha pan from the shop opposite the restaurant was a cherry on the cake.
With our tummies full and a song in our hearts, we headed to our favourite destination, Blossom Book House. There was its twin sitting right in the same lane but we went to our older haunt. The place obviously is so full of books like blossoms of Pink Poui (the season was full of pink and red blossoms that coloured the Bangalore streetscape with its pretty colours) that the name suits its cramped appearance- and a heaven for book lovers.
We fished out books for ourselves and our son for over an hour and returned with quite some kilos of happy reading. Lots of Sudha Murthy’s wisdom, some history and some crime thrillers were loaded into our bags to be carried to our car. Kindle nowadays is convenience but a book store has its own charm which no sophistication can replace. Cheers to Blossoms for keeping the book lover in us alive!
The hour-long drive to Church street was worth the effort for it was really time well spent and well remembered. If you are gonna need your afternoon tea after this, then you know where to head nearby…infiniteaaaaaa