Category: Cover Stories

It’s comics season!

Saturday, May 4, is a double celebration for comic book and pop culture fans — it’s May the Fourth (the annual celebration of the Star Wars universe) and Free Comic Book Day, the annual celebration of all things comics-related. We take a look at local plans for this day as well as next weekend’s Kids Con New England on Saturday, May 11, in Concord — a comic book convention for the younger comic book fans. We also talk to a few artists about their work and get advice on how to get started drawing your own comics.

Return of Free Comic Book Day

These are the comic books you’re looking for

By Zachary Lewis
[email protected]

On Saturday, May 4, comic book stores across the globe will celebrate Free Comic Book Day to honor Marvel, DC, Dynamite and all things pop culture related to the medium. The free comic books that eager participants can acquire include titles from X-Men, Hellboy, Jonny Quest, Pokemon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Spiderman, Archie Comics, Popeye, Doctor Who, Flash Gordon, and Star Wars, just to name a few.

Locally, Double Midnight Comics, which has stores in Manchester and Concord, and Jetpack Comics and Games in Rochester will be hosting elaborate shindigs for fans, Merrymac in Merrimack will host some artists and shops like Collectibles Unlimited in Concord and Pop Culture in Raymond, among others, will have selections from the Gold- and Silver-tiered free comics available for the holiday as well as lots of sales. Depending on where you are and what level of party you want, New Hampshire has your Free Comic Book Day fix covered.

Double Midnight Comics

Double Midnight Comics is ready to use their Willow Street location in Manchester at the Factory for Free Comic Book Day.

“They gave us free rein of the whole campus so we’re just going to have fun with it,” said Chris Proulx, co-owner of Double Midnight Comics along with his brother, Scott, and best friend from high school, Brett Parker.

“We’ve all been big comic book guys. Scott and I got into comics in the ’80s. Marvel had a G.I. Joe and a Transformers comic book that tied into the cartoon, which was tied into the toys, so we got sucked into that and eventually made our way into the Marvel Universe. I met Brett in high school and he was like, ‘You’ve got to read the X-Men,’ and I was like, ‘OK,’ and then became obsessed with the X-Men.”

Naturally all three are excited for the annual celebration that started on May 4, 2002.

“Over the years [it’s] turned into a big party … have a lot of fun, geek out over the day. Up in our region the fans are pretty blessed to have some awesome stores that do it big…. We like to have fun with it.”

Weekly events that occur on Saturday will still go on, “but they’ll kinda be shrunk down for the day.”

So which comic books are free? Can I get that Superman Action Comics First Edition behind adamantium-infused glass for free?

“I’ll have people go, ‘I can get that $3,000 comic book for free?’ No, no, no, they [comic book publishers] make specific books for the day meant to be something new readers can get into. A full list of the comics can be found on freecomicbookday.com. We usually have extras that we throw in,” Proulx said. “We get people that travel from out of state for this.”

Comic book storylines are a lot like Legos. Sure, there is the preset factory-made form, which is a lot of fun, but the ability each new comic book has to morph characters into different versions of themselves, such as a Batman in Victorian-era London, offers endless possibilities and is the perfect treat for the imagination and allows readers to really make the stories their own, and is one of the reasons why so many people become enamored with the limitlessness of the medium.

Fans are so enamored that people start lining up the day before.

“It’s our busiest day of the year. One of the fun things that happened over the years is people started camping out for it…. It’s a cool little community event that happens there. The first person in line gets a special prize. The first 10 people in line get prizes. There are prizes for being in line. We’re pretty generous with it because we know if you’re going to spend a day waiting, you don’t want to be like, ‘Here’s an extra comic book,’ like, it’s pretty substantial,” he said.

On top of the possibility of winning cool swag just for standing in line, there are more activities than you can shake a magic-imbued stick at. These include lightsaber training on the lawn, and cars from movies that could take you back into the future or away from running T-rexes along with other signature vehicles throughout the complex. There will also be droid racing, live music from the Clemenzi Crusaders, face painting, representation from New England Kids Con, and a mobile video game truck called Gamer Sanctuary as well as a costume contest. Participants can even learn to shoot as poorly as a Stormtrooper.

Free Comic Book Day would not be complete, though, without a cinematic universe’s allotment of comic book artists.

“They will have tables, some of them will be sketching, some of them will have comic books for sale, some of them will have art prints for sale. It varies by artist. Some of them will have free things to give away,” Proulx said. Artists scheduled include Misty Martell, Ed Smith, Erica Fog, Craig Holland and others. A full list of artists and vendors — there are more than 40 — can be found on their website.

Getting to dress up like your favorite character is another aspect that is a huge plus for fans, even if they are not competing for the glory of best cosplay.

“We do encourage people to come in costume. Kids, if they want to dress up, if you want to dress up your dog, just come have fun. Families coming together in costume, it’s really neat,” he said. There will be prizes as well, although walking around as the Mandalorian all day is already a win.

Another win is that the non-stop comic book action occurs all day, from 10 a.m to 4 p.m.,and the labor involved is totally worth it for Double Midnight Comics.

“It’s our favorite day of the year. It’s a lot of work…. We love doing it, we love getting the community out together. Bringing another positive event to the city and we just love our new home here at the Factory because they get it and they let us have fun with the event,” he said.

Merrymac Games and Comics

Artists attending include Tabatha Jean D’Agata, Todd Dezago, Craig Rousseau, Jesse Lundberg, Mike Norton, Joseph Schmalke, Chrissie Zullo Uminga and Christopher Uminga.

“They’ll be here from 10 to 3 signing books, doing sketches,” Bob Shaw, manager of Merrymac Games, said. Apart from personal projects, some titles they have worked on include stories from Marvel, DC, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Star Wars, among others.

The store will be handing out comics and having a small sale, 20 percent off most things in the store besides Magic Products.

Jetpack Comics and Games

In Rochester, Jetpack Comics and Games will be blasting off with the celebration as well.

“We definitely do Free Comic Book day a little bit different than a lot of places. I know at one point we had the biggest one in the world because we spread it out all over town,”said Rich Brunelle, manager of the store. They, “try to make it bigger every year.”

“These days we end up having it all around town where we have a list online, a big map of all the businesses that are involved where you can take a trip to each one and get some additional free comics, which is a neat idea.” In comic book town, every establishment holds a possibility to find your next favorite comic, or even your first.

This will be the last year Jetpack Comics organizes the event for the whole town. The owner “wants to mix it up and try something different,” Brunelle said. They want to put more focus on bringing in artists and the other great aspects of FCBD, but they hope businesses around Rochester still decide to take part. With great power comes great responsibility.

“It gives a good chance for all the local businesses to get some new eyes on them. It’s definitely an interesting way to do it because the town has definitely embraced it over the years. There are signs on the edge of town and every road leading to downtown warning folks a week ahead of time of Saturday, May 4, there’s going to be costumed heroes and villains in the streets. So everyone knows that that’s a big day in Rochester here. We usually bring in at least a few thousand people to downtown,” Brunelle said.

Their biggest year was when they had Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, the creators of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, signing together at the event. Although that record may get broken this year.

It all starts at 10 a.m. but there is a way to start sooner and bypass the inevitable line by opting for a VIP pass.

“In addition to getting you a big bag of stuff right off the bat, you also get to skip the lines. Those VIP customers get to come in an hour early,” Brunelle said. “It’s pretty cool for them because for a little bit extra cash you don’t have to wait in a big line, and our line is definitely pretty long on Free Comic Book Day, but we have it down to a science these days where even times when the line goes from the shop and wraps all the way around the block where it’s like hundreds of people we have a great system that moves them through the shop really fast and an awesome crew that knows what they’re doing so we get people through the line incredibly fast these days, it’s pretty awesome.”

A large amount of action goes down at the Governor’s Inn, where participants can interact with comic book artists and vendors, live music will be played, and the ever popular cosplay contest happens at 4 p.m.

“Over the years that’s become a huge thing for us,” Brunelle said.

First, second, and third place winners will be chosen from categories that range from 0-17 and 18 and older. “All the prizes are different denominations of Jetpack Comics gift cards and we have a judges choice and host choice as well,” he said.

The construct and build of the attire runs quite the gamut.

“We have everything from people that have spent thousands of dollars to get a movie-accurate costume to kids that have literally built theirs with stuff at home. We realized pretty early in this [that] it’s not quite fair … we try to break it up and have a whole bunch of categories so that everyone gets spotlighted, a bunch of prizes, and it’s so fun,” Brunelle said.

“We had an almost realistic Master Chief from Halo a couple of years ago. We had some great Thors, there’s always a bunch of awesome Harley Quinns, Deadpools that show up as well as characters from popular animes these days. There’s been some spectacular Demon Slayer cosplays the last couple years…. It’s always cool to see what people come up with because our folks down this way are quite creative. We get some interesting costumes every year,” he said.

Before the caped crusaders take the stage for the contest a band composed of Jetpack Comics interns called Spectre Moose will perform to welcome in the attendees and contestants. They’re also podcasters — the band members, that is.

“They do a show called the Geek Gossip Podcast and they are like superstars, they’re teenagers, they do everything,” Brunelle said. Another band will perform after the cosplay contest for the afterparty.

A common thread these comic book stores share is the sense of belonging and understanding. “We have a lot of people who come in that don’t have any people in their life that want to talk comics or movies or TV shows and so they come in here and they know they’ve got a community they can chat with. I probably read way too many comics but all my customers like recommendations and like to know what’s good and what they should be reading so I try to keep up on a ton of it,” Brunelle said.

An older cousin introduced him to comics, but it was a major event like FCBD that led Brunelle to that comic book life.

“The Death of Superman was what got me into comic shops every single week. Back in the ’90s they tried to do all kinds of crazy events that would drag people in and that’s like one of the craziest ones of all time,” he said.

“We have like a mini-convention hall over there so we have a bunch of local guests as well as big-name guests that work on mainstream comics, and that ends up being a big focal point for everyone during the day … you get to meet some folks that are doing the comics you love,” he said.

“We have Paul Pellitier here this year. He’s well known for working with DC and Marvel … currently working on some of the new G.I. Joe stuff.” Others include Chris Campana, Gregory Bastianelli, Jeannine Acheson, Tom Sniegoski, Rich Woodall (who, “may be the hardest-working man in comics,” according to Brunelle), Vero Stewart, Jeremy Robinson, Mark Masztal and Jeff Kline. More information about these artists can be found on Jetpack’s website.

“This year is just the widest berth of different genres,” Brunelle said.

No matter which comic book party you attend, the organizers say, you’re going to have a good time.

“I honestly think this is the best year of Free Comic Book Day books in the history of the event…. People are pretty excited. It’s a great free day for the whole family and if you want to take a nice walk around town you can end up with a giant bag of free stuff, all kinds of comics to read,” Brunelle said.

Free Comic Book Day

Find a list of comics, some with previews of their FCBD book, additional locations, and more at freecomicbookday.com.

Collectibles Unlimited
25 South St. in Concord, collectiblesunlimited.biz, 228-3712
When: 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The store will have the free comics to hand out with no need to purchase anything, although the store will be open for regular business.

Diversity Gaming
1328 Hooksett Road in Hooksett, diversitygaming.store, 606-1176
When: 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
They’re collaborating with the Hooksett public library by giving them free comics to hand out. The store itself will have a big mix of free comics, a storewide sale on 700 Funko! Pop figures for $5 and a Star Wars sale as well, according to Diversity Gaming.

Double Midnight Comics
252 Willow St. in Manchester; dmcomics.com, 669-9636(XMEN)
When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
341 Loudon Road in Concord; dmcomics.com, 715-2683
When: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Jetpack Comics and Games
37 N. Main St. in Rochester; 330-9636(XMEN), jetpackcomics.com
When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
VIP passes range from $15 to $54.99

Merrymac Games and Comics
550 D.W. Highway in Merrimack, merrymacgc.com, 420-8161
When: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Pop Culture
66 Route 27 in Raymond, popculturenh.com, 244-1850
When: 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Free comics that are offered for Free Comic Book Day. There will be multiple sales on graphic novels, Pokemon cards, magic cards and more. All non-framed posters will be two for $25. All statues will be half-off, Board games will be 25 percent off, any comic books that are $10 or more will be 25 percent off and all cornhole sets (featuring the Hulk, Spiderman — “we have nerdy ones, all that stuff”) will be $50 off the listed price, according to Pop Culture.

For the younger fans

Kids Con brings in today’s readers, tomorrow’s creators

By John Fladd
[email protected]

Emily Drouin is the creator, organizer, owner and promoter of Kids Con New England’s, which hosts a spring event in New Hampshire and a fall event in Maine.

This year’s Kids Con NE in Concord will feature a exhibitors, cosplayers, authors, artists and more.

“It’s a fun-filled one-day show,” Drouin said. “Parents know that this is a safe place and that all the material is family-appropriate.”

A dozen writers, illustrators and cartoonists will lead workshops like “Learn to Draw Robots,” “Sketch to Superhero Creation,” “Draw Anime Chibi-Style Characters,” “Superhero Mask-Making,” “Pokemon Crafts” and many others. Perhaps the biggest name among the guest authors and artists is William Patrick Murray, the creator of Marvel Comics’ The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.

Other Kids Con activities include “Jedi Training with Calm Passion,” a magic show and a rock concert, which is followed in turn by “Superhero Training.” (Drouin said that Jedi Training is the runaway favorite among children.) There are also storytimes and sing-alongs and children’s improv classes. Drouin’s favorite part of the day — as well as most parents’ — is a cosplay contest.

Cosplay — when a fan dresses up as their favorite character — is one of the highlights of adult comic conventions. For kids, it is a dress-up dream come true. Given the scope of children’s imaginations, costumes can run the gamut from your standard Captain Americas and princesses in pink to indescribable alien life forms or whole families dressed to a theme.

“I am in awe of the costumes in the Cosplay Contest,” Drouin said.

For children who get too wound up, there are supervised areas outside where they can run around and scream.

“That’s really popular after Jedi Training,” Drouin said.

In addition to all this, there will be tables set aside for table-top games, a trailer to play video games in, and the vendors drawing caricatures, painting faces and selling toys, children’s books, comic books, posters and memorabilia, and more.

Kids Con NH 2024
Where: Everett Arena, 15 Loudon Road, Concord, 228-2784
When: Saturday, May 11, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Tickets: $15, $12 for seniors 65+ and military. Children under 5 get in free. Kids under the age of 18 must be accompanied by an adult guardian. Tickets can be purchased at the door or through Kids Con’s website.
More info: kidsconne.com

Telling a visual story

Ed Smith discusses his projects

Ed Smith is a comic book artist from Bedford who will be at Double Midnight Comics on Free Comic Book Day (Booth 27). He has worked on numerous titles including Tellos, Danger Team, a Giant Girl Adventure Series spin-off, and a project with his wife called Skies Over Gutenberg, among many, many others.

Is there a difference between working on commissioned work versus a personal project?

When you’re working on commission work usually it turns out that the client gives you free rein. You should always have your own individual set of standards so ideally doing commission work to someone else’s standard is only going to be slightly different than working on your own projects. There’s always that level of personal investment, you know — when you’re working on something near and dear to you it’s going to be a little bit different than if you’re working on something that’s near and dear to someone else. It really depends on the individual artist’s ethics. Mine personally, I find there really should not be a difference. I always do my best to involve myself in projects that I would want to be proud of in the future. I try to bring that same level of emotion to every project that I work on.

Do you have a specific color scheme you like to use?

Not particularly. Honestly it depends on the project. I try to use the colors that will work best for what the mood of the overall project is. You want to match colors that are in line with what it is that you’re working on. You don’t want to use drab and sad colors for something that’s supposed to be bright and cheery and make everybody smile. I do my best to kind of read the script or understand what the project is about and choose my colors accordingly.

How did you get into comics?

That’s a really good story. I grew up liking to draw. I grew up watching a lot of cartoons. I actually found my first comic book when I was a little guy. I found it when I was at school having breakfast one morning and ever since then I got more or less hooked because it was a Batman comic book. At the time I watched a lot of the Super Friends, so seeing Batman in a comic book just having adventures that were different than what I was seeing on the screen where he was surrounded by other superheroes, it just seemed a lot more adventurous to me. It was a lot more personal. I don’t know if I drew parallels from it or what have you, it was interesting to see Batman having his own individual adventures and it just inspired me and energized me to pick up my crayons and my pencils and whatever was around the house and just draw. My mom at the time kinda saw what I was doing and she would sit me down at the kitchen table and she would cut open paper grocery bags and we would use markers, industrial markers that my dad had brought home from work and she would show me how to draw things. The standard cube, turn the cube into a house, and then the house had the chimney with a curlicue of smoke, the three circles for Mickey Mouse’s ears, little flowers, things of that nature, she would teach me to draw them and I just kept going at it and over time it just developed into a little bit of skill. I just really kept at it. It was something that made me happy, drawing pictures, making everybody else smile while I’m drawing pictures. That’s really where it went.

Do you have any particular favorite screen adaptations of comic book stories?

Man, you know there are so many that I just can’t choose one…. Not because I’m trying to be wishy-washy and I realize that this article is going to go to print and different fandoms have different volatile reactions or supportive reactions to choices, but there are a lot of movies out there that you just wouldn’t believe were comic books and they are great cinematic movies. 300. 300 is a Frank Miller book that was based on old Greek legends and history. Road to Perdition with Tom Hanks, that was a really good graphic novel. There are just so many that people overlook as being true comic book movies that it’s hard to choose just one. I like what they’ve done with the Tom Holland Spiderman movies. They took old Steve Ditko and Stan Lee’s premise of Peter Parker being this high school nerd and they’ve made it really contemporary. They took it and really put him in today’s society…. A huge fan of Captain America, so I like what they did in the Captain America movies. I like Shazam as well and I think Zachary Levi does a great interpretation of a child being given some pretty great powers and having to deal with those…. I can’t put my finger on just one of them honestly.

What do you like about Free Comic Book Day?

People will show up for free books and they’ll be introduced to things they’ll grow to like and get attached to, and they really don’t understand that all of that harkens back to cave paintings. When you’re a comic book artist one of the things you strive for is to be able to tell the story without the word bubbles or the sound effects. You really want to be able to make a visual story that doesn’t need words but the words support the pictures. That goes back to when cavemen didn’t have a fixed language and they communicated on cave walls to record their history…. When you pay attention to comics, they’re pretty deep, they’re pretty in depth. There’s a lot of psychology that goes into really good comics. There’s a lot of visual representation and subtlety in storytelling that people just overlook. It’s great to watch little kids come in and unknowingly just become fans of something that’s a lot bigger than them and it’s actually a part of history and modern culture. — Zachary Lewis

Meet Ed
Ed Smith will be at Double Midnight Comics in Manchester (Comic Con Booth 27) on Free Comic Book Day. See dmcomics.com.

DIY comics

Marek Bennett explains how to make your own

By John Fladd
[email protected]

The thing about drawing comics, Marek Bennett said, is it’s more about leaving things out, rather than putting them in.

Bennett — a cartoonist, the author and illustrator of the Freeman Colby series of graphic novels, and art educator — frequently teaches cartooning workshops to adults and children. Working with children is usually more straightforward than it is with adults, who get self-conscious and intimidated, he said: “It’s much easier for adults to make comics if there are a few kids scattered around the room.”

“Older people end up using simpler pictures,” he said, often stick figures. “I have to remind them that even if a comic uses stick figures, it’s still a narrative.”

Children, on the other hand, feel less restricted about what they include in their comics. “[When I work with children] I start with a stick figure and ask the kids to suggest three details to add to it.” Because Bennett is often a novelty in a classroom full of children, many times they want him to draw himself. He will start with a stick figure. “Then when I ask them for three details, they always name the same three — a hat, a beard, and glasses.” That gives them a framework for their narrative.

The simplicity of the comic medium, he said, is what makes it so powerful and accessible.

“It allows an idea to be as clear as possible,” he said. “A sequence of images is exponentially more powerful than individual pictures. It’s more than the sum of its parts. By limiting the amount of detail, we open ourselves to a more intimate understanding of each other through our art work.”

One of the reasons comics are so well-suited for kids, Bennett said, is that there is such a low barrier to entry. “Unlike video games, sports, or musical instruments, kids and their parents don’t have to invest any money on something a kid won’t be interested in the next week.” If they have a brown paper bag and a crayon, they can make a comic.

Comics make sense to kids, he said. “All my life, I’ve drawn pictures. I would show them to adults or other kids, and they’d ask, ‘What happens next?’ So I’d draw a picture of what happened next, and then what happened after that. The next thing I knew, I’d have a complicated, sequential narrative. That’s a comic.”

The best way to start cartooning, Bennet said, is to put together a booklet and draw a series of boxes on the pages. “Start with a box at the beginning, and a box at the end, then work with them to fill in the details in the middle. Start with a simple character — a rabbit, or a stick figure, or whatever. I had a kid tell me once that he wanted the story to be about him and he said, ‘I want to be a dolphin!’ I asked him why, and suddenly he had a narrative.”

If all that is a little overwhelming for a particular kid, he said, break it down even further. “Use a sketchbook or a drawing pad and have them draw one picture per page.” Then, like the adults in Bennett’s life when he was a kid, guide them along with “What comes next?” questions. “They’ll end up with something like a flipbook. That’s still a story told with sequential pictures; it’s still a comic.”

Bennett said that when he works with groups of children, they will often start with eight-page mini comic books. With minimal guidance kids quickly start addressing some fairly sophisticated concepts.

“They’ll break into pairs or small groups,” he said, “and ask each other who their readers will be and what kind of story will those readers like. It’s empowering; they get to try ideas out on test readers and how to refine artwork and tailor it for the community.”

One of the powerful aspects of comics for kids as creators is the immediate feedback they get and a sense of achievement, Bennett said.

“They see themselves as part of a reading community. Making comics is an entry into graphic novels, which is an entry to reading anything.” If you told a child that they could write a 500-page graphic novel, he said, “they’d be completely intimidated. But if they draw a page a day, with six panels to a page, that’s 3,000 images to tell a story.”

Ultimately, Bennett said, comics are a way to know someone better. He tells a story about leading a cartooning workshop in the United Arab Emirates. The adults he worked with were confused at first; comic art is not a traditional part of their culture. As Bennett led them through the “What next? What next?” process, they became more and more enthusiastic. “One of them told me, ‘This is a way to understand somebody’s heart.’”

More Marek
Find out more about Bennett’s works and where he is headed to teach and talk comics at marekbennett.com.

More from the Vampiverse

Jeannine Acheson and Tom Sniegoski discuss their new work

Massachusetts-based Jeannine Acheson and Tom Sniegoski, the writing duo behind Vampirella: Dark Reflections from Dynamite Comics, which has a release date scheduled in June, discuss their process.

What comes first — the picture or the words?

Jeannine Acheson: The ideas come first, the story comes first, I think in my head anyway. And we start by writing everything out. The plot, the characters, we start with that and it’s kind of a step-by-step process. Now we’re working on a graphic novel and we’re laying things out and that’s where the pictures come in, for me anyway. Although, I feel like you’re [Tom] more fluid in that.

Tom Sniegoski: When I think of an idea, a lot of the time, especially for comic ideas, imagery is what drives the process. It’s kind of like, ‘Oh, that would be really cool. This could be a good moment in this kind of story if you had this kind of thing.’ There’s a lot of that, but what Jeannine says, we do sit down with a notepad. In the earlier stages it’s just notes. It’s just ideas. It’s almost like a gigantic puzzle that slowly starts to get pieced together so you’re in your proper order by the time you get all your ideas, hopefully, you see the logical story progression and then from there it will go to the next stage … breakdowns, stuff like that.

How did the collaboration for Dark Reflections, which is coming out in June, come about?

JA: That one was born from the Vampiverse, which we did for Dynamite in 2021 or 2022.

TS: Yeah, I think that’s 2022.

JA: And that is one of the stories from the many threads of the fabric that are the Vampirella stories in the Vampiverse, and this one focuses on a downtrodden Vampirella and Lilith, a daughter of Vampirella, of a Vampirella. It just kind of came up from there because we thought she was an interesting character [and] we wanted to explore what she had to say.

TS: The concept of the Vampiverse is the fact that the character, Vampirella, exists in many different realities and different forms so there’s like, we call them the threads, so every thread is a different story and a different Vampirella. So you could have a western Vampirella and a sci-fi Vampirella, an animated cartoon Vampirella, all these different stories. What it does is allows us to tell as many stories as we can think of with these different kinds of Vampirellas while keeping things fresh. It’s not the same character, she’s slightly different in all of these worlds. Dark Reflections is just another Vampirella in her world interacting with that character who is actually her daughter of a deceased Vampirella. It was fun to do. It allows us to do so much. We’re not completely rooted to continuity, a specific continuity. It allows us to play with that continuity if we wanted to, or ignore certain aspects of that continuity. It’s fun.

What draws you to a particular story?

TS: What draws Jeannine is that I say, ‘Hey, I got an idea.’

JA: Exactly, I can do that.

TS: ‘What is it this time?’ Honestly, you never know. A lot of the times, things just kind of click. You might see something in the news, you might read something in a newspaper, you might be walking around your kitchen and you trip and all of a sudden there’s just this germ of an idea that you then see if it’s worthy. You give it a poke, kick the tires and you start to expand on that idea. A lot of the times, Jeannine will get a text that just says, ‘got an idea,’ and I’ll give her a sentence and I gauge her reaction on the sentence whether we should probably continue to try to develop it or not.

JA: Sometimes it feels like things that come to fruition are things that keep coming up for us. They kinda won’t leave us alone. We have another comic coming out in July and that idea was born about four years ago and it just kept coming back to us and every time we’d be working on something else, this idea would just come back to us and we’d say, ‘Oh, remember that one that we talked about, that old lady living in the nursing home?’ and they just keep coming back and kind of keep expanding. We think about new facets to the character or different things that they could be involved in. The ideas get insistent, they have to be told I think.

TS: You know it’s a good one when it won’t leave you alone and you should pay attention to it. As a writer, here’s some writerly advice: If it keeps coming back it’s probably good and you should keep developing that idea.

Is there an IP or storyverse that you’d like to work on that you haven’t yet?

TS: The thing is, my dream character was Hellboy and I write Hellboy now, so I got that one out of the way.

JA: I don’t know if I have a dream one. Honestly, I think since I started writing with Tom my life has been a series of ‘yeses.’ There’s nothing that I’ve said no to with respect to writing. ‘You want to write Vampirella?’ Well, I’ve never written that before but sure, why not? We finished a novel together during the pandemic. For me, I’m very new to this whole world of comics and writing so I come along for the ride, I say yes to everything.

How does collaboration work between you two?

JA: Most of the time we work in Google Docs over Skype. A couple a days a week I go to his office on the South Shore but all the other times I’m here at my home office on the North Shore. We generally, I would say like 99 percent of the time, work on things together in real time. Occasionally Tom has work outside of our work and I have a little bit of stuff myself. Occasionally he’ll have to go to a meeting and I’ll say I’ll try laying out these few pages and finish up this scene. Sometimes it works OK, sometimes it has to be revised, but I’m still learning. Most of the time it’s literally a team effort. Somebody will write a sentence, somebody will tweak it, somebody will write another sentence, somebody will tweak. It’s very much in real time, writing together, almost all the time, everything.

TS: It’s interesting. I’d never worked that way before. I was solo for many, many, many, many years, so it’s very interesting to spend as much time working on so many different things with Jeannine. I’ve worked with Chris Golden, I’ve worked with Mike Mignola, I’ve worked with all kinds of people. Those relationships are kind of like, you discuss the project, you kinda know what you’re doing and everybody goes to their separate corner and does their own thing. Whereas working with Jeannine, and I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that she’s still learning a lot of this stuff since she’s so new to comics and book writing that we spend a lot of time talking about the process….

If someone stops by your booth on Free Comic Book Day, what can they expect to encounter?

TS: Jeannine will most likely be asleep.

JA: No, you’ll probably give them a hard time.

TS: Never.

JA: Honestly, this will be our third or fourth [FCBD] together at Jetpack Comics in Rochester. Hey Ralph! For me, It’s so exciting just to meet people that enjoy comics. It’s so cool. I think the first Free Comic Book Day we gave out, did we give out posters?

TS: Yeah, we had Vampirella, Vampiverse posters.

JA: Yeah, and that was so cool. It was so exciting to see people who were excited about Vampirella and loved the character and liked the new take we had to come up with. I think it’s exciting for me just to talk to all the people who are interested in comics. We have stuff for sale, but, you know.

TS: We bring like stock of stuff and people buy it, we autograph it and it’s fun. It’s very fun.

JA: It really is, it’s wild. I especially love seeing the families that come in. Parents with their younger kids or like grade-school kids, I think that’s fabulous. I think that’s so cool. Training the next generation. — Zachary Lewis

See Jeannine and Tom
Jeannine Acheson and Tom Sniegoski will be at Jetpack Comics’ event at the Ballroom at the Governor’s Inn in Rochester. See jetpackcomics.com.

Gardening Advice from Local Green Thumbs Plus Garden Clubs & Plant Sales

Everyone’s thumb can be a little greener.

In this week’s issue, we offer tips for better gardening — or even just a better gardening mindset — from local experts. Whether this is your first spring putting seeds in the dirt or you’ve been tending to a yard full of plants for years, these experts have helpful advice.

Longtime gardener and gardening writer Henry Homeyer gives his advice for a successful vegetable garden this season. We asked some local garden club members for their tips for better gardening — want more from them? We also have a list of when and where to meet up with local garden clubs to get more hacks from longtime green thumbs. And whether you’re just starting with your gardening journey or expanding your garden every year, there’s no better place to get good advice and hardy plants than those clubs’ plant sales.

Ten tips for planning a successful garden

Plant what you love, plant what you know

By Henry Homeyer
[email protected]

Despite late snow storms that dumped deep snow over much of New England, spring is right around the corner. Let’s take a look at some keys to a successful year in the vegetable garden.

1. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Yes, I grow about 40 tomato plants each year, but most folks don’t want to can or to put up many pounds in the freezer. A well-tended small garden is better than a huge weedy one. Select plants that you love, and just plant a few. Don’t crowd them. You don’t have to start everything from seed — most garden centers have plants for sale in six-packs, and a good selection of varieties.

2. Don’t use any chemicals in the garden. Mother Nature doesn’t, and you shouldn’t either. A chemical fertilizer is largely made of salts of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Too much of these salts can kill the microorganisms that work with the roots of your plants to feed them. A bag of 10-10-10 is 70 percent filler, and the content of this portion is not specified — it’s a “trade secret.”

3. Compost is your best friend in the garden. Unlike chemical fertilizers, it provides most or all of the micronutrients needed by plants, things like magnesium, calcium and sulfur. And it contains living organisms, the bacteria and fungi that work with your plant roots to provide nutrients to your plants. Mycorrhizal fungi coat the roots of plants. They produce acids that dissolve minerals and share them with your plants. The plants pay the fungi with excess sugars they produce on sunny days.

4. Build up mounds of soil and compost to create raised beds, or build wood-sided ones. You can hoe soil from the walkways into your raised beds, and maybe buy a pickup truck load of compost to mix in and enrich your soil. Most landscapers will deliver compost. Raised beds provide nice loose soil and discourage kids and dogs from walking through them. And in a rainy summer like the last one, raised beds drain well,

5. Enrich your soil with organic fertilizers like Pro-Gro and Plant Tone. They are made from things like ground peanut hulls, soybean meal, seaweed and oyster shells, with a few naturally occurring minerals. They are broken down in the soil and released slowly — just a small amount is water-soluble. They are a big help in poor soils, but don’t overdo these either.

6. Make a habit of walking through your garden every day. Look for problems: Are your newly transplanted tomatoes looking limp? If so, they probably need water. Are there potato beetles? The Colorado potato bug can be a real problem. But if you watch for orange egg masses under the leaves and scrape them off, and pick larvae and beetles every day, you can control the problem in a home garden. One adult lays many eggs that can produce new adults in 30 days or so.

7. Don’t let weeds blossom and produce seeds. Ever. Make 10 minutes of weeding every day a part of your daily ritual, just like you brush your teeth every day. Use a good weeding tool — I really like the CobraHead Weeder because it easily gets under weeds and can be used to tease out long roots. Some weeds spread by root, so getting out entire roots is important. A scrap of root from many grasses will survive and produce new plants.

8. Water judiciously. Those flip-flop overhead watering devices may be good for a newly planted lawn, but they waste a lot of water in your vegetable garden. Water with watering can, or attach a watering wand to your hose. A good watering wand allows you to water around your plants, but not your walkways or empty places. Too busy to water, or off to the beach? Use a water timer and soaker hoses. They can do the job for you.

9. Why weed your walkways and around your tomatoes many times in a season if you can prevent it? I put down four to six layers of newspaper, then a layer of straw or mulch hay to keep it in place and help hold in moisture. Most weeds won’t grow though the newspaper, and earthworms will eat it up by the end of the season. Inks in newspapers now are soy-based, but I avoid the colored sections.

10. Don’t get discouraged, no matter what. Last summer we had lots of rain and not so much sunshine, and many vegetables did not perform well for me — or anybody. Your garden will do better in times of drought or persistent rain if the soil is rich in organic matter and biologically active. Regularly re-plant some things you know how to grow, perhaps lettuce, and rejoice in fresh salads. And remember, there is never a good reason to spray chemicals on your plants — after all, if it kills the Japanese beetles, it can’t be good for you. Good luck!

Henry eats something from his garden every day of the year by storing and freezing things from his not-so-small garden. Send him questions or comments by email at [email protected], by mail at PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746. Please include SASE if you wish a response by mail. He will be writing just one article a month henceforth.

Plant sale season

Get greenery and advice

Looking for new perennials, annuals, herbs, vegetable seedlings and more? Head to a local plant sale, often held by local garden clubs. Not only can you find our-region-friendly plants; you can also find experts who can help you find success with that butterfly bush or early-producing tomato. And here’s a plant sale shopping tip: Show up early to have your pick of plants or show up near the end of the sale when remaining plants are often priced to move.

Know of a plant sale not mentioned here? Let us know at [email protected].

• Amherst Garden Club will host its plant sale on Saturday, May 11, from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Wilkins School (80 Boston Post Road in Amherst). According to their website, they will be highlighting native plants this year. They encourage participants to come and learn why these are important for our environment by visiting the many vendors who will be selling vegetables, herbs, hanging pots, houseplants, garden ornaments, used garden books and magazines, container pots and more, according to the same site. There will also be delicious home-baked items to eat or for gifting, according to the same site. See amherstgardenclub.org/plant_sale.

• Bedford NH Garden Club will hold its plant sale Saturday, May 18, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Bedford Village Common, 15 Bell Hill Road. See bedfordgardenclubnh.org.

• Candia Garden Club will hold its annual plant sale Saturday, May 18, from 9 a.m. to noon at Rockingham Lodge #76 (12 South Road in Candia). The sale will feature annuals, herbs and vegetables. Members dig up perennials from their yards. There is a raffle of garden-related and other items.

• The Friends of the Daland Memorial Library will hold a plant sale on Saturday, May 18, from 9 to 11:30 a.m. at Daland Memorial Library, 5 N. Main St. in Mont Vernon.

• The Derry Garden Club has a plant sale Saturday, June 1, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Robert Frost Farm on Rockingham Road in Derry. “We’ll have anywhere from 1,200 to 1,500 plants to sell,” said Diana Hill, club president. Their club puts a lot of focus on perennials, she said, “but we also do have members that start annuals and herb and vegetable plants as well. We sell trees.” See derrygardenclub.org.

• The Colonial Garden Club of Hollis will hold its plant sale on Saturday, May 11, at Lawrence Barn Field on Depot Road from 9 a.m. to noon. The event is their annual fundraiser and provides the funds for their monthly educational programs, community contributions, charitable contributions, scholarships, town plantings, seasonal decorations and more, according to hollisgardenclub.org.

• The Friends of the East Kingston Public Library will hold a book, bake and plant sale on Saturday, May 18, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the East Kingston Public Library, 47 Maplevale Road in East Kingston. See eknh.org.

• The Goffstown Community Garden Club will hold its plant sale on Saturday, May 18, from 8 a.m. to noon at the Town Commons (at the corner of Main and Elm streets in Goffsotwn).

• Great Island Garden Club in New Castle will hold a plant sale on Saturday, May 18, from noon to 3 p.m. at New Castle Recreation Center, 301 Wentworth Road in New Castle. See greatislandgardenclub.org.

• Hooksett Garden Club plant sale will take place at the Hooksett Public Library, 31 Mount St. Mary’s Way in Hooksett, on Saturday, June 1, from 9 a.m. until noon, rain or shine. The event will feature annuals, perennials, vegetable plants, herbs, houseplants, a garden-related yard sale, and Ask A Master Gardener booth where you can find out all about the plants you are buying, a children’s table and raffle items from local businesses and crafters, according to hooksettnhgardenclub.org. Most plants are from Hooksett Garden Club members, the website said.

• Hopkinton Garden Club’s 2024 spring plant sale takes place on Saturday, May 11, between 8 a.m. and noon at the Hopkinton Town Common, where club members will sell a wide variety of annuals and perennials, many grown in their own gardens, and includes flowers, vegetables, herbs, native plants and hanging baskets, and cash, check and credit card payments will be accepted, according to their website. The spring plant sale is the Hopkinton Garden Club’s major annual fundraiser. See hopkintongardenclub.org.

• Massabesic Garden Club in Auburn will hold a plant sale on Saturday, May 18, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Griffin Free Public Library (22 Hooksett Road in Auburn). See massabesicgc.org.

• The Merrimack Garden Club will hold its plant sale on Saturday, Aug. 3, beginning at 8 a.m. at Saint James United Methodist Church, 646 D.W. Highway in Merrimack. See merrimackgardenclub.org.

• The Milford Garden Club will hold its annual plant sale on Saturday, May 18, from 8:30 a.m. to noon at the Community House Lawn, 5 Union St. in Milford. The event will feature a variety of perennials as well as a raffle table, a bake table, other vendors and a performance by the MHS Jazz Band, according to milfordnhgardenclub.org.

• Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum, 18 Highlawn Road in Warner, will hold its annual plant sale on Saturday, June 1, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The New Hampshire Herbal Network will also hold its annual Herb and Garden Day in the museum’s Powwow Field. See indianmuseum.org.

• The Nashua NH Garden Club will hold its plant sale on Saturday, May 18, from 8 a.m. to noon at the Nashua Historical Society, 5 Abbott St. in Nashua.

• The Newfields Garden Club will hold its plant sale on Saturday, May 25, from 9 a.m. to noon at the Town Hall, 65 Main St. in Newfields. Find them on Facebook.

• Project Inspire 603, an organization that helps New Hampshire classrooms get school supplies, will hold a plant sale on Friday, May 17, and Saturday, May 18, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 88 Kelsey Mill Road in Northwood. Find them on Facebook.

• Tailgate Transport and Rescue, a dog rescue nonprofit, will hold its second annual plant sale on Saturday, June 1, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Burger King parking lot at 737 D.W. Highway in Manchester.

• The Unitarian Universalist Church of Manchester (669 Union St. in Manchester) will hold its annual plant sale on Saturday, May 18, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

More expert advice

Garden club members weigh in

By John Fladd & Zachary Lewis
[email protected]

“Don’t know who needs to hear this … but, you’re a good gardener. The plant should have tried harder.” — a post on the Pelham Garden Group Facebook page.

Or, as a Canterbury Garden Club presentation put it, “Don’t sweat it! Whatever happens in the garden … just don’t sweat it!”

For more advice on how to approach your garden — from general philosophy to specific plant tips — we asked area garden club members to weigh in.

From the Bedford NH Garden Club

Jeanene Procopis, who handles publicity for the Bedford Garden Club, said, “In our garden club we concentrate on perennials, planting perennials, and we try to plant native plants, plants that are native to this region rather than plants that wouldn’t be acclimated to our conditions here, so we try to push those native plants.”

And you can plant what’s pretty, or easy.

“We all enjoy annuals for their pop of color during the growing season,” Procopis said. “Perennials come back every year and they can be divided. They can be shared with friends or neighbors. They’re kind of a workhorse of a plant but they can provide a lot of beauty and enjoyment to a garden.”

When asked for garden tips, she said, “I’m not a master gardener…. Daylilies usually will grow in lots of conditions. They’re an extremely hearty plant but they need to be divided after a while because they will start growing within the pot they are planted in and start crowding together…. A lot of people have daylilies in their yard because they come back every year and they’re very low-maintenance. In the fall you need to cut back the dead leaves to get them ready for winter but in the spring they push up their leaves. Some are early bloomers, some are a little later, so they’re just a really hearty plant.”

As for her views on gardening overall: “For most people it’s a fun hobby. You learn by trial and error sometimes. You might have the wrong plant in the wrong place, but it’s a hobby of discovery, and for most people it’s extremely relaxing and rewarding because you get to see something grow and it’s kind of fun and beautiful.”

From the Concord Garden Club

Gena Moses, president of the Concord Garden Club, encourages gardeners to “have less lawn and plant more areas that are friendly to native species, that are more friendly to animals … plant for wildlife value, reduce your nighttime light pollution. Don’t use fertilizers or sprays.”

From the Derry Garden Club

Diana Hill, president of Derry Garden Club, responded to a request for a tip on gardening by saying, “You mean 2,000 gardening tips.” After narrowing that number down, the first thing Hill spoke about was jumping worms and how to mitigate them. These are “horrible, invasive worms … and they eat the understory of our forests, and we don’t want to spread the jumping worm, so when we get plants in the community … we bare-root the plants, we take all the dirt off, we wash them and put them in clean soil so we’re not spreading these worms…. We have these huge parties where we wash [roots] and get together … have lunch and drink wine and just scrub pots clean so we know we’re not spreading any invasive species.”

Derry Garden Club is also into urban pollinator gardens.

“Don’t clean up your gardens too early in the spring.” Hill said. “The pollinators can’t survive under the temperature of 50 degrees at night and the pollinators and bees burrow in leaf litter and dead plant litter, and if you clean it up too soon the bees and pollinators will have no place to go at night … so don’t clean up your gardens until it’s 50 degrees in the day and the night.”

Her final tip was about the perennial flowering plant anise hyssop; these, she said, “will feed the pollinators with pollen, of course, and their nectar, but birds also eat the seed heads at the end of the season, so it becomes an empty tube for the bees to live in, in the wintertime. So it hits all three seasons. Some varieties are native to New Hampshire. They propagate very easily, they self-seed, which is nice, you can fill in your garden quickly and you can also transplant them to other areas of your yard and they are full-sun and drought tolerant, so they’re basically a hands-off plant.”

From the Epping Garden Club

Eunice Miller mentioned one of her favorite tips is that so many people buy something that isn’t the right fit, and that it is important to get the right plant for the right location. If it needs sun, put it where the plant will get sun, and so on.

From the Hooksett Garden Club

Carolyn Taylor, publicity chair for the Hooksett Garden Club, offered a gardening tip for a tropical plant that can live in New Hampshire: “A few years ago my brother gave me some canna bulbs, rhizomes actually, and I got hooked. Although they are tropical plants not native to New England you see them in large planters in front of stores, restaurants, etc. … I put them in the ground as soon as the soil has reached 50 degrees and no danger of frost, usually in May.”

They need space because the bulbs will multiply, and “each plant should have three to five ‘eyes’ planted facing up.” Canna bulbs love the sun and water. “They pretty much need full sun because they are tropical and they need quite a bit of water,” Taylor said. “They take about three weeks to come up … and once they come up, will bloom all summer into the fall. You can keep them blooming by cutting off dead flowers.”

Birds are big, if tiny, fans of the plant, she said. “They’re very attractive to hummingbirds. They really love the fact that they’re open, they can get into them.”

From the Litchfield NH Garden & Plant Enthusiasts (a Facebook group)

“Mulch, mulch, mulch. And weed right after the rain. Start small and then expand. When in doubt, ask! There are lots of people who have years of local experience. AND look around. See what other people in your community are growing and when. Then you will know what does well in your area,” posted Stacy Lamountain.

“Start small and get to know your plants. When you see and experiment with them in each stage, you can better understand and predict what techniques they might like and what they might not. Then you can start to recognize their sisters and cousins and predict what they might like too. And finally, because you’ve gotten to know them well, it isn’t quite work anymore to care for them. It’s more like visiting a friend,” posted Kate Stevens.

From the Manchester NH Garden Club

“Spending some time in the fall putting your garden to bed will make your job much easier in the following spring.” — Fiona McKenna

From the Merrimack Garden Club

“If you start plants from seed indoors, harden them off by leaving them outside during the day and bringing them back inside at night for a week. This will help prevent the seedlings from getting shocked when they get in the ground.” — Jennifer Mayer-Cox

From the Nashua Garden Club

“Stop the back-breaking work of adding mulch to your gardens each spring. Instead, use ground covers to block out weeds and add attractive flowers to the bare spots in your perennial beds.” — Terry Robinson Lemack

“In the fall, when I bring in plants that have spent the summer outside, I am very careful to hose off the leaves and roots in hopes that I don’t bring an infestation of insects into my house.” — Joan Bonnette

From the Salem Friendship and Gardening Club

“Plant native flowering plants that will feed pollinators. Please don’t spray your dandelions!” — Lorie Ball

From the Tailgate Transport Rescue, which is holding its second annual plant sale

“When you buy a new plant, find out what it needs, so you can plant it in your yard where it will get the right amount of sunlight.” — Jennifer Abericio

From the Unitarian Universalist Church in Manchester, which holds an annual plant sale

“Dig up plants for transplanting in the early spring, just as they are starting to bud. When planting transplants, water the hole thoroughly before burying the new plant, then again, after it’s been buried; this will give the roots a chance to have contact with moist soil.” — Jean Stfanik

Fellow gardeners

Here are some of the area garden clubs. Know of one not mentioned here? Let us know at [email protected].

• Amherst Garden Club meets monthly from September through June at the Messiah Lutheran Church (303 Route 101 in Amherst) on the first Thursday of the month except in September, when they meet the first Thursday after Labor Day. The meetings typically include a featured speaker, according to their website, amherstgardenclub.org, with their business meetings beginning at 9:15 a.m. and followed by a featured speaker at 10:30 a.m.

• The Bow Garden Club typically meets on the second Monday of the months of April, May, June, September, October and November while a special “Progressive Dinner & Garden Tour” is held in mid-July for members and their guests, according to bowgardenclub.org. There is no August meeting and the club’s annual business meeting and holiday brunch is held on the second Saturday of December, according to the same website.

• Candia Garden Club meetings are held the fourth Wednesday of each month at 6 p.m. in the meeting room of the Smyth Public Library (194 High St. in Candia)

• Canterbury NH Garden Club meets every other month beginning in October and alternating weekday and Saturday mornings to accommodate a variety of schedules. Frequent communications are maintained through their email list. Contact [email protected].

• The Concord Garden Club holds monthly meetings, typically on Thursdays, from September through May plus the CGC annual luncheon in early May. “We do member-focused events all year long,” said Gena Moses, President of the Concord Garden Club. One event that is open to the public happens “in conjunction with Concord Parks and Rec department called Habitat at your Home which is to try to help residents learn how to plant more sustainable gardens at their homes.” This event will be held at City Wide Community Center at 14 Canterbury Road in Concord on Wednesday, May 1, from 6 to 8 p.m. with tickets ranging from $10 to $20 and participants will need to register to attend. See concordgardenclubnh.com.

• Derry Garden Club meets the first Friday of every month with most of the meetings held at the Boys & Girls Club (40 E. Derry Road in Derry); get in touch through their website, derrygardenclub.org, since they are not able to use the space in the summer months.

• Dunbarton Garden Club will celebrate the 20-year anniversary of the Daffodils of Dunbarton project with five different daffodil packages: General John Stark Blend, Molly Stark Mix, Caleb’s Courage, Scipio Page Blend and Dunn Cottage Blend, with sale information to be updated soon, according to dunbartongardenclub.org. The club meets once a month from April through December, typically on the second Monday of the month at the library/old town hall (1004 School St.) on the second floor, according to the website.

• The Epping Garden Club has an annual pansy fundraiser in the spring after the Memorial Day parade, a pink petunia sale around the first week of June, and a Fall Color sale with mums, asters and ornamental cabbages from Wentworth Greenhouses in Rollinsford at the end of August, for which the Epping Garden Club will take pre-paid orders. Email [email protected].

• The Goffstown Garden Club meets March through December on the first Thursdays at the Odd Fellows Lodge, 42 Mountain Road, at 6:30 p.m. It’s a community garden club with plots for residents. Find them on Facebook.

• The Colonial Garden Club of Hollis holds regular meetings on the first Tuesday of October, November, December, February, March, April and May at the Lawrence Barn at 9 a.m., according to hollisgardenclub.org.

• The Green Team of Londonderry meets on the third Thursday of each month from 6 to 7:45 p.m. at the Leach Public Library, 276 Mammoth Road in Londonderry. Find them on Facebook.

• The Hooksett Garden Club holds monthly meetings at the Hooksett Public Library (31 Mount Saint Mary’s Way in Hooksett) on the fourth Wednesday of the month, February through October, with social time from 6 to 6:30 p.m., the meeting (often with a program) starting at 6:30 p.m. and then a business meeting at 7:30 p.m. See hooksettnhgardenclub.org.

• The Hopkinton Garden Club meets on the third Tuesday of each month, September through May, according to hopkintongardenclub.org.

• The Kingston Garden Club meets in person on the third Thursday of the month at 6:30 p.m. at Kingston Community Library, 2 Library Lane in Kingston. Find them on Facebook.

• The Loudon Gardeners Club meets on the third Tuesday of each month, 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the Loudon Community Building, 29 S. Village Road in Loudon, according to the Loudon Town Calendar. Find them on Facebook.

• The Manchester NH Garden Club meets one Thursday a month (see manchesternhgardenclub.weebly.com for the upcoming dates) at Girls at Work, 200 Bedford St. in Manchester.

• The Massabesic Garden Club in Auburn has monthly meetings on its schedule at massabesicgc.org, where you can find more about membership. The next meeting is Wednesday, May 8, at 6 p.m. and wraps up the 2023/2024 season.

• The Merrimack Garden Club meets on the fourth Tuesday of every month at 6:30 p.m. at the St. James United Methodist Church, 646 D.W. Highway in Merrimack. See merrimackgardenclub.org.

• The Milford Garden Club meets on the second Monday of every month at 10:30 a.m. at the First Congregational Church Parish House, 10 Union St. in Milford. See milfordnhgardenclub.org.

• The Nashua Garden Club meets the first Wednesday each month from 7 to 9 p.m. at the First Baptist Church, 121 Manchester St. in Nashua and via Zoom. See sites.google.com/view/nashuanhgardenclub.

• The Newfields Garden Club meets on the first Wednesday of each month at 7 p.m. at the Paul Memorial Library, 76 Main St. in Newfields. Find them on Facebook.

• Salem Friendship and Gardening Club meets on the third Monday of each month from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. at the Kelley Library, 234 Main St. in Salem. See salemfriendshipandgardenclub.org.

• Weare Garden Club meets the first Tuesday of the month at 7 p.m. at the Hand in Hand Senior Center and Thrift Shop, 33 N. Stark Highway in Weare. Find them on Facebook.

• Windham Garden Club meets on the third Thursday of the month at 7 p.m. at Windham Town Hall, 4 N. Lowell Road in Windham. See windhamgardenclub.org.

Garden tours
Get ideas from other people’s gardens at area garden tours. Know of other tours? Let us know at [email protected].

• See the Secret Gardens of New London in a tour of six gardens, held by the New London Garden Club on Thursday, June 20, from 9 a.m.to 3 p.m. Tickets cost $25 in advance; see newlondongardenclub.org.
• The 35th annual Pocket Gardens of Portsmouth Tour will take place Friday, June 21, from 5 to 8 p.m. and Saturday, June 22, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The self-guided tour of eight private gardens and one public garden in the Little Harbor neighborhood will also include music, artists and more, according to southchurch-uu.org, the website of the South Church Unitarian Universalist Congregation, which is holding the event. Tickets cost $25 in advance and $30 on the day if available.
• The Palace Theatre will hold its annual Garden Tour of nine gardens (plus other stops) around Manchester on Saturday, June 22, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tickets cost $25 in advance and $30 on the day. See palacetheatre.org.
• The Bedford Garden Club will hold a “Follow the Blooms” garden tour of seven gardens in Bedford on Saturday, June 29, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tickets cost $25 when purchased in advance (see bedfordgardenclubnh.org) and $30 when purchased on the day from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Bedford Village Common at 15 Bell Hill Road.

A snack run at four area international markets

“OK, these ones are great,” said Keith Sarasin, pulling a bag of Indian snack mix down from a shelf. “They’re made with black salt, which isn’t something that most Americans are really familiar with. It’s got sulphury back-notes that are a little freaky at first, but after they’ve tried it, most people get addicted to it.”

Chef Sarasin is the chef and owner of Aatma, an Indian-themed popup restaurant. He describes himself as “Indian-food obsessed.” We were at Patel Brothers, an Indian supermarket in Nashua, looking over an aisle of dozens of varieties of snack mixes. He explains that people in South Asia — India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh — are passionate about snack foods. As if to illustrate his point, for every aisle of produce or staple ingredients at Patel Brothers, there is another one devoted to a different type of snack food.

“These,” he said, pointing to a package of biscuits (cookies), “are what you would have with tea. If you’re Indian, you keep some of these around all the time to serve to guests. There is a saying in Hindi that translates to ‘The guest is a god.’” That’s how seriously they take their snacks.

Almost every culture around the world has snacks that the people eat on the street, or sitting with friends, drinking tea, beer, coffee, or tequila, gossiping and arguing about sports. More and more of these snacks are making their way to New Hampshire — in supermarkets, superettes or convenience stores.

So, let’s do some exploring.

The following snack foods represent a small fraction of what is available at four local international markets — one Indian, one Filipino, one Mexican and one East Asian. These stores, in turn, are a fraction of the international snack landscape around us. There are Bosnian, African, Middle Eastern, and Greek markets that we haven’t had the opportunity to get to.

The snacks have been sorted by the stores where they were purchased (with tasting notes provided by snackers at the Hippo office). Because these are all ready-to-eat snacks, each section of regional snacks is followed by a recipe for a traditional snack from that culture that you probably won’t find on a grocery store shelf.

Patel Brothers:

Masala mix & West Indies potato chips

Patel Brothers (292 Daniel Webster Highway, Unit 8, Nashua, patelbros.com, 888-8009) is a large supermarket that is part of a national chain of more than 50 stores, according to the website. This one sits in Willow Springs Plaza in Nashua, next to Home Depot. It is a full-service supermarket with produce, groceries and products from all areas of South Asia and it features an in-store bakery.

Gharana brand Chakri (Muruku)

Where it’s from: Indian snack, made in New Jersey
Description: A dry, crunchy churro-shaped cookie or cracker, wrapped in a spiral.
Tasting notes: “A deep-fried flavor with a spicy back-end.” “Unexpectedly spicy”

Lay’s West Indies Hot & Sweet Potato Chips

Where it’s from: Lay’s, the PepsiCo-produced chips you’re familiar with, has produced flavors for the Caribbean and South Asian market
Description: A ruffled potato chip with Caribbean flavors
Tasting notes: “I taste paprika; the heat grows as you eat.” “Very reminiscent of Old Bay Seasoning.” “Wow, this excites my taste buds with the sweet, then the spice!”

Swad brand Mamra Laddoo

Where it’s from: Indian snack, manufactured in New Jersey
Description: Hard, crunchy caramelized puffed rice balls
Tasting notes: “Very crunchy.” “A second cousin to caramel corn.”

Anand brand Jaggery Banana Pieces (Sarkaravaratty)

Where it’s from: South India
Description: Nuggets of dried bananas covered with sugar and spices
Tasting notes: “This would be good with tea.” “Slight banana flavor — mostly hidden under the jaggery and cardamom. I like this.” “It tastes a little like garam masala.”

Bombay Kitchen Mumbai Masala snack mix

Where it’s from: Central Indian snack, made in New York
Description: A snack mix made of chickpea crackers, peanuts, raisins, rice flakes, lentils, green peas and spices.
Tasting notes: “There is a wide variety of textures. The flavor is subtle at first, with an aftertaste of garam masala.” “There is a variety of very crunchy and not-so-crunchy textures, with a nice amount of spice.” “I was much softer than I had thought. Not bad, but you need a decent handful to get the true flavor.”

Haldiram’s Khatta Meetha snack mix

Where it’s from: India
Description: A snack mix made of chickpea crackers, peanuts, mango powder, lentils and spices
Tasting notes: “Sweet tasting, with many spices. It isn’t hot.” “It starts out kind of bland, but quickly becomes addictive, with a sweet, mild heat and a soft crunch.”

Snack to make at home: Slacker Vada

Vada, a fried fritter-like food, are popular street snacks in Southern India. Passengers on trains will reach out the windows of their carriages at stops along their journey and buy them from vendors at each train station. They are a perfect on-the-go street food — crunchy outside, comfort-foody inside, and easily eaten on the go.

Let’s be clear about this: This recipe is not authentic vada. An Indian auntie would have a lot to say about how not-authentic they are. A vada wallah (a vada aficionado) on the streets of Mangaluru would take a bite of one, then shake his head at the state of this weary world. But, these vada are tasty, deep-fried and easy to make at home. Once you have a vague idea of how good a vada is, you will want to seek out one that is more authentic and involves intimidating ingredients like asafetida (a spice that requires a whole other conversation).

• 1 15-ounce can of lentils – I like Goya
• ½ 15-ounce can of chickpeas (sometimes labeled as garbanzo beans)
• 2 Tablespoon finely chopped cashews
• ½ cup unsweetened shredded coconut
• 2 teaspoons finely minced fresh ginger
• ⅓ cup finely chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 hot green chiles, finely chopped – New Hampshire chiles are notoriously unreliable; your best bet is probably serrano or Fresno chiles, which have a good flavor and a reliably moderate level of heat
• 2 Tablespoon rice flour, possibly more
• ½ teaspoon salt
• vegetable oil for frying

Your best tip for Indian cooking — or any cooking — is to prepare all your ingredients and lay them out so you know where they are when you need them and don’t need to rummage through your cabinets or refrigerator looking for something that you forgot you were out of. Professionals call this mise en place; it’s just another phrase for being properly prepared. Do that with your vada ingredients.

Rinse the chickpeas and lentils in a strainer until they stop being foamy.

Blend the lentils and chickpeas in your blender until they look like peanut butter and smell like refried beans. If the mixture is too thick, add water, a spoonful at a time, until it gets to where you want it to be.

Transfer the puree to a bowl, and mix in the other ingredients. It should be just stiff enough to work with your hands. If it’s too sticky, add more rice flour, again a spoonful at a time, until you can hold it and shape it with your fingers.

Take enough of the mixture to roll into a ball about the size of a golf ball. Roll it, then poke your finger through the middle of it, and shape it into a miniature doughnut. Vada are doughnut-shaped for the same reason doughnuts are: to allow them to cook completely in hot oil before they get greasy. It also allows you to get a deep-fried crispiness on the increased surface area of the vada. Make two or three while your oil heats up.

Heat 4 to 6 inches of oil in a pot to 350°F. If you choose a small pot, the oil will come to temperature quickly and you won’t need as much of it. You will only be able to fry one or two vada at a time, though, and the temperature of the oil will drop more easily when you add the room-temperature vada to the pan. If you use a bigger pot you will have more oil, can fry more vada at a time, and will retain a good frying temperature.

Fry the vada like you would doughnuts — 2 or 3 minutes on each side — until they are crispy and the color of brown car upholstery. Drain them on paper towels.

Because these are doughnut-shaped, part of your brain expects them to be sweet, but they are entirely savory. There are bits of chewy coconut, but also brightness from the chilies, ginger and cilantro. The background flavor is undefinably savory but supports its co-stars. These are excellent hot from the fryer, or at room temperature, although they are at their crispiest while they are still hot. They go very well with chai or coffee, and with a chutney, preferably coconut chutney.

Make these, grow to love them, and then we’ll talk about asafetida.

Saigon Asian Market:

sweets and seaweed

Saigon Asian Market (476 Union St., Manchester, 935-9597) is a medium-sized supermarket with groceries and products from Vietnam, China, Taiwan and Thailand. It offers fresh produce and excellent fresh seafood.

Kaoriya Mochi Peanut Flavor

Where it’s from: Traditional Japanese snack, made in Thailand
Description: Soft pillowy rice mochi, with a sweet, peanut filling
Tasting notes: “Two distinct textures; it tastes like a peanut butter bun.” “Very chewy; peanut flavor is very prominent, but not like peanut butter.”

Ricky joy brand Strawberry Mellow Cone

Where it’s from: China
Description: Brightly colored, ice cream cone-shaped candy.
Tasting notes: “Fun filling inside.”

Mag Mag brand Thai Hote Madame Plum

Where it’s from: Thailand
Description: Spiced dry plum
Tasting notes: “Madame is beautifully sweet and sour.” “Not too spicy — a nice balance of sweet plum and heat. I’m voting this my favorite.”

Tao Kae Noi: Mala Flavor seaweed snack

Where it’s from: Thailand
Description: Dried, seasoned strips of seaweed.
Tasting notes: “It has some heat.” “The spice builds as you eat it. It’s very fishy.”

Koe-Kae Sriracha Chilli Sauce Flavour Coated Green Peas

Where it’s from: Thailand
Description: Freeze-dried peas, coated with a sweet sriracha flavoring
Tasting notes: “It has a good crunch and good heat in small doses.” “Excellent crunch! The heat builds then recedes nicely.” “Great crunch! Perfect amount of spice for a snack food.”

Teddy Bear Sweet & Sour Spicy Tamarind

Where it’s from: Thailand
Description: Dried tamarind fruit with added spice
Tasting notes: “This has a delicious sour tamarind flavor. There are large seeds.” “Interesting combination — I got the sweet, the sour, and the spicy (in that order), with a nice gummy texture.” “I was not prepared for the seeds, but otherwise, I loved it. Sweet and sour with an earthy taste.”

Snack to make at home: Kluay Thod

These fried bananas are a specialty in Bangkok, where street cooks use small, finger-sized bananas. Those totally work in this recipe but can sometimes be a little hard to find. Half-inch rounds of a regular Cavendish banana will work just as well, as long as it’s properly ripe — yellow, with a lot of brown spots on it. If the convenience store you buy your morning coffee from has bananas up by the register, they will be just about perfect for this recipe, especially later in the week, when the bananas have seen too much of life and have given up hope. Think of this as helping them fulfill their destiny.

• 10-12 finger-sized bananas, cut in half, or ½-inch rounds of 3 large, ripe ones
• 1¼ cups (200 g) rice flour, plus more for dredging
• 1½ cups (200 g) all purpose flour
• 1½ teaspoons baking soda
• 1 cup (200 ml) water
• 1 cup (200 ml) coconut milk
• ½ teaspoon salt – I like to use coarse sea salt
• ½ cup (50 g) sesame seeds
• 3 Tablespoons brown sugar
• ½ cup (50 g) finely minced coconut
• vegetable oil for frying

Fill a pot with 4 to 6 inches of vegetable oil and set it to heating over medium heat. Keep an eye on it; you want it to eventually reach 350°F.

Meanwhile, mix the rest of the ingredients, aside from the bananas, in a large bowl. It will make a thick batter.

Pour a smallish amount, maybe half a cup, of rice flour into a small bowl. This is for dredging. When you’re deep-frying something, wet batter doesn’t like to stick to wet or damp ingredients, so it’s a good idea to cover whatever you’re frying with something dry and powdery — fried chicken often calls for seasoned flour or cornstarch, for example. In this case, you’ve already got rice flour on the counter, so we’ll use that.

When your oil has come to temperature, dredge several pieces of banana in rice flour, then dunk them in batter. Even with the rice flour, the banana might balk at being completely covered; you’ll have to convince it.

Carefully drop the battered banana pieces into the oil and cook them until they are a rich brown color. You’ll know when they’re ready; their beauty will stagger you. Fry a few banana pieces at a time to keep the oil at a consistent temperature.

Drain them on several layers of paper towels.

You owe it to yourself to eat at least a couple of these hot and crispy right from the fryer. They are lightly sweet, with banana notes in the background, and a savory, sesame-forward flavor from the batter. There’s a comforting contrast between the soft banana and the crispy/chewy texture of the sesame coating.

True to their street food origins, you and whoever else is in the house with you will probably eat this standing in the kitchen. If there are any left, they will still be good for several hours, especially with a glass of Thai iced tea.

GFM Pinoy Food Mart:

ube and adobo

GFM Pinoy Food Mart (224 North Broadway, Salem, gfmpinoyfoods.com, 458-1957) is a very small, snack-heavy Filipino grocery store. There are some refrigerated and frozen foods from the Philippines, but most of the stock is dry goods.

Fritzie’s Ube Cheese Pandesal

Where it’s from: Filipino pastry, made in New Jersey
Description: A purple bun (ube is an Asian purple yam) with a mild cheese filling
Tasting notes: “This tastes a lot like a croissant.” “It reminds me of pan dulce slightly. I can’t really taste the cheese.” “It … has a nice taste, like a sweet bread.”

Jack ’n’ Jill brand Chicharron ni Mang Juan (vegetarian pork rinds), Sukang Paombong flavored

Where it’s from: Philippines
Description: Light golden-brown fried snack that is curled to look like pork rinds
Tasting notes: “Salty and savory with more depth of flavor than I was expecting.” “Mild and crunchy; they would be excellent with three or four beers.”

Boy Bawang Cornick: Adobo Flavor

Where it’s from: Philippines
Description: “Marinated Meat-Flavored Fried Corn”
Tasting notes: “Chickeny-tasting corn nuts.” “Crunchy puffed corn with a mild flavor.” “Fave! I love these. They are like Corn Nuts, but not tooth-breaky.”

Jack ’n’ Jill brand Chippy Barbecue Flavored Corn Chips

Where it’s from: The Philippines
Description: Barbecue-flavored corn chips the size and shape of Fritos
Tasting notes: “The taste is a mix between a Bugle and a Frito.” “It’s light on the barbecue flavor, but I love the corn chip for a nice change-up.” “Savory, meaty taste at the end.”

Jack ’n’ Jill brand V-Cut Potato Chips

Where it’s from: The Philippines
Description: Lightly smoky rippled potato chips
Tasting notes: “It reminds me of a barbecue sandwich in a chip form.” “I really enjoyed the barbecue flavor of this one. Not too strong; just perfect.”

Snack to make at home: Tambo-Tambo

Tambo-Tambo is a coconut pudding with tapioca pearls and rice balls from the Philippines. Because the Philippines is made up of more than 7,000 islands, each with its own culture, and because it is in the middle of several major trade routes, you never know what you’re going to get in a Filipino snack. The food culture of the Philippines has been impacted by East Asian, Indonesian, Spanish and even American influences. This particular snack leans heavily into three ingredients deeply rooted in the Filipino landscape: coconut, cassava (which tapioca is made from) and rice.

• ½ cup (75 g) small tapioca pearls
• 1 cup (250 ml) water
• 1 cup (150 g) glutinous rice flour – it will probably be called Sweet White Rice Flour in your supermarket, but it’s the same thing
• another ½ cup (125 ml) water
• 1¾ cup (400 ml) unsweetened coconut milk
• another ½ cup (125 ml) water
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ½ cup (100 g) sugar
• diced fresh fruit – mangos are traditional, but I think fresh cherries would be fantastic

Soak the tapioca in a cup of water for half an hour, then rinse thoroughly.

Meanwhile, mix the rice flour with half a cup of water, then roll it into half-inch balls with wet fingers. (Your fingers should be wet. Giving the rice balls fingers would be disconcerting.) Cover them with a damp cloth until Game Time.

Mix the coconut milk, salt, sugar, and the last half cup of water in a small saucepan, then bring to a boil over high heat, stirring frequently.

Crash the heat to low, then stir in the rice balls. Cook them for about 4 minutes, until they are cooked through and chewy. Stir pretty much continuously, to keep the rice balls from sticking to each other.

Bring the heat back up to high, then stir in the rinsed tapioca, and stir until the tapioca has been cooked, another 3 or 4 minutes. The tapioca will thicken the mixture noticeably.

Remove from heat, and let the pudding cool, maybe 20 minutes. Serve, garnished with fresh fruit.

This snack is full of contrasts — the coconut pudding is creamy, the rice balls are chewy and the tapioca is, err, tapioca-y. The coconut is sweet — perhaps even a little too sweet on its own — but it is balanced out by the mildness of the rice balls. This snack is great warm, but even better cold and refreshing. I can imagine standing in a market in Manila, desperately hot and completely overwhelmed, then grounding myself with a dish of tambo-tambo.

La Michoacana Market:

Takis and Zambos

La Michoacana Market (112 Pine St., Nashua, 882-0271) is a small neighborhood market with Mexican snacks and products. It serves a small selection of American-style hot food, some with a Mexican twist.

Bimbo brand Nito snack cakes

Where it’s from: Mexico
Description: Dry, chocolate-frosted and -filled snack cake
Tasting notes: “A strong cocoa flavor.” “The sweet bread enhances the sweetness of the chocolate icing; it isn’t too sweet.” “Nice and chocolatey.”

Takis Hot Nuts Fuego

Where it’s from: Mexico
Description: Peanuts with a spicy/sour coating
Tasting notes:“The spiciness is all in the electric red dust.” “Very acidic.” “All the spice of a Takis with a peanut finish.” “Shockingly spicy at first, but ends nicely. It makes you want more!”

Yummies brand Ceviche Flavored Zambos

Where it’s from: Honduras
Description: Ceviche-flavored plantain chips
Tasting notes: “Outstanding lime and salt flavors; the fishy background is distracting.” “This tastes sort of like a seaweed chip; it’s pretty good.”

Diana Brand Jalapeňos tortilla chip

Where it’s from: El Salvador
Description: Seasoned tortilla chips
Tasting notes: “Tiny triangles. Delicate corn flavor with mild heat.” “not as hot as I expected but tasty and easy going with a great touch of spice.” “I’m obsessed with these! They are perfect, and almost no flavoring sticks to your fingers.”

Bimbo brand Choco Bimbuňuelos

Where it’s from: Mexico
Description: The packaging describes it as “Sweet Crispy Wheels with Chocolate Flavored Coating”
Tasting notes: “Extra crunchy. The chocolate is very melty.” “These are very dangerous! You could eat a whole package if you weren’t careful. The chocolate is so creamy and the crisp is light.”

Snack to make at home: Pemoles

Mexico is another country that has had its food shaped by a huge number of influences — indigenous, Spanish and even French. Mexico has a complex and sophisticated baking tradition. There are Mexican cookies that would blow your mind. Pemoles are wreath-shaped cookies made with masa harina (corn flour) instead of wheat flour, and are flavored with coffee.

• 2 cups (250 g) masa harina (corn flour)
• ¼ teaspoon salt – again, I like to use coarse sea salt; it plants little salt bombs in the finished cookie
• 1 Tablespoon finely ground coffee
• 1¼ sticks (125 g) butter — authentic pemoles are made with lard, which tastes fantastic in baked goods but can be intimidating, so we’ll use butter instead; feel free to use the full-octane fat, though; you will not regret it
• ½ cup (125 g) sugar
• 1 egg
• ¼ cup (2 ounces) coffee liqueur

Toast the masa harina in a dry skillet, stirring constantly, until it darkens to a golden-brown color — about the same color as a lion. Transfer it to a bowl to cool.

Add the salt and coffee to the roasted masa harina. Stir to combine.

Using your electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until they are pale yellow, light and fluffy.

Beat in the egg and then, once the egg is incorporated, the coffee liqueur.

Gradually mix in the dry ingredients.

When the dough has come together, refrigerate it for half an hour.

OK, this is where things get a little weird. Every recipe for pemoles says that you should knead the dough until it is smooth before chilling it. This seems impossible. The pre-chilled mixture is much too soft to work with your hands. Additionally, because there isn’t any wheat in this recipe, there is no flour to produce gluten, the stuff that makes bread and other baked goods pliable. I’m sure that the Mexican nuns who invented pemoles could do it; I haven’t worked out a way to.

Preheat your oven to 350°F.

Line a baking sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper.

Pinch off a tablespoonful of the chilled dough and form it into a 6-inch-long snake. Apparently, rolling it is recommended — and that would probably work if you could manage to knead the dough — but I’ve found that squeezing it in my palms works better. Put your snake on the baking sheet and form it into a circle. You should be able to form about a dozen cookies.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes. You won’t be able to tell by the color when they are done, but if you poke a pemole and it feels like a cookie that hasn’t firmed up yet, they are ready to take out of the oven.

Let the pemoles cool, then eat them.

These have a crumbly, sandy texture, much like a really good shortbread. This is something bakers call sablé. The roasted corn flavor is deeply satisfying — a little like a good cornbread — and the not-over-the-top coffee flavor gives you an emotional anchor to hang the “Ooh-I-like-this” part of your brain on. It goes without saying that these are a natural to have with coffee.

A look at some of the gathering spots that offer their own unique character, entertainment and, of course, beer

What is a pub? With a name derived from “public house,” it’s mainly a community gathering place. At the best ones, as the song goes, “everybody knows your name” and there are plenty of reasons to be there. A proprietor at one of the six area pubs profiled in this story spoke of theirs as a respite from stress at work or home: “If either of those aren’t great, we’re that third place.”

Each has something that sets it apart and makes the place special — a signature dish, musical gathering or standout staff member. It all adds up to a vibe that can’t be replicated. Much of it is by design, particularly in Manchester. A venerable watering hole is careful to schedule events that don’t compete directly with other downtown spots, so everyone does well.

Another common thread is evolution, often disruptive, always necessary. A move to a new location, rising from a death blow delivered by the pandemic, switching things up with a new music night, expanding the spirits menu ahead of, not in response to, a boom, or cultivating a particular demographic that was previously neglected.

In the case of one venue getting ready open in May, disruptive evolution simply means taking a leap of faith, something each of these does every single day.

The Forum Pub: Friendly zone

When Area 23 opened mid-decade, it quickly became known as a hard place to find but definitely worth the effort. Set at the end of a winding road off State Street, decorated with offbeat bric-a-brac and offering a tastefully curated beer list along with craft ciders and a smart pub menu, it also welcomed the Concord music scene. More than a few performers got their start there, and jam sessions were a magnet for creatives of all stripes.

Last year, however, owner Kirk McNeil was forced to move, due to what he called “irreconcilable differences” with his landlord. In early October he began occupying a space that formerly was an Asian restaurant in Penacook’s Thirty Pines Plaza. With a vibe much different than the cavernous Area 23, McNeil gave it a new name, The Forum Pub.

Before deciding on the change, McNeil asked one of his regulars to identify Area 23’s “main feature,” he recalled while standing behind the bar in mid-March, during the Forum Pub’s third week of business. “He said, ‘you could have good discussions with people; it wasn’t just a lot of sports on TV, a lot of people getting frustrated about this thing or that thing. You could actually have discussions.’ I said, ‘I think you just named it.’”

That said, Forum Pub is a haven for civil discourse; a House Rules list at the end of the bar includes “No Politics.” This is aimed at anyone “who’s not listening but only talking,” McNeil said. “I’m happy to talk about policies … we can talk about whether or not you think this thing or that thing should happen. What makes it a better show? I just don’t want to talk about why this nimrod or that nincompoop should be running the show.”

The process of moving 3 1/2 miles down the street wasn’t easy.

“As we all know, New Hampshire doesn’t have a ton of available real estate right now,” McNeil noted, and regulatory hurdles were also challenging. What saved the day were his people. “The best part of this entire move has been our staff, because a bunch of cooks and bartenders and sound men and servers … became construction workers and decorators.”

Adjustments between the new and old location include live music. There’s a nicely lit stage, an expertly tweaked sound system, but less room means solo, duo and trio performances instead of raucous bands. Don Bartenstein hosts a weekly song circle in the center of the room, there’s a growing list of Wednesday night singer-songwriter nights, and Saturday open mic is back, but no one’s loading in big amps anymore.

One upside of relocating is that the kitchen is four times the size of the old one, increasing the number of menu options.

“We’re doing some pretty terrific food here; we don’t have anything on the menu that I don’t like,” McNeil said. Among the customer favorites is an item that was also popular at Area 23. “I can’t say enough good things about the gyro; we do our own lamb roast.”

McNeil’s daughter Anastasia, home from college, echoed her father’s sentiments. “My friend Raphael is Greek as the day is long,” she said. “He took one bite and ran to get the chef to tell him it was the best gyro he’s ever had stateside.”

The Forum Pub
15 Village St., Concord, 552-0137
Must-try: Lamb gyro.
Big fun: Saturday afternoon Acoustic Circle

The Local: Rebirth in Warner

Like a lot of places, The Local, a small but scrappy and vibrant restaurant/bar on Main Street in Warner, couldn’t survive the pandemic. Owner Bill Meadows packed things up in May 2021. “We got through it and back,” he said by phone in late March. “When everything opened back up, we had people, but we were just so burned out by then that it just wasn’t worth continuing.”

As its name implies, it was more than a watering hole, and the community felt its absence. Meadows took a corporate job on the Seacoast, where he was frequently reminded why The Local was special. Its staff felt more like family, not a branch in an org chart.

“It’s not like going into a generic restaurant and being waited on by somebody you’ve never seen before,” he said. “You’re seeing the same people as when you came in a month, two months ago. It’s not just the food, the beer, the music; actually, it’s the staff bringing people back.”

When an opportunity to reopen came, in the form of another Main Street restaurant coming available, Meadows jumped. He and the owner of The Foothills began talking, and on October 13, 2023, The Local’s sign, featuring an arm wreath with two hands gripping mugs in a toast, came out of retirement.

It’s a bigger place, Meadows beamed.

“It’s an actual restaurant,” he said. “We were running the old Local out of a vanilla commercial space as best we could, but there were always restrictions, mostly with refrigeration … we could barely bring in enough stuff to last until our next delivery.”

Now there are more food specials, like a daily eggroll and burger, along with a doubling of beer taps, which Meadows has filled with all-local offerings.

“Our favorite thing to do is work with independents, breweries I go directly to for beer,” he said. “No. 1, it’s a great story, and No. 2, it’s not stuff people are going to find other places.”

Live music resumed recently, with April Cushman, Charlie Chronopoulos, Ryan Williamson and others appearing every Thursday night, courtesy of NH Music Collective’s talent service.

“It’s been really handy because booking was … it wasn’t difficult, but it was time-consuming,” Meadows said, so NHMC’s approach was welcome. “They book us great acts, and we don’t really have to do anything, so it works out.”

Along with that, Meadows leads a weekly trivia night on Wednesdays like he’s hosting a house party, surrounded as he is by mostly familiar faces.

“Our complete customer base came back when we reopened,” he said, adding that The Foothills’ old crowd still comes in.

Nine-to-five life compelled Meadows to rethink how he’d run The Local anew.

“I learned in a couple of years working for other people [about] things I used to do as a manager, not even knowing how toxic they were and how they affected other people, until I was that other person,” he said. “I came in with a completely different mindset as far as how to run a restaurant from a management standpoint; more how not to do it and trying to get away from that.”

The Local
15 Main St., Warner, 456-3333
Must-try: Eggroll of the day
Big fun: Wednesday trivia

The Barley House: New notes

As befits New Hampshire’s Capital City, Concord’s Barley House is packed with a mixture of locals and out-of-towners during the work week. On a recent Wednesday just past six o’clock, the bar included two men who earlier in the day were at the Statehouse talking over beers and burgers. Nearby, a couple from Cleveland who were attending an academic book conference at the Grappone Center considered a bowl of the pub’s signature Guinness Beef Stew.

“Definitely all walks of life,” said Nikki Miller, a longtime bartender at the North Main Street mainstay. Every Friday night, though, is locals’ time, she said. “A group of people in the community, they just take over the bar; they love it here. There’s also a ton of bar regulars, middle-aged people, and I’d say we do have some younger folk.”

It’s a less raucous vibe than in past years, she continued, meaning before the pandemic. “We’re not open late anymore,” she said. “People typically aren’t coming late to the Barley House, or dare I say, going out late anymore in Concord at all. It’s a changed place.”

The Barley House is very much an Irish pub. An ample supply of Redbreast, Green Spot and Jameson is always on hand, and St. Patrick’s Day is the North Star of their annual calendar. This year’s came on Sunday, a day they’ve been closed in the past. That changed this year, but Miller and her team weren’t sure what to expect.

To their relief, “it was a great day,” she said. “We didn’t have any troublemakers anywhere. Everyone was having a good time, eating great food. We had Irish step dancers, and the Irish session players for three hours. Then we had a DJ in our downstairs bar; I think a good time was had by all.”

A weekly Tuesday night gathering of Irish musicians, led by Eugene Durkee, was around before the pandemic. “Right now, we have about eight men and women that come in on a rotating basis,” Miller said. “They’re playing Celtic music, and it really just brings an awesome vibe to our dining space.”

Recently, regular live music, which ended many years ago, returned to the Barley House. Acoustic performers began appearing downstairs on Fridays and Saturdays.

“We all feel now that the world has returned to its new normal, so we decided to be creative in bringing people back,” Miller said. “Making it a place where you want to go in the community again … I think bringing music back was just the way to do it.”

Food-wise, the pub’s burgers are a constant favorite.

“I always tell my customers we have a top five burger list, which is not helpful to anyone trying to make a decision,” Miller said. Another recent addition is a personal deep-dish pizza with allegedly addictive qualities. “I don’t think anyone expected it to take off the way it did … it’s this funny little thing; people are like, ‘do you have it? I need it. I’m here for the pizza.’”

Still and all, a tight-knit staff on a first-name basis with so many of its customers is what sets the venerable downtown pub apart for Miller. “We say it’s not a Barley House, but it’s a Barley Home.”

The Barley House
132 N. Main St., Concord, 228-6363
Must-try: Guinness beef stew
Big fun: Tuesday Irish Session

Strange Brew Tavern: Peaceful coexistence

How does a business endure, let alone a pub? The National Restaurant Association reports an 80 percent failure rate within five years of opening. One local beat the odds. On April 6, Strange Brew Tavern marked its 25th anniversary. For pub owner Mitch Sawaya, however, the biggest milestone was making it to the end of Year 1.

He started in 1999 in a building that had stood empty for eight years, living on the third floor while he slowly built it out. Early days were quiet, but certain moments gave him hope, like when area restaurant workers stopped by after their shifts for a bite.

“I knew if we were doing something that attracted them we had a chance of making it, because they’re kind of harsh critics,” Sawaya said in a recent phone interview.

Fast forward to 2000. Strange Brew survived and, judging by a line snaking around the block on Market Street to mark the moment, was thriving. Sawaya could exhale a bit. “I thought, ‘You know what? I think we’re going to do OK, we’ll be here for a while.’ That was a big one; it was the first time I really felt comfortable or confident.”

As for lasting two and half decades, Sawaya worked to set Strange Brew apart from other Manchester bars, beginning with a big beer list.

“I had 18 draft lines when I opened, which everybody thought was ridiculous,” he said. With the craft beer boom years off, “I couldn’t fill them, but I refused at that point to put domestics on tap; I still do.”

Sawaya also vowed to make his pub the go-to place for blues and R&B fans, partly because he’s a fan. A favorite memory is booking Dennis Brennan; he’d followed the Boston guitarist since his days in The Martells. “What was even more odd is he was with some guys that I knew really well, and he told them that he remembered me,” he said. “I was blown away.”

Another reason for leaning into the genre, which includes a Howard Randall-hosted blues jam every Sunday and live acts every Friday and Saturday, is that Sawaya believes staying in his lane helps the overall downtown scene. Early on, he did a press interview that said as much. The next day the owners of the now-defunct Black Brimmer stopped by to thank him.

“They said, ‘That’s the best thing we’ve ever heard,’ which was great,” he said. “We made a point not to book the same bands or do the same things on the same night. They’d have Mama Kicks every Wednesday, so we just steered away from that sort of thing. I think it was good for everybody. There were lines to get into all those places.”

These days, Jordan Quinn, along with Scott Armstrong, hosts a music open mic on Wednesdays. “Everybody loves her; I think she’s been the most successful person with it,” Sawaya said, noting that there’s a similar Thursday comedy gathering. “It’s grown significantly; it’s really open mic, anybody can get up on stage, and occasionally a couple of the big guys from Boston will come down to test out material.”

Some of the best recollections are from the many New Hampshire primaries he’s seen. “I always tell the story about John Kerry,” he said. “I had a Tufts banner hanging in the corner because that’s where I went to college, and he saw it. His son and his daughter went to Tufts, and he asked the significance of the banner. They told him the owner had gone there, so he grabbed me and bought us a beer…. We spent 45 minutes talking about growing up in Massachusetts.”

Another time, Drew Barrymore had dinner at Strange Brew, but Sawaya couldn’t be coaxed to ask for an autograph. He did meet Chris Matthews when the MSNBC host did a bunch of shows there, along with Tom Brokaw and Boston Globe columnist turned television pundit Mike Barnacle, who gave his burgers a television shout-out. “Those are huge things,” he said. “All these people were coming out of the woodwork for the elections.”

Asked about the future, Sawaya said, “I intend to keep going for a while,” noting that recently he’s put a lot of focus on food offerings; the Jambalaya and Guinness Meatballs are customer favorites.

Musically, he’s tried a few new things, like recently bringing in the youthful River Sang Wild for a night.

“I’ll always have entertainment, multiple nights a week,” Sawaya said. “I’m going to keep playing around to see what works. I have a son who will be 18 in July, and he’s not interested in being part of the business. I’ve got to figure that out. I’d like to be around for quite a few more years.”

Strange Brew Tavern
88 Market St., Manchester, 666-4292
Must-try: Jimmy “The Greek” burger.
Big fun: One Big Soul Sunday blues jam

Wild Rover: Hometown handoff

Manchester’s bar and restaurant community is very collegial. A good example of this is the way Jesse Twarjan purchased the Wild Rover, the landmark Irish pub on Kosciuszko Street. A musician and entrepreneur who manages a few downtown residential properties, among other things, the “Manch-ghanistan born and raised” Twarjan has a long history here.

In a recent phone interview he talked about bumping into Bonfire owner Patrick Mills outside his Elm Street restaurant. “I made a passing comment like, ‘Oh, maybe I’ll call Bob for a shift or two at the Rover,’” he recalled, referring to pub owner Robert Scribner. “I believe Patrick’s words were, ‘He might sell it to you.’ That’s how the whole thing started.”

The deal was friendly and might not have happened otherwise.

“It wasn’t necessarily something that Bob was looking to advertise for sale,” Twarjan said. “It’s a place that requires the right kind of person, an owner-operator type of situation where people want to come in and see familiar faces, that type of thing.”

Twarjan took over the pub, which has been in business since 1990, on St. Patrick’s Day. With an outdoor liquor license in flux, everything happened inside, but crowds still showed up for what’s always their biggest day of the year. “We were at capacity all day,” he said. “It was a great vibe.”

With that essential celebration out of the way, an official grand opening is in the works, though the new owner is quiet on the details. He hopes it will happen before the end of April. To prepare for it, there will be new coats of paint, as he works on a stepped-up liquor offering and a reshuffling of the beer list.

Notso Costley Productions will manage live music, though Twarjan is ready to jump in when needed.

“We have them as a focal point every weekend, and they always have a rotating cast of extremely talented players,” he said. “My musician past leads me to have a fairly wide network of what I would consider to be extraordinarily talented people. They know if you’re going to come in here you’d better play as well as me or I’ll do it myself.”

Former chef Jeff Volker has been recruited to help with revamping the menu. Twarjan, who’s an alum of culinary-centric Johnson & Wales University, has big plans.

“We’re really going to lean hard into some of that Irish flair and fare,” he said, adding that Volker will strive to make the Wild Rover “the best place in town for fish and chips or shepherd’s pie…. We’ll be consolidating and doing it correctly. That comes down to quality over quantity, specifically with the kitchen.”

That said, the Rover won’t be going head-to-head with the downtown’s fine dining places. Twarjan’s thoughts go back to the way he acquired the bar.

“We need to be more collaborative instead of competitive in terms of making sure that there’s enough of a demographic out there for all of us to enjoy,” he said. “We’re definitely trying to fill some gaps in the food and make sure that we’re doing quality pub fare to a very high degree.”

Wild Rover
21 Kosciuszko St., Manchester, 669-7722
Must-try: Reuben sandwich
Big fun: open mic night

Pembroke City Limits: Born in a barn

Even though he can’t play a note, Rob Azevedo has an absolute passion for music. Seemingly his every waking hour is focused on it, whether he’s hosting his Granite State of Mind radio show every Friday night, blogging about a new local act he’s excited about, or gathering a bunch of his friends to do a Tom Petty or Stones tribute concert at the Shaskeen or Rex Theatre in Manchester.

Lately Azevedo has been hosting shows in his barn, adjacent to the house in Pembroke where he moved a few years back. They’re intimate affairs, with typically fewer than 100 people in attendance. Most are people he already knows, but a few new faces always show up, which got him thinking.

Which led to a new venture, his wildest and most ambitious yet.

Pembroke City Limits will present live events, everything from concerts to book signings and poetry readings, five days a week. Azevedo is putting the finishing touches on a space on Pembroke Village’s Main Street, originally an 1800s general store that most recently sold antiques. He’s been eyeing the spot for over a year.

“It was either going to be this place or it wasn’t going to happen,” he said in late March. Granite State of Mind will broadcast live every Friday, and initially acoustic acts will provide the music.

“We have four residents upstairs and we want to see how the sound is going to work,” Azevedo said, adding that all the pieces are coming together. “Rough plumbing is done, that’s huge; fire and electrical are updated; the next thing is drywall, and then get the kitchen and bar together. We’re hoping to be open by mid-May.”

During a walk-through, Azevedo pointed out the charming space’s many features, like hardwood floors, exposed brick and lots of ambient light, while discussing what it will look like when finished. A stage and seating area will be on the right. A bar serving a selection of area craft beer and wine will sit to the left.

Rather than operate a kitchen, he asked Kelly Sue LeBlanc’s Sleazy Vegan for help.

“I don’t know anything about food or cooking, but I love food trucks,” he said, “so I found one of the best food trucks around.”

Also on the team are Paulie Stone, a musician who’ll assist with that side of things, and Azevedo’s business partner, Eric Klesper. The new proprietor has big dreams for his little village, hoping it mirrors the growth he saw in Newmarket when the mills there were renovated. He’s grateful for an understanding wife.

“She knows I lost my mind sometime in the early ’90s, but I don’t feel overwhelmed,” he said. “I’ve been ready for a number of years to do this … I feel no anxiety about it. I ask my wife, why am I not crapping my pants? She says, ‘Because you’re ready.’”

Pembroke City Limits
134 Main St., Pembroke, 264-1757
Must-try: Sleazy Vegan Grilled Sleaze
Big fun: Americana Wednesdays

More Pubs

Here are a few more places where you feel like everybody knows your name. Know of a pub not mentioned here? Let us know at [email protected].

Flying Goose
40 Andover Road, New London 526-6899
Known for: Thursday night music series with best of New England’s folk scene
Must-try: Space Pony IPA

Holy Grail
64 Main St., Epping , 679-9559
Known for: Repurposed church with a heavenly beer list
Must-try: Bangers & Colcannon

Kathleen’s Irish Pub
91 Lake St., Bristol, 744-6336
Known for: It’s right there in the name — order a Jameson
Must-try: All-Day Irish Breakfast with real black pudding

McGarvey’s
1097 Elm St., Manchester 627-2721
Known for: Being Elm Street’s longest running bar
Must-try: Hot dog loaded with mac & cheese, bacon crumbles and pulled pork

Patrick’s
18 Weirs Road, Gilford, 293-0841
Known for: Wednesdays with singer-guitarist Don “Sev” Severance
Must-try: Seafood chowder

Peddler’s Daughter
48 Main St., Nashua, 821-7535
Known for: Lots of local bands on the weekends
Must-try: Cottage Pie is the real deal

Penuche’s Ale House
6 Pleasant St., Concord, 228-9833
Known for: The Concord music scene meets here most weekends
Must-try: Any local craft beer

Penuche’s Ale House
4 Canal St., Nashua 595-9831
Known for: Rustic, friendly atmosphere
Must-try: A cold beverage on their outside deck

The Pint Publik House
1111 Elm St., Manchester 206-5463
Known for: Serving Jamaican food with a friendly vibe
Must-try: Jerk pork or chicken

Pipe Dream Brewing
40 Harvey Road, Londonderry, 404-0751
Known for: Monthly Flights and Flow yoga beer night
Must-try: A beer flight of your favorite style, IPA, stout, take your pick

Press Room
77 Daniel St., Portsmouth, 431-5186
Known for: Buzzworthy live music
Must-try: Maple-forward Damn You Robert Frost cocktail

Shaskeen Pub
909 Elm St., Manchester, 625-0246
Known for: Backroom offering music most nights, comedy on Wednesday
Must-try: Proper Scotch Egg, made fresh once a week

Shopper’s Pub & Eatery
18 Lake Ave., Manchester, 232-5252
32-5252
Known for: Sports forward vibe, great game day stop
Must-try: Beehive Burger

Stark Brewing Co.
500 Commercial St., Manchester, 625-4444
Known for: Craft brew veteran with a big space to unwind in
Must-try: Drunken Tips, marinated in Tasha’s Red Ale

Stone Church
5 Granite St., Newmarket, 659-7700
Known for: Seacoast music hub with nonstop live entertainment
Must-try: La Bamba Rice Bowl

Wally’s Pub
144 Ashworth Ave., Hampton, 926-6954
Known for: Beach bar with frequent big-name concerts
Must-try: Famous Beach Pizza, a culinary choose your adventure

The NH Fisher Cats celebrate a new season and 20 years of baseball

By Zachary Lewis
[email protected]

On Tuesday, April 9, at 6:35 p.m. the New Hampshire Fisher Cats will celebrate their 20th opening day in Manchester. Twenty years of baseball in the Queen City means 20 years of home runs, hot dogs and memories.

“We hope that the 20th-anniversary season really shows how much we are committed to our fans and our community,” said Stephanie O’Quinn, Executive Director of Corporate Sponsorships and Ticket Sales. “We’ll continue to be that community gathering place … [to] provide family-friendly entertainment at an affordable price — that’s something that we take a lot of pride in as an organization and we will never let that go by the wayside.”

Andrew Marais, Senior Manager of Marketing and Promotion, agreed.

“The biggest thank-you we can give is to our community. That’s an honor to be here for 20 years. Blue Jays too,” Marais said. The Fisher Cats are the Double-A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays.

Chris Jared, the Manager of Media Relations and Broadcasting and the new voice of the Fisher Cats, expanded on that theme.

“You want to dig into the bag of what you’ve done to the community and what’s worked in the past and then you also want to look at things like what can we do to keep this engaging and keep people on a fresh page,” Jared said.

Michael Neis, General Manager, said, “Every year we try to look for one of those unique ways that we can really give back to the fans … and know that when you come out to the ballpark, certainly you know you’re going to have a good time, but there’s also some new things that you can try and take in, in a little bit different way, so we’re excited about this.”

“We have new ownership this year,” Neis said. Diamond Baseball Holdings purchased the team in December 2023, according to a press release, which also stated that all staff will remain “in place under the existing leadership of CEO Rick Brenner, and General Manager Michael Neis.” Former owner Tom Silvia has stayed on in an advisory role.

“They [DBH] have been extremely supportive of our mission here in Manchester and New Hampshire as a whole,” Neis said.

Lights, Camera, Baseball!

So what are some of the new things around the ballpark that you will be able to try and take in?

“Two weeks ago we finished our brand new field lighting project, which is really exciting,” Neis said. “We can now do light shows, cue to music, have different colors on each pole. So there’s a lot that we can do, whether it’s pregame intros, home runs, when we win — because we’re going to win every game, right. We can do a lot of really fun things … to give it that big-league experience. That’s something that fans walking in immediately will have a chance to get to see.”

Changes implemented toward the end of last season include new areas to sit and watch the game above the bullpens. Some changes have been geared toward the players as well.

“In addition to everything that we do for the fans and the community, our job is also to provide that environment for these players too,” Neis said. Updates have included “completely renovating both the home and visiting clubhouse,” Neis said. “We did open up our brand new stand-alone batting tunnel and weight room area. Not only are we meeting MLB compliance in those areas; we have what we feel is a best-in-class facility that really rivals anything we can see at this level or above, quite frankly.”

The fan connection

When the Fisher Cats are on the road, or if you cannot make it to the ballpark, there will be a way to stay connected to the team.

“We’re not partnered with WGIR anymore. We now have an audio stream that we can set up from home and road games and then fans can still watch on the Bally Live App or on Milb.tv,” Jared said. Fans can also listen to the game live on nhfishercats.com under the ‘listen live’ tab.

“It’s a much more intimate environment in minor-league baseball,” O’Quinn remarked. “I think that’s a very key element in the experience that we get to provide.”

“We hear all the time about kids who came to their first Fisher Cats game at 6 years old and now they’re die-hard Toronto Blue Jays fans … never stepped a foot out of New Hampshire but they live, eat, sleep, breathe the Toronto Blue Jays because one player decided to sign an autograph on the ball and now they’re a fan for life and not only a fan of the Blue Jays but a fan of baseball for life,” O’Quinn said.

“From a fan engagement perspective our team last year was phenomenal with meeting people,” Marais said. “Staying after the game to sign autographs or before the game … the team that is coming in I am confident will bring that same energy.”

Cesar Martin, who is returning as the team’s manager for the fourth straight season, said “the support that we get from the fans, I think that’s something that makes myself really happy and feels like I’m home…” The players feel the same way. “They’re excited, we’re excited…” Martin said.

“Whether you’re a bigger kid or the littlest of tykes, there’s something for you,” Marais said. “For example, when kids read five books they get two tickets to a Fisher Cats game, courtesy of our sponsors. [There is the] Oral Health Challenge with Delta Dental, when you brush and floss for seven days a week, you get two tickets courtesy of Delta Dental.”

Fireworks, giveaways and promotions will be back with exciting new additions too. General Manager Neis also revealed that “the New England Honda Dealers Bat Dog … Casey will be joining us for the first time this year. We’re really excited about her. Just really another very cool addition to the experience.”

O’Quinn added, “Paw-parazzi [is] welcome. That’s ‘P’ ‘A’ ‘W.’”

A Field Guide to Fisher Cats Mascots

Fungo

Official Fisher Cats Mascot

Description: According to the Mascot Hall of Fame, Fungo was born in the woodlands of New Hampshire but spent much of his youth attending Phish concerts. As the founder of the Fisher Cats’ Kids Club he hopes to promote wildlife education, sportsmanship, good manners and the card game Go Fish.

Enthusiasms: Fishing on Lake Winnipesaukee, Swedish Fish, the movies The Fisher King and A Fish Called Wanda.

Slider

Backup Mascot

Description: Originally from Dunedin, Florida, according to the Mascot Hall of Fame, Slider is Fungo’s favorite cousin. He is young, athletic and frantically enthusiastic about the Fisher Cats. His goal is to add excitement and energy to each Fisher Cats home game.

Enthusiasms: His trademark moves are flexing his muscles, giving high-fives and showing off his athleticism.

Rowdy Red and Bubba Blue

Sumo Guys

Professional History: They come from nowhere between innings, fight furiously on the infield, then vanish as mysteriously as they appeared.

Enthusiasms: Waving to fans, inflicting carnage on each other.

Casey

New England Honda Dealers Bat Dog

Professional History: When Benny, the Fisher Cats’ previous bat dog, retired to work as a therapy dog for veterans and first responders, Casey completed her training in New Jersey, then moved up to the minors. This is her first full season with the Fisher Cats.

Enthusiasms: Meeting small fans, bats, balls and belly rubs.

On the field

Jared expressed his thanks to the crew that sets up the game for the fans and the players.

“There have been game-day workers that have worked with us … I’ve talked to guys that have been here 15, 17 [years], some that have been here for as long as the Fisher Cats have…. Those people make things entirely possible from a game-day perspective of what to expect.”

More than 150 Fisher Cats have gone into the major league, according to the December press release.

“We always welcome the new crop of players,” Neis said. We need to work really well with them, [so] that when players come to New Hampshire they have everything they need. … There’s nothing more exciting than an eventual superstar that you got to see here in New Hampshire, and we’ve certainly had more than our fair share over the years.”

Where do these players come from? From all over, but the Toronto Blue Jays have their high-A team, the Vancouver Canadians, in Vancouver, British Columbia, and the triple-A team with the Bisons in Buffalo, New York. Their single-A team is the Dunedin Blue Jays and they are in Florida. Last year the Vancouver Canadians bested the Everett, Washington, AquaSoxs, a Seattle Mariners affiliate, to win their league championship.

“The talent jump from the single-A level to come to double-A is the largest jump. Triple A is essentially an extension of the major-league team,” Jared said. When players do move up from single-A, or high-A, they tend not to move alone. “Statistically they’ll keep coaches sometimes with guys. It is great to see when you have a team that, they’re in the lower ranks than you and they win a championship, sometimes those guys move in bunches and the chemistry is already there for them when they slide right in here in New Hampshire, they’re on the same page with each other.”

On the current roster, Manager Cesar Martin said that “a couple of new pitchers are coming from Vancouver.” The entire field will be well staffed too. “The most exciting part is we are going to have a really good defensive team and we have a lot of players that can put the ball in play…”

Fisher Cats fans will also have opportunities to catch major leaguers on the field.

“Last year we had the Blue Jays’ No. 1 prospect in Ricky Tiedemann … [major-leaguers sometimes on] the visiting teams that come in, like the New York Yankees having Spencer Jones,” Marais said. “The product on the field is very good baseball and very competitive, to the point where a player could be playing here tomorrow and [then] be playing in Toronto, or Fenway.”

Tuesday, April 9, is only a line drive away and the Fisher Cats hope all the hard work pays off.

“It is really exciting and rewarding for us as a staff and organization,” O’Quinn said. “We just want to be able to share that with our fans and our community and hope that they perceive it the way we present it.”

Players to watch

layer, they do all they can to get them on the team. Here are a few of the Fisher Cats to keep an eye on this season.

Josh Kasevich: The Blue Jays selected shortstop Josh Kasevich, a native of Palo Alto, California, out of Oregon with the 60th overall pick in the 2022 MLB draft. He spent 2023 in high-A Vancouver, where he helped the Canadiens win the Northwest League title and finished with the third-best batting average on the team at .284, according to the Fisher Cats. MLB.com lists Kasevich as Tornto’s 11th-best prospect for 2024. Kasevich worked on improving his bat speed and path in the off-season, along with getting stronger and faster, and hopes to continue his sharp eye of the zone, according to the Fisher Cats.

Adam Macko: Originally from Slovakia, with a brief stint in Ireland before moving to Alberta, Canada, this southpaw (left-handed pitcher) ranks 16th amongst fellow Toronto prospects according to Baseball America, while MLB.com slots Macko ninth, according to the Fisher Cats.

Alan Roden: Toronto called the outfielder’s name as the 98th overall pick in the 2022 MLB draft from Creighton University, according to the Fisher Cats. Originally from Middleton, Wisconsin, Roden spent his off-season in Florida to focus on improving his swing by building strength and increasing explosiveness, according to the Fisher Cats. After spending the first three and a half months of last season with high-A Vancouver, Roden received his double-A promotion to the Fisher Cats in Manchester and reached base safely in his first nine games, According to the Fisher Cats. Baseball America ranks Roden as Toronto’s ninth-most-promising prospect and MLB.com slots him in spot No. 7.

Phil Clarke: A catcher from Franklin, Tennessee, Clarke received his draft selection in the ninth round of the 2019 MLB draft out of Vanderbilt after his sophomore year concluded with a national championship in Omaha, according to the Fisher Cats. Clarke spent two seasons with the Fisher Cats and his third is set for 2024, and he received honors from MiLB.com at the conclusion of last season, making the site’s Organizational All-Star list, according to the Fisher Cats, and was also named best defensive catcher amongst Toronto prospects by Baseball America, who cited his fundamentals and natural skill as the reasoning behind the decision.

Save the date

Here are some of the special events planned at Northeast Delta Dental Stadium.

• Waggin’ Wednesdays: On Wednesdays when the Fisher Cats are not playing a home game, four-legged fans are invited (on-leash) to Northeast Delta Dental Stadium in downtown Manchester. A waiver must be filled out prior to bringing your dog into the ballpark.

• Foodie Fridays: Experience specialty food items at the ballpark every Friday. The first Foodie Friday, on April 12, will celebrate all things chili, with chili dogs, chili burgers and chili fries.

• Copa de la Diversión: For the games on Thursday, April 25, and Thursday, June 20, the team will rebrand as Gatos Feroces de New Hampshire, with specialty uniforms (get a peek at all the specialty jerseys at milb.com/new-hampshire/tickets/specialty-jerseys). Gatos Feroces merch is available for purchase on the team’s website.

• Princesses at the Park: The first of four specialty brunches at the park will be on Sunday, April 28, with a Princess Brunch to be held before the 1:35 p.m. game. Tickets to the brunch cost $30.85 and include a ticket to the game.

• Manchester Chicken Tenders: On Saturday, May 11, the Fisher Cats will celebrate one of the defining moments in American history: the 1974 invention of the chicken tender at Manchester’s Puritan Restaurant. The team will temporarily rebrand as the Manchester Chicken Tenders. Chicken Tenders merch is available for purchase on the team’s website.

• Cats-Con: On Saturday, May 25, The Fisher Cats’ annual Cats-Con game will celebrate their favorite movies, comic books, heroes, villains, and much more, featuring characters from Double Midnight Comics.

• Blue Heeler Appreciation Brunch: The second specialty brunch of the season will take place on Sunday, May 26, before the 1:35 p.m. game. Tickets to the brunch cost $30.85 and include a ticket to the game.

• Father’s Day Celebration: To honor Fisher Cats dad fans, the first 1,000 fans through the gates will receive a limited-edition Fisher Cats bucket hat on June 16.

• Super Bros. Brunch: The third specialty brunch of the season will take place on Sunday, June 23, before the 1:35 p.m. game. Tickets to the brunch cost $30.85 and include a ticket to the game.

• Game Show Night: On Friday, July 11, the whole game will be dedicated to famous game shows.

• Star Wars Night with Atlas Fireworks: Star Wars Night strikes back on Saturday, July 12. By popular demand, the iconic theme night will return with Star Wars characters, music, specialty on-field jerseys and more.

• A Pure Night of Imagination: The Fisher Cats promise a scrumdiddlyumptious night dedicated to everybody’s favorite fictional candy maker on Friday, July 26.

• Sitcom Night: On Thursday, Aug. 8, the Fisher Cats will dedicate their game to classic sitcoms.

• ’90s Night with Atlas Fireworks: Put your hair in a scrunchie and practice your macarena. On Saturday, August 10, the Fisher Cats will celebrate all things ’90s. The first 1,000 fans through the gates will receive a clear fanny pack. Beanie Babies get in free.

• Hockey Night in New Hampshire with Atlas Fireworks: The Fisher Cats will celebrate New Hampshire hockey on Saturday, Aug. 24, with new jerseys, new hats, a new giveaway and a celebrity appearance from Max the Monarch. The first 1,000 fans through the gates will receive a Monarchs-vs.-Fisher Cats bobblehead.

• Piggy Tea Party: The final specialty brunch of the season will be held at the park on Sunday, Aug. 25, with a Piggy Tea Party Brunch to be held before the 1:35 p.m. game. Tickets to the brunch cost $30.85 and include a ticket to the game.

Nashua Silver Knights

Want more baseball? Nashua is home to the Silver Knights, a summer collegiate team of New England players at Division I, II and III levels, who split their time between Holman Stadium in Nashua (67 Amherst St. in Nashua) and Centennial Field in Burlington, Vermont. They play in the Futures Collegiate Baseball League.

General Manager Cam Cook says most of his players are working their way up the baseball ladder.

“A lot of people have heard of the Cape Cod League,” Cook said. “A lot of our guys are freshmen and sophomores who play with us for a year or two, then go to the Cape Cod League.”

Cook says that this is shaping up into a good season.

“It’s looking good,” he says. “We’re as busy as we’ve ever been. We’ve got great sponsors, and we’re planning some great theme nights.” Some of these theme nights include a Princess in the Park night, when fans, especially young ones, are encouraged to dress as their favorite princesses; a celebration of National Hot Dog Day; a visit from the Boogie Bros traveling mascot show, and a baseball card give-away.

The biggest game of the season will be the Knights’ July 25 exhibition game against the War Dogs, a team made up of active-duty and reserve military players.

“From a pure baseball point of view, it’s really interesting to see a freshman pitcher from Vanderbilt go up against an active-duty Marine,” Cook said. “It’s like an AI simulation, and we get to see it in real time.” The Knights have invited local veterans’ groups and VFWs to the game, to pump up interest in the game.

“We’ve already sold out our suites,” Cook said. It will be an unusual home game, he thinks, because most of the fans will be rooting for the visitors. “I’ve already started preparing the team,” he says, “warning them, ‘You’re probably going to get booed.”

This yearly exhibition game always honors the military in general, but this year it will have a special focus on the Air Force. “We’re trying to arrange a military fly-over, and a helicopter to deliver the First Pitch Ball,” Cook said. He noted that a point of particular interest is Silver Knight Player No. 7, pitcher Frankie Melendez, who is an ROTC cadet at Stonehill College. “He’ll be playing against soldiers he might run into in the service in a few years.”

The Nashua Silver Knights’ season begins on May 24 with a home game against the Vermont Lake Monsters. For more information, tickets and the team’s season schedule, visit their website at nashuasilverknights.com. —John Fladd

Fan food

An essential part of attending a baseball game is the food. It’s even in the song: “Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack….” Stephanuie Vangjel is the Operations Manager for Professional Sports Catering, the company that provides snacks to Fisher Cats fans. It’s her job to make sure everyone in the stadium has access to baseball food during home games. That includes classics like hot dogs, fried dough and chicken fingers for the audience in the bleachers, but also lobster rolls and steak tips for the fans in the luxury suites.

“I’m making myself hungry,” Vangjel says, describing the food.

Feeding Delta Dental Stadium means more than handing out hot dogs. Vangjel’s staff is in charge of running concessions during home games but also providing service to the suites and running the Brewhouse Restaurant — the Fisher Cats’ onsite restaurant — as well as handling outside catering jobs.

Vangjel says her team is especially proud of their promotional food specials.

“We put together special packages like our Ballpark Buffet, a barbecue package, and a comfort food package [which includes burgers, chicken sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, and baked beans]. We set up nacho bars and fajita bars. On Video Game Night, we’re planning an ‘Italian Plumbers’-themed menu.” “Italian Plumbers,” she explains, to avoid any trademark infringement with Nintendo.

The enthusiasm for this season’s ballpark food extends to the Fisher Cats’ front office.

“A highlight this year is we are introducing what we call ‘Foodie Fridays,’” says General Manager Michael Neiss. “That’s really taking that day of the week, taking that game, whether there’s a theme or not, and providing unique food [and] beverage options that you wouldn’t be able to get on a normal night.” Foodie Fridays will kick off the season on April 5 with an all-chili theme — chili dogs, chili burgers and chili fries — according to Stephanie Vangjel.

Andrew Marais, Senior Manager of Marketing and Promotions for the Fisher Cats, says management is excited about the Manchester Chicken Tenders returning to the field, referring to a Fisher Cats tribute to Manchester’s iconic food, when the team will dress in specially themed uniforms.

“The first [Chicken Tenders] game will be on May 11 — that will be your original Chicken Tender on-field uniform jersey — and then on July 27 we turn up the heat with Buffalo Tenders. So, brand new Buffalo Tender jerseys, very very cool. I believe they’re on our website too and you can purchase them in the team store.”

Hungry fans will also be able to eat brunch at the ballpark. The Fisher Cats will host four themed brunches this season, to correspond with special theme days. There will be a “Princess” brunch on April 28, a “Blue Heeler Appreciation” brunch in May, a “Super Bros” brunch in June and a “Piggy Tea Party” brunch in August. Each brunch ticket includes admission to the brunch and a ticket to the game following it. Brunch tickets are available through the Fisher Cats’ website (milb.com/new-hampshire). —John Fladd

We’re all winners!

From the spots voted best pizza place to those of us who can go eat that pizza, everybody involved in Hippo’s Best of readers’ poll 2024 is getting a win from this issue.

In this year’s poll we asked you to weigh in with your favorite doughnut, hiking trail, lunch spot and brewery. We also asked for your thoughts on ketchup, music while you work and picnics. We even asked you who, in New Hampshire, you’d like to extend a thank you to (and thank you to the reader who said “Hippo for a great paper”).

And after all that voting in February, now we present you with, generally, the top five winners in each category — though sometimes we have supersized it and let a few more reader faves join the winners court. And we’ve sprinkled some specific reader responses throughout, because they’re fun. Looking for a place where they make your coffee perfect every time or a great hair stylist? Here are Hippo readers’ favorites.

Link to Sections

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The Fine Print

This survey is for entertainment purposes only and all results are final.

The results of Hippo’s readers’ poll are based on readers’ answers to a poll conducted online in February. Readers typed in the names of people and locations they voted for. In situations where the vote is tied or otherwise unclear, Hippo editorial staff makes an effort to determine the will of the greatest number of voters. Hippo reserves the right to disqualify individual votes, ballots and/or entries when they are incomplete or unclear, do not meet the letter or the spirit of the question asked or otherwise do not meet the requirements to make them a usable vote.

Hippo’s editorial staff makes the ultimate determination of the winners in the categories. Hippo’s advertisers play no role in the determination of the winners. All results are final.

The Best of 2024 is a celebration of all things local and is meant to serve as a snapshot of the people and places in southern New Hampshire. Large national and international chains are, for the most part, not included in the count. Information presented here is gathered from sources including the location’s website and social media pages. Double check with the spots before heading out to make sure times, locations and menu items haven’t changed.

Questions, comments, concerns? Did we get an address or phone number wrong? Do you have an idea for a new category? Let us know. Contact editor Amy Diaz at adiaz@hippopress. com. Corrections will appear on the first page of the news section in future issues. Is your favorite category missing? Categories change regularly, with some categories taking a sabbatical and new categories introduced, so please send your suggestions for a category for next year. And, again, all results are seriously final. Hey, there’s always next year.

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Arts

Best Performing Arts Venue

• Best of the best: The Palace Theatres 80 Hanover St. in Manchester, 668-5588, palacetheatre.org
• Tupelo Music Hall 10 A St. in Derry, 437-5100, tupelomusichall.com
• Capitol Center for the Arts 44 S. Main St. in Concord, 225-1111, ccanh.com

Nashua Center for the Arts 201 Main St. in Nashua, 800-657-8774, nashuacenterforthearts.com
Bringing nationally touring musicians, live comedy, theatre, children’s performances, and more to Downtown Nashua! Come experience a great show!

• BankNH Pavilion 72 Meadowbrook Lane in Gilford, 293-4700, banknhpavilion.com

Best Theatrical Production

• Best of the best: A Christmas Carol at the Palace Theatre (80 Hanover St. in Manchester, 668-5588, palacetheatre.org) ran Nov. 24 to Dec. 23, 2023.
• Ballet Misha’s The Nutcracker at the Dana Center (100 Saint Anselm Dr. in Manchester, 641-7700, tickets.anselm.edu) ran Dec. 16 and Dec. 17, 2023.
• Kinky Boots at the Palace Theatre (80 Hanover St. in Manchester, 668-5588, palacetheatre.org) ran Oct. 13 through Nov. 5, 2023.
• Dancing Queens at the Palace Theatre (80 Hanover St. in Manchester, 668-5588, palacetheatre.org) ran Jan. 19 through Feb. 11, 2024.
• The Wizard of Oz at the Palace Theatre (80 Hanover St. in Manchester, 668-5588, palacetheatre.org) ran Sept. 8 through Sept. 24, 2023.

Best Local Place to Buy Art

• Best of the best: League of New Hampshire Craftsmen’s Annual Craftsmen’s Fair, which will take place this year Saturday, Aug. 3, through Sunday, Aug. 11, at Mount Sunapee Resort in Newbury. See nhcrafts.org/annual-craftsmens-fair.
• Currier Museum of Art, 150 Ash St. in Manchester, 669-6144, currier.org, Wednesdays through Sundays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed Monday and Tuesday.
• Mosaic Art Collective 66 Hanover St., Unit 201, in Manchester; 512-6209, mosaicartcollective.com, Wednesday Through Friday from 2 to 6 p.m., Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m. Closed Monday and Tuesday.
• Concord Arts Market, a market with dates May through December. The first 2024 market is scheduled for the first Friday in May — Friday, May 3, at Bicentennial Square in downtown Concord. A market is also slated once a month in Rollins Park in Concord from June through September, as well as during Market Days in downtown Concord (June 20-22), according to concordartsmarket.net.
• Manchester Craft Market, Mall of New Hampshire, 1500 S. Willow St. in Manchester, 606-1351, manchestercraftmarket.com, Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Sundays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Best Publicly Viewable Mural

• Best of the best: Cat Alley off Elm Street between Manchester and Merrimack streets in Manchester, featuring kitties of various shapes and sizes.
• Hanover Street in Manchester titled “Greetings from Manchester” by Hooksett resident and artist James Chase and commissioned by Red Oak Apartments, according to manchesterinformation.com.
• Derry Downtown 1½ East Broadway in Derry on the side of Cask and Vine, showcasing a timeline of Derry, according to nhrtc.org.
• Derry Rail Trail in Derry. Robert Frost homage with trees and lines of verse painted on the asphalt-paved road, according to nhrtc.org.
• Mural by artist Keith Trahan on the building by Lamont-Hanley Park at the corner of Bridge and Elm streets in Manchester.

Entertainment

Best Bookstore

• Best of the best: Gibson’s Bookstore 40 S. Main St. in Concord, gibsonsbookstore.com, 224-0562
• Bookery 844 Elm St. in Manchester, bookerymht.com, 836-6600
• Balin Books 375 Amherst St. in Nashua, balinbooks.com, 417-7981
• Toadstool Bookshop 12 Depot Sq. in Peterborough, toadbooks.com, 924-3543
• Water Street Bookstore 125 Water St. in Exeter, waterstreetbooks.com, 778-9731

Best Bowling Alley

• Best of the best: Lakeside Lanes 2171 Candia Road in Manchester, lakesidelanes.com, 627-7722
• Merrimack 10 Pin 698 Daniel Webster Hwy. in Merrimack, merrimacktenpin.com, 429-0989
• King Lanes 751 Mast Road in Goffstown, kinglanes.com, 623-9515
• Leda Lanes 340 Amherst St. in Nashua, ledalanes.com, 889-4884
• Yankee Lanes 216 Maple St. in Manchester, manchester.yankeelanesentertainment.com, 625-9656

Best Comic Book Shop

Best of the best: Double Midnight Comics 252 Willow St. in Manchester, dmcomics.com, 669-9636
Double Midnight Comics 341 Loudon Road in Concord, dmcomics.com, 715-2683
 Southern NH’s premiere source for the latest and greatest comics and games!

• Merrymac Games & Comics 550 Daniel Webster Hwy. in Merrimack, merrymacgc.com, 420-8161
• Pop Culture Card Comics and Collectibles 66 Route 27 in Raymond, popculturenh.com, 244-1850
• Jetpack Comics 37 N. Main St. in Rochester, jetpackcomics.com, 330-XMEN (9636)

Best Mini Golf

• Best of the best: Mel’s Funway 454 Charles Bancroft Hwy. in Litchfield, melsfunwaypark.com, 424-229. Opens in April.
• Chuckster’s Ice Cream & Miniature Golf 53 Hackett Hill Road in Hooksett, chucksters-hooksett.com, 210-1415. Opens Saturday, April 13.
• Chuckster’s Family Fun Park 9 Bailey Road in Chichester, chuckstersnh.com, 798-3555. Opens Saturday, April 6.
• Captain’s Cove Adventure Golf 814 Lafayette Road in Hampton, smallgolf.com, 926-5011. Opens Saturday, April 20.
• Mini Links at LaBelle Winery 14 Route 111 in Derry, labellewinery.com, 672-9898. Slated to open April 1.

Best Place to Learn How to Make Something Cool

• Best of the best: Studio 550 Arts Center (550 Elm St. in Manchester, 550arts.com, 232-5597) Learn to sculpt clay, stain some glass, or make 2D artforms like watercolor, acrylics or pastels.

Manchester Craft Market (Mall of New Hampshire, 1500 S. Willow St. in Manchester, manchestercraftmarket.com, 606-1351) Learn how to use alcohol ink, wire-wrap gemstones or mold polymer clay. If you can craft it there is probably a workshop for it here.

• You’re Fired (25 S. River Road in Bedford, yourefirednh.com, 641-3473) A walk-in-friendly establishment where you can create and paint your own pottery.
• Cooking School at Tuscan Market (9 Via Toscana in Salem, tuscanbrands.com, 912-5467) Create the perfect spaghetti sauce and learn which wines to pair with it. A myriad of Italian-style cooking courses are available.
• The Canvas Roadshow (25 S. River Road in Bedford, thecanvasroadshow.com, 913-9217) Offers classes and events for painting, glass art, wood staining and more.

Best Place to Totally Geek Out

• Best of the best: Aviation Museum of New Hampshire (27 Navigator Road in Londonderry, aviationmuseumofnh.org, 669-4820)
• Boards and Brews (941 Elm St. in Manchester, boardsandbrewsnh.com, 232-5184) Play almost any board game that has ever been created while drinking beer and sharing food with friends.
• Granite State Comicon (700 Elm St. in Manchester, granitecon.com, 669-9636) Slated for Saturday, Sept. 21, and Sunday, Sept. 22. Head to this Con to meet comic book artists and authors, game creators, actors and more, while enjoying costume contests and parties. Tickets are already on sale, including for weekend passes and VIP packages that include early entry and a goodie bag.
• Pop Culture (66 Route 27 in Raymond, popculturenh.com, 244-1850) Your one-stop shop for all things 40k, Magic The Gathering, RPGs, comic books and much more.
• Awesome Cards, Collectibles & Games (123 Nashua Road in Londonderry, awesomeccg.com, 404-6996) Anything from Pokemon card games to Dungeons & Dragons, if you can play it on a tabletop, you can find it here.
• Diversity Gaming (1328 Hooksett Road in Hooksett, diversitygaming.store, 606-1176) Set up your favorite board game with friends in one of four private rooms or use free tables where everyone is invited to roll the dice.
• Midgard (55 Crystal Ave. in Derry, midgardhobbiesandgames.com, 260-6180) Come for the tournaments and any type of game your Midgardian heart could desire.

Best Place to Make New Friends

• Best of the best: The Collective Studios 4 Orchard View Dr. in Londonderry, thecollective-studios.com, 216-2345
• The Nest Family Cafe 25 Orchard View Dr. in Londonderry, thenestfamilycafe.com, 404-3512
• Feathered Friend Brewing Co. 231 S. Main St. in Concord, featheredfriendbrewing.com, 715-2347

Stumble Inn Bar & Grill 20 Rockingham Road in Londonderry, stumbleinnnh.com, 432-3210
Join us for Live music 6 nights a week (every night in the summer). Check our website to see who’s playing tonight

• The Hop Knot 1000 Elm St. in Manchester, hopknotnh.com, 232-3731

Independent Shop Where You’d Have a Win-the-Lotto Shopping Spree

• Best of the best: Gondwana & Divine Clothing Co. 13 N. Main St. in Concord, gondwanaclothing.com, 228-1101
• Junction 71 707 Milford Road in Merrimack, junction71.wixsite.com/mysite, 213-5201
• League of NH Craftsmen’s gallery 36 N. Main St. in Concord, concord.nhcrafts.org, 228-8171
• Manchester Craft Market Mall of New Hampshire, 1500 S. Willow St. in Manchester; 606-1351, manchestercraftmarket.com
• The Terracotta Room 1361 Elm St., Suite 102, in Manchester, theterracottaroom.com, 935-8738

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Nightlife

Best Restaurant, Brewery or Bar for Live Music

• Best of the best: The Stumble Inn Bar & Grill 20 Rockingham Road in Londonderry, stumbleinnnh.com, 432-3210
• The Derryfield Restaurant 625 Mammoth Road in Manchester, thederryfield.com, 623-2880
• The Shaskeen Pub and Restaurant 909 Elm St. in Manchester, shaskeenirishpub.com, 625-0246
• Backyard Brewery and Kitchen 1211 S. Mammoth Road in Manchester, backyardbrewerynh.com, 623-3545
• Strange Brew Tavern 88 Market St. in Manchester, strangebrewtavern.net, 666-4292

Best Live Music Venue

• Best of the best: Tupelo Music Hall 10 A St. in Derry, tupelomusichall.com, 437-5100
• BankNH Pavilion 72 Meadowbrook Lane in Gilford, banknhpavilion.com, 293-4700
• The Rex Theatre 23 Amherst St. in Manchester, palacetheatre.org/venues/rex-theatre, 668-5588
• The BNH Stage 16 S. Main St. in Concord, ccanh.com/bank-nh-stage, 225-1111
• Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom 169 Ocean Blvd. in Hampton, casinoballroom.com, 929-4100

Best Bar with an Outdoor Deck

• Best of the best: The Derryfield Restaurant 625 Mammoth Road in Manchester, thederryfield.com, 623-2880
• The Backyard Brewery 1211 S. Mammoth Road in Manchester, backyardbrewerynh.com, 623-3545
• The Stumble Inn Bar & Grill: 20 Rockingham Road in Londonderry, stumbleinnnh.com, 432-3210
• Bernie’s Beach Bar: 73 Ocean Blvd. in Hampton, berniesnh.com, 926-5050
• KC’s Rib Shack: 837 Second St. in Manchester, ribshack.net, 627-7427

Best Bar or Pub

• Best of the best: The Shaskeen Pub and Restaurant 909 Elm St. in Manchester, shaskeenirishpub.com, 625-0246
• The Stumble Inn Bar & Grill: 20 Rockingham Road in Londonderry, stumbleinnnh.com, 432-3210
• Backyard Brewery and Kitchen: 1211 S. Mammoth Road in Manchester, backyardbrewerynh.com, 623-3545
• Industry East: 28 Hanover St. in Manchester, industryeastbar.com, 232-6940
• The Hop Knot: 1000 Elm St. in Manchester, hopknotnh.com, 232-3731

Best Weekly Bar Event

• Best of the best: Trivia with Heather at The Farm Bar and Grille (1181 Elm St. in Manchester, farmbargrille.com, 641-3276) takes place Wednesdays at 8 p.m.
• Tuesday open mic at KC’s Rib Shack (837 Second St. in Manchester, ribshack.net, 627-7427) is hosted by Paul & Nate with a featured artist from 7 to 8 p.m. and open mic from 8 to 10 p.m.
• Trivia at The Hop Knot (1000 Elm St. in Manchester, hopknotnh.com, 232-3731) runs Thursdays at 7 p.m. with Broderick Lang.
• Trivia at Chunky’s Cinema Pub (707 Huse Road in Manchester, chunkys.com, 206-3888) runs Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. and is 21+. Each week usually has a theme based on a movie or genre of movies or a TV show or music. About once a month on Sunday, there is an all-ages family-friendly trivia night at 6 p.m.
• Music Bingo at Backyard Brewery and Kitchen (1211 S. Mammoth Road in Manchester, backyardbrewerynh.com, 623-3545) runs Thursdays from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Best Spot for Some Friendly Competition

• Best of the best: The Rugged Axe 377 S. Willow St. in Manchester, theruggedaxe.com, 232-7846
• Block Party Social 51 Zapora Dr. in Hooksett, blockpartysocial.com, 263-5408
• RelAxe Throwing NH 157 Gay St. in Manchester, relaxethrowing.com, 782-3061
• Axel’s Throw House 4 Bud Way, Unit 2, in Nashua, axelsthrowhouse.com, 212-1778
• Granite State Escape 795 Elm St. in Manchester, escapenh.com, 935-7455

Best Spot for a Cheap Date

• Best of the best: The Stumble Inn Bar & Grill 20 Rockingham Road in Londonderry, stumbleinnnh.com, 432-3210
• The Farm Bar and Grille 1181 Elm St. in Manchester, farmbargrille.com, 641-3276
• The Hop Knot 1000 Elm St. in Manchester, hopknotnh.com, 232-3731
• Chunky’s Cinema Pub 707 Huse Road in Manchester, chunkys.com, 206-3888
• The Gyro Spot 1073 Elm St. in Manchester, thegyrospot.com, 218-3869
• Diz’s Cafe 860 Elm St. in Manchester, dizscafe.com, 606-2532
• Penuche’s Ale House 16 Bicentennial Sq. in Concord, facebook.com/penuches.concord, 228-9833

Best Spot for a Group Outing

• Best of the best: Tupelo Music Hall 10 A St. in Derry, tupelomusichall.com, 437-5100
• The Stumble Inn Bar & Grill 20 Rockingham Road in Londonderry, stumbleinnnh.com, 432-3210
• Boards & Brews 941 Elm St. in Manchester, boardsandbrewsnh.com, 232-5184
• Axel’s Throw House 4 Bud Way, Unit 2, in Nashua, axelsthrowhouse.com, 212-1778
• Canobie Lake Park 85 N. Policy St. in Salem, canobie.com, 893-3506
• Game Changer Sports Bar and Grill 4 Orchard View Dr. in Londonderry, gamechangersportsbar.com, 216-1396
• The Rugged Axe 377 S. Willow St. in Manchester, theruggedaxe.com, 232-7846
• Fisher Cats at Delta Dental Stadium 1 Line Dr. in Manchester, milb.com/new-hampshire/tickets, 641-2005. The season begins April 4.

Best Place to Meet a Blind Date

• Best of the best: The Stumble Inn Bar & Grill 20 Rockingham Road in Londonderry, stumbleinnnh.com, 432-3210
• The Farm Bar and Grille 1181 Elm St. in Manchester, farmbargrille.com, 641-3276
• The Hop Knot 1000 Elm St. in Manchester, hopknotnh.com, 232-3731
• Penuche’s Ale House 16 Bicentennial Sq. in Concord, facebook.com/penuches.concord, 228-9833
• Stella Blu 70 E. Pearl St. in Nashua, stellablu-nh.com, 578-5557

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Restaurant

Best Restaurant

• Best of the best: Puritan Backroom 245 Hooksett Road in Manchester, puritanbackroom.com, 669-6890 for the restaurant.
• Copper Door 15 Leavy Dr. in Bedford, copperdoor.com, 488-2677
• The Tuckaway Tavern and Butchery 58 Route 27 in Raymond, tuckaway.com, 224-2431
• Revival Kitchen & Bar 11 Depot St. in Concord, revivalkitchennh.com, 715-5723
• Cotton 75 Arms St. in Manchester, cottonfood.com, 622-5488

Best New Eatery

• Best of the best: Stash Box 866 Elm St. in Manchester, stashboxnh.com, 606-8109. Opened October 2023.
• STREET: 76 N. Main St. in Concord, streetfood360.com, 333-2125. Opened October 2023
• Fotia Greek Taverna 401 S. Willow St. in Manchester, fotiagreektaverna.com, 461-3007. Opened September 2023.
• Buba Kitchen 148 N. Main St. in Concord, bubanoodle.com, 219-0064. Opened December 2023.
• Friendly Red’s 111 W. Broadway in Derry, friendlyredstavern.net, 404-6606. Opened July 2023.

Best Fine Dining Restaurant

• Best of the best: Hanover Street Chop House 149 Hanover St. in Manchester, hanoverstreetchophouse.com, 644-2467
• Buckley’s Great Steaks 438 Daniel Webster Hwy. in Merrimack, buckleysgreatsteaks.com, 424-0995
• Bedford Village Inn 2 Olde Bedford Way in Bedford, bedfordvillageinn.com, 472-2001
• Revival Kitchen and Bar 11 Depot St. in Concord, revivalkitchennh.com, 715-5723
• Cotton 75 Arms St. in Manchester, cottonfood.com, 622-5488

Best Restaurant from which to get Takeout

• Best of the best: Puritan Backroom 245 Hooksett Road in Manchester, puritanbackroom.com, 669-6890 for the restaurant.
• Troy’s Fresh Kitchen 4 Orchard View Dr., No. 6, in Londonderry, troysfreshkitchen.com, 965-3411
• Charlie’s of Goffstown 1B Pinard St. in Manchester, charliesgoffstown.com, 606-1835
• Goldenrod Restaurant 1681 Candia Road in Manchester, goldenrodrestaurant.com, 623-9469
• Pressed Cafe 216 S. River Road in Bedford, 606-2746; 108 Spit Brook Road in Nashua, 718-1250; 3 Cotton Road in Nashua (drive-thru only); 1 Artisan Dr. in Salem, 458-5922; pressedcafe.com

Best Date Night Restaurant

• Best of the best: Cotton 75 Arms St. in Manchester, cottonfood.com, 622-5488
• Revival Kitchen and Bar 11 Depot St. in Concord, revivalkitchennh.com, 715-5723
• Copper Door 15 Leavy Dr. in Bedford, copperdoor.com, 488-2677
• The Foundry 50 Commercial St. in Manchester, foundrynh.com, 836-1925
• Villaggio Ristorante Italiano 677 Hooksett Road in Manchester, villaggionh.com, 627-2424

Restaurant that Brings the Heat

• Best of the best: Destination India Restaurant and Bar 14A E. Broadway in Derry, destinationindianh.com, 552-3469
• Daw Kun Thai 93 S. Maple St., No. 4, in Manchester, dawkunthai.com, 232-0699
• Curry Leaf 6 Pleasant St. in Concord, curryleafus.com, 715-5746
• A Lot of Thai 360 Daniel Webster Hwy., Unit 121, in Merrimack, alotofthainh.com, 429-8888
• Kashmir Indian Cuisine 396 S. Broadway in Salem, kashmirindianfood.com, 898-3455
• Kathmandu Spice 379 S. Willow St. in Manchester, ktmspice.com, 782-3911

Best Food Truck

• Best of the best: Up in Your Grill Find them in the front parking lot, 526 Daniel Webster Hwy. in Merrimack, upinyourgrill.com, 493-3191
• The Sleazy Vegan Usually at the Tideline Public House, 15 Newmarket Road in Durham, thesleazyvegan.com, 233-5078
• Teenie Weenies Often at Able Ebenezer Brewing Co., 31 Columbia Circle in Merrimack (find them on Facebook, 403-2336)
• B’s Tacos May through October they’re at the BP Gas Station, 2 Mohawk Dr. in Londonderry, nhtacotruck.com, 622-8200
• Messy Mike’s Barbecue and Catering 161 Rockingham Road in Derry, messymikesbbq.com, 781-710-7832

Restaurant with the Best Outdoor Seating

• Best of the best: The Crown Tavern 99 Hanover St. in Manchester, thecrownonhanover.com, 218-3132
• Backyard Brewery and Kitchen 1211 S. Mammoth Road in Manchester, backyardbrewerynh.com, 623-3545
• The Derryfield Restaurant 625 Mammoth Road in Manchester, thederryfield.com, 623-2880
• Tuscan Kitchen Salem 19 Via Toscana in Salem, tuscanbrands.com/tuscan-kitchen, 952-4875
• Cheers Grille & Bar 17 Depot St., No. 1, in Concord, cheersnh.com, 228-0180

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Delicious Dishes

Best Barbecue

• Best of the best: KC’s Rib Shack 837 Second St. in Manchester, 627-7427, ribshack.net
• Smoke Haus 278 Route 101 in Amherst, 249-5734, smokehausbbq.com
• Smoke Show Barbecue 231 S. Main St. in Concord, 227-6399, smokeshowbbq.com
• Goody Coles Smokehouse 374 Route 125 in Brentwood, 679-8898, goodycoles.com

Smoke Shack Cafe 226 Rockingham Road in Londonderry, 404-2178, smokeshackcafe.com
Hickory Wood Smoked Ribs, Brisket, Chicken, Pulled Pork, Wings, plus Loaded Mac and Cheese and more!

Best Breakfast

Best of the best: Tucker’s 95 S. River Road in Bedford, 413-6503; 80 South St. in Concord, 413-5884; 238 Indian Brook Road in Dover, 413-5470; 1328 Hooksett Road in Hooksett, 206-5757; 360 Daniel Webster Hwy. in Merrimack, 413-6477; 207 Main St. in New London, 413-5528; tuckersnh.com
Serving breakfast and lunch every day with a menu that includes organic, local and gluten free options for all to enjoy.

• Maryann’s Diner 29 East Broadway in Derry, 434-5785; 4 Cobbetts Pond Road in Windham, 965-3066; 3 Veterans Memorial Parkway in Salem, 893-9877; 1 Craftsman Lane in Amherst, 577-8955; maryannsdiner.com
• Janie’s Uncommon Cafe 123 Nashua Road in Londonderry, 432-3100, janiescafe.com
• Riverhouse Cafe 167 Union Sq. in Milford, 249-5556, damngoodgrub.com

Chez Vachon 136 Kelley St. in Manchester, 625-9660, chezvachon.com
Get what you deserve! Comfort food and French Canadian Favorites. Breakfast served all day.

• Troy’s Fresh Kitchen 4 Orchard View Dr., No. 6, in Londonderry, 965-3411, troysfreshkitchen.com

Best Brunch

• Best of the best: The Foundry 50 Commercial St. in Manchester, 836-1925, foundrynh.com
• Tucker’s 95 S. River Road in Bedford, 413-6503; 80 South St. in Concord, 413-5884; 238 Indian Brook Road in Dover, 413-5470; 1328 Hooksett Road in Hooksett, 206-5757; 360 Daniel Webster Hwy. in Merrimack, 413-6477; 207 Main St. in New London, 413-5528; tuckersnh.com
• The Friendly Toast 4 Main St. in Bedford, 836-8907 (also has a location in Portsmouth); thefriendlytoast.com
• Firefly 22 Concord St. in Manchester, fireflynh.com, 935-9740
• Pressed Cafe 216 S. River Road in Bedford, 606-2746; 108 Spit Brook Road in Nashua, 718-1250; 3 Cotton Road in Nashua (drive-thru only); 1 Artisan Dr. in Salem, 458-5922; pressedcafe.com
• Prime at Sky Meadow 6 Mountain Laurels Dr. in Nashua, 888-9000, skymeadow.com

Best Burgers

• Best of the best: Papa Joe’s Humble Kitchen 237 South St. in Milford, papajoeshumblekitchen.com, 672-9130
• The Barley House 132 N. Main St. in Concord, 228-6363, thebarleyhouse.com
• The Tuckaway Tavern & Butchery 58 Route 27 in Raymond, 244-2431, thetuckaway.com
• River Road Tavern 193 S. River Road in Bedford, 206-5837, riverroadtavernbedford.com
• T-Bones Great American Eatery 25 S. River Road in Bedford, 641-6100; 404 S. Main St. in Concord, 715-1999; 39 Crystal Ave. in Derry, 434-3200; 77 Lowell Road in Hudson, 882-6677; 311 South Broadway in Salem, 893-3444; 1182 Union Ave. in Laconia, 528-7800; t-bones.com
• Vibes Gourmet Burgers 25 S. Main St. in Concord, 856-8671, vibes-burgers.com

Best Burrito

• Best of the best: California Burritos Mexican Grill: 655 S. Willow St., Suite 103, in Manchester, 722-2084; 2 Cellu Drive in Nashua, 417-6151; 101 Factory St. in Nashua, 718-8745; 35 Lowell Road in Hudson, 402-2130; californiaburritosnh.com
• La Carreta Mexican Restaurant 139 Daniel Webster Hwy. in Nashua, 891-0055; 1875 S. Willow St. in Manchester, 623-7705; 545 Hooksett Road in Manchester, 628-6899; 44 Nashua Road in Londonderry, 965-3477; 35 Manchester Road, Suite 5A in Derry, 421-0091; 172 Hanover St. in Portsmouth, 427-8319; lacarretamex.com
• Dos Amigos 26 N. Main St. in Concord, 410-4161, dosamigosburritos.com
• Los Reyes Street Tacos & More 127 Rockingham Road, Unit 15, in Derry, 845-8327, losreyesstreettacos.com
• Puerto Vallarta Mexican Grill (865 Second St. in Manchester, 935-9182)and Nuevo Vallarta Mexican Restaurant (791 Second St. in Manchester, 782-8762), vallartamexicannh.com

Best Chicken Tenders

• Best of the best: Puritan Backroom Restaurant 245 Hooksett Road in Manchester, 669-6890, puritanbackroom.com
• Goldenrod Restaurant 1681 Candia Road in Manchester, 623-9469, goldenrodrestaurant.com
• Charlie’s of Goffstown 1B Pinard St. in Manchester, 606-1835, charliesgoffstown.com
• T-Bones Great American Eatery 25 S. River Road in Bedford, 641-6100; 404 S. Main St. in Concord, 715-1999; 39 Crystal Ave. in Derry, 434-3200; 77 Lowell Road in Hudson, 882-6677; 311 South Broadway in Salem, 893-3444; 1182 Union Ave. in Laconia, 528-7800; t-bones.com
• Smoke Shack Cafe 226 Rockingham Road in Londonderry, 404-2178, smokeshackcafe.com

Best Fish & Chips

• Best of the best: Lobster Boat 453 Daniel Webster Hwy. in Merrimack, 424-5221; 273 Derry Road in Litchfield, 882-4988; lobsterboatrestaurant.com
• The Peddler’s Daughter 48 Main St. in Nashua, 821-7535, thepeddlersdaughter.com
• Goldenrod Restaurant 1681 Candia Road in Manchester, 623-9469, goldenrodrestaurant.com
• The Beach Plum 3 Brickyard Square in Epping, 679-3200; 8 S. Village Drive in Salem, 458-7266; 2800 Lafayette Road in Portsmouth, 433-3339; 16 Ocean Blvd., North Hampton, 964-7451; thebeachplum.net
• Petey’s Summertime Seafood 1323 Ocean Blvd. in Rye, 433-1937, peteys.com

Best Grilled Cheese

• Best of the best: Patz Deli & Catering 900 Elm St., Suite 102, in Manchester, 644-7289
• Cheese Louise 76 Congress St. in Portsmouth, 427-8615, eatcheeselouise.com
• Copper Door 15 Leavy Dr. in Bedford, 488-2677, copperdoor.com
• Prime Time 119 Hanover St. in Manchester, find them on Facebook or Instagram
• Pressed Cafe 216 S. River Road in Bedford, 606-2746; 108 Spit Brook Road in Nashua, 718-1250; 3 Cotton Road in Nashua (drive-thru only); 1 Artisan Dr. in Salem, 458-5922; pressedcafe.com

Where the French Fries Are So Good They Could Be a Whole Meal

• Best of the best: Goldenrod Restaurant 1681 Candia Road in Manchester, 623-9469, goldenrodrestaurant.com
• The Farm Bar & Grille 1181 Elm St. in Manchester, 641-3276, farmbargrille.com
• Puritan Backroom Restaurant 245 Hooksett Road in Manchester, 669-6890, puritanbackroom.com
• River Road Tavern 193 S. River Road in Bedford, 206-5837, riverroadtavernbedford.com
• Smoke Shack Cafe 226 Rockingham Road in Londonderry, 404-2178, smokeshackcafe.com

Best Mac & Cheese

• Best of the best: Mr. Mac’s 497 Hooksett Road in Manchester, 606-1760, mr-macs.com
• The Tuckaway Tavern & Butchery 58 Route 27 in Raymond, 244-2431, thetuckaway.com
• Pressed Cafe 216 S. River Road in Bedford, 606-2746; 108 Spit Brook Road in Nashua, 718-1250; 3 Cotton Road in Nashua (drive through only); 1 Artisan Dr. in Salem, 458-5922; pressedcafe.com
• Smoke Shack Cafe 226 Rockingham Road in Londonderry, 404-2178, smokeshackcafe.com
• Diz’s Cafe 860 Elm St. in Manchester, 606-2532, dizscafe.com

Best Menu of Pasta Dishes

• Best of the best: Villaggio Ristorante Italiano 677 Hooksett Road in Manchester, 627-2424, villaggionh.com
• Fratello’s Italian Grill 155 Dow St. in Manchester, 624-2022, fratellos.com
• Angelina’s Ristorante Italiano 11 Depot St. in Concord, 228-3313, angelinasrestaurant.com
• Luccianos 4 Orchard View Dr. in Londonderry, 432-2442, luccianoscafe.com
• Giorgio’s Ristorante & Bar 524 Nashua St. in Milford, 673-3939; 270 Granite St. in Manchester, 232-3323; 707 Milford Road in Merrimack, 883-7333; giorgios.com

Best Pizza

Best of the best: 900 Degrees 50 Dow St. in Manchester, 641-0900, 900degrees.com
Voted Best Pizza for 17 years! Inspired by the mouthwatering, wood fired pizza native to Naples, Italy. Join us for gourmet pizza, pasta, and salads.

• Alley Cat Pizzeria 486 Chestnut St. in Manchester, 669-4533, alleycatpizzerianh.com
• Vintage Pizza 241 Candia Road in Manchester, 518-7800, vintagepizzanh.com
• Sour Joe’s Pizzeria 5 Pleasant St. Ext. in Concord, 856-7427, sourjoespizzeria.com
• Elm House of Pizza 102 Elm St. in Manchester, 232-5522, elmhop.com

Best Specialty Pizza

• Best of the best: “The House Pie” at Elm House of Pizza 102 Elm St. in Manchester, 232-5522, elmhop.com — “house made tomato sauce, cup and char pepperoni, Italian sausage, dollops of ricotta, three cheese blend, hot honey drizzle.”
• “Bella Cosa” at 900 Degrees 50 Dow St. in Manchester, 641-0900, 900degrees.com — “Roasted garlic cream sauce, Grana Padano, mozzarella, baby spinach, caramelized red onions, rosemary ham, prosciutto, and EVOO.”
• “Saltimbocca” at 900 Degrees 50 Dow St. in Manchester, 641-0900, 900degrees.com — “Roasted garlic cream sauce topped with fresh mozzarella, fontina, roasted chicken, tomatoes, caramelized red onion, prosciutto, torn sage and EVOO.”
• “Meat Lovers” at The Pizza Man Bar & Grill 850 E. Industrial Park Dr., Suite 3, in Manchester, 623-5550; 254 W. River Road in Hooksett, 626-7499; thepizzamandelivers.com — “pepperoni, Italian sausage, ground beef, meatball, ham & extra cheese.”
• “Eagle Square” at Sour Joe’s Pizzaria 5 Pleasant St. Ext. in Concord, 856-7427, sourjoespizzeria.com — “Crushed tomato, mozzarella, pepperoni, ricotta dollops, hot honey.”

Best Sandwich

• Best of the best: “Patz melt” at Patz Deli & Catering 900 Elm St., Suite 102, in Manchester, 644-7289 — “Black Angus burger, grilled rye bread, American cheese, brown sugar carmelized onions and garlic pepper aioli”
• Roast Beef Sub at Bentley’s Roast Beef 134 Route 101A, in Amherst, bentleysroastbeef.com, 883-2020 — “4 oz. freshly thin-sliced USDA Choice Midwestern beef on a toasted sesame roll.”
• “Caprese Panini” at The Green Beautiful 168 Wilson St. in Manchester, 606-1026, greenbeautifulcafe.com — “seasonal pesto, tomato, cashew mozzarella and balsamic reduction served on sourdough.”
• “Sabich” at Pressed Cafe 216 S. River Road in Bedford, 606-2746; 108 Spit Brook Road in Nashua, 718-1250; 3 Cotton Road in Nashua (drive-thru only); 1 Artisan Dr. in Salem, 458-5922; pressedcafe.com — “grilled lightly breaded eggplant, hummus, hard boiled egg, crunchy cukes, Roma tomatoes, amba sauce, tahini drizzle & schug (cilantro hot sauce) pressed on ciabatta or fresh pita.”
• “Chipotle Steak Grilled Cheese” at Pressed Cafe 216 S. River Road in Bedford, 606-2746; 108 Spit Brook Road in Nashua, 718-1250; 3 Cotton Road in Nashua (drive-thru only); 1 Artisan Dr. in Salem, 458-5922; pressedcafe.com — “cheddar, Swiss & American cheese with braised beef short rib, chipotle mayo, applewood smoked bacon & Roma tomatoes pressed on ciabatta bread.”
• “The Wellington” at Pressed Cafe 216 S. River Road in Bedford, 606-2746; 108 Spit Brook Road in Nashua, 718-1250; 3 Cotton Road in Nashua (drive-thru only); 1 Artisan Dr. in Salem, 458-5922; pressedcafe.com — “braised beef short rib, roasted mushroom, caramelized onion, demi jus, Gorgonzola cheese crumbles, Swiss, & Boursin spread pressed on ciabatta.”

Best Subs

• Best of the best: Nadeau’s Subs 776 Mast Road, Manchester, 623-9315; 110 Cahill Ave., Manchester, 669-7827; 673 Hooksett Road, Manchester, 644-8888; nadeaussubs.com (there is also a location in Exeter)
• USA Subs 66 Crystal Ave., Derry, 437-1550, usasubs.com
• Patz Deli & Catering 900 Elm St., Suite 102, 644-7289
• Bill Cahill’s Super Subs 8 Kimball Hill Road, Hudson, 882-7710, find them on Facebook @billcahills
• Great American Subs 44 Nashua Road, Unit 3, Londonderry, 434-9900, greatamericansubsnh.com

Best Tacos

• Best of the best: Los Reyes Street Tacos & More 127 Rockingham Road, Unit 15, in Derry, 845-8327, losreyesstreettacos.com
• La Carreta 139 Daniel Webster Hwy. in Nashua; 891-0055, 1875 S. Willow St. in Manchester, 623-7705; 545 Hooksett Road in Manchester, 628-6899; 44 Nashua Road in Londonderry, 965-3477; 35 Manchester Road, Suite 5A, in Derry, 421-0091; 172 Hanover St. in Portsmouth, 427-8319; lacarretamex.com
• Taco Time Cocina & Cantina Mexicana 11 Wilton Road in Milford, 554-1424, tacotimenh.com
• Puerto Vallarta Mexican Grill (865 Second St. in Manchester, 935-9182)and Nuevo Vallarta Mexican Restaurant (791 Second St. in Manchester, 782-8762) vallartamexicannh.com
• Hermanos Cocina Mexicana 11 Hills Ave. in Concord, 224-5669, hermanosmexican.com

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Sweets & Treats

Best Bakery

• Best of the best: Bearded Baking Co. 819 Union St. in Manchester, beardedbaking.com, 647-7150
• Buckley’s Bakery & Cafe 436 Daniel Webster Hwy. in Merrimack, 262-5929; 9 Market Place in Hollis, 465-5522; buckleysbakerycafe.com
• Crosby Bakery 51 E. Pearl St. in Nashua, crosbybakerynh.com, 882-1851
• Frederick’s Pastries 109 Route 101A in Amherst, 882-7725; 25 S. River Road in Bedford, 647-2253; pastry.net
• Klemm’s Bakery: 29 Indian Rock Road in Windham, klemmsbakery.com, 437-8810

Best Blueberry Muffins

• Best of the best: Troy’s Fresh Kitchen & Juice Bar 4 Orchard View Dr., No. 6, in Londonderry, troysfreshkitchen.com, 965-3411
• Buckley’s Bakery & Cafe 436 Daniel Webster Hwy. in Merrimack, 262-5929; 9 Market Place in Hollis, 465-5522; buckleysbakerycafe.com
• The Crust and Crumb Baking Co. 126 N. Main St. in Concord, thecrustandcrumb.com, 219-0763
• Patz Deli 900 Elm St., Suite 102, in Manchester, 644-7289, find them on Facebook
• The Bridge Cafe on Elm 1117 Elm St. in Manchester, thebridgecafe.net, 647-9991
• Pressed Cafe 216 S. River Road in Bedford, 606-2746; 108 Spit Brook Road in Nashua, 718-1250; 3 Cotton Road in Nashua (drive-thru only); 1 Artisan Dr. in Salem, 458-5922; pressedcafe.com

Best Candy or Chocolate Shop

Best of the best: Granite State Candy Shoppe 13 Warren St. in Concord, 225-2591; 832 Elm St. in Manchester, 218-3885; granitestatecandyshoppe.com
Locally sourced Ingredients. Premium chocolates From New Hampshire.

• Van Otis Chocolates 341 Elm St. in Manchester, vanotis.com, 627-1611
• Nelson’s Candy and Music 65 Main St. in Wilton, nelsonscandymusic.com, 654-5030
• Loon Chocolate Center Entrance, 195 McGregor St., No. 121, in Manchester, loonchocolate.com, 932-8887
• Dancing Lion Chocolate 917 Elm St. in Manchester, dancinglion.us, 625-4043

Best Cookies

• Best of the best: Bearded Baking Co. 819 Union St. in Manchester, beardedbaking.com, 647-7150
• Black Forest Cafe & Bakery 212 Route 101 in Amherst, blackforestcafeandbakery.com, 672-0500
• The Crust and Crumb Baking Co. 126 N. Main St. in Concord, thecrustandcrumb.com, 219-0763
• Buckley’s Bakery & Cafe 436 Daniel Webster Hwy. in Merrimack, 262-5929; 9 Market Place in Hollis, 465-5522; buckleysbakerycafe.com
• Charlie’s of Goffstown 1B Pinard St. in Manchester, charliesgoffstown.com, 606-1835
• Lighthouse Local 21 Kilton Road in Bedford, lighthouse-local.com, 716-6983

Prettiest Cupcakes

• Best of the Best: Queen City Cupcakes & Gift Shop 816 Elm St. in Manchester, qccupcakes.com, 624-4999
• Carina’s Cakes 14B East Broadway in Derry, facebook.com/Carinas.Cakes, 425-9620
• Frederick’s Pastries 109 Route 101A in Amherst, 882-7725; 25 S. River Road in Bedford, 647-2253; pastry.net
• Cupcakes 101 132 Bedford Center Road in Bedford, cupcakes101.net, 488-5962
• Bearded Baking Co. 819 Union St. in Manchester, beardedbaking.com, 647-7150

Best Doughnuts

• Best of the best: New Hampshire Doughnut Co. 410 S. River Road in Bedford, 782-8968; 2 Capital Plaza in Concord, 715-5097; nhdoughnutco.com
• Klemm’s Bakery 29 Indian Rock Road in Windham, klemmsbakery.com, 437-8810
• Crosby Bakery Inc. 51 E. Pearl St. in Nashua, crosbybakerynh.com, 882-1851
• Brothers Donuts & Deli Shop 426 Central St. in Franklin, facebook.com/brothersdonuts, 934-6678
• The Bakeshop On Kelley Street 171 Kelley St. in Manchester, thebakeshoponkelleystreet.com, 624-3500

Best Ice Cream

• Best of the best: Puritan Backroom Restaurant 245 Hooksett Road in Manchester, puritanbackroom.com, 669-6890
• Moo’s Place Homemade Ice Cream 27 Crystal Avenue in Derry; 15 Ermer Road in Salem, 898-0199, moosplace.com, 425-0100
• Hayward’s Ice Cream 7 Daniel Webster Hwy. in Nashua, 888-4663; 364 Daniel Webster Hwy. in Merrimack, 424-5915; haywardsicecream.com
• Goldenrod Restaurant: 1681 Candia Road in Manchester, goldenrodrestaurant.com, 623-9469
• The Inside Scoop: 260 Wallace Road in Bedford, theinsidescoopnh.com, 471-7009

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Drinks

Best Breakfast or Brunch Cocktails

• Best of the best: The Friendly Toast 4 Main St. in Bedford, 836-8907; 113 Congress St. in Portsmouth, 246-5285; thefriendlytoast.com

Firefly 22 Concord St. in Manchester, fireflynh.com, 935-974

• Tucker’s 95 S. River Road in Bedford, 413-6503; 80 South St. in Concord, 413-5884; 238 Indian Brook Road in Dover, 413-5470; 1328 Hooksett Road in Hooksett, 206-5757; 360 Daniel Webster Hwy. in Merrimack, 413-6477; 207 Main St. in New London, 413-5528; tuckersnh.com
• Copper Door 15 Leavy Dr. in Bedford, copperdoor.com, 488-2677
• The Foundry 50 Commercial St. in Manchester, foundrynh.com, 836-1925

Best Beer Selection at a Retail Shop

• Best of the best: Bert’s Better Beers 545 Hooksett Road in Manchester, bertsnh.com, 413-5992
• The Packie 88 W. River Road in Hooksett, 518-8069; 581 Second St. in Manchester, 232-1236; thepackienh.com
• The Beer Store 433 Amherst St. in Nashua, 889-2242; 291 South Broadway in Salem, 458-1440; thebeerstorenh.com
• East Derry General Store 50 E. Derry Road in Derry, eastderrygeneralstore.com, 432-5302
• Lazy Dog Beer Shoppe 27 Buttrick Road in Londonderry, lazydogbeer.com, 434-2500

Best New Hampshire Brewery

• Best of the best: 603 Brewery & Beer Hall 42 Main St. in Londonderry, 603brewery.com, 404-6123
• Backyard Brewery and Kitchen 1211 S. Mammoth Road in Manchester, backyardbrewerynh.com, 623-3545
• Pipe Dream Brewing 49 Harvey Road, Unit 4, in Londonderry, pipedreambrewingnh.com, 404-0751
• Spy Glass Brewing Co. 306 Innovative Way in Nashua, spyglassbrewing.com, 546-2965
• Concord Craft Brewing Co. 117 Storrs St. in Concord, concordcraftbrewing.com, 856-7625

Best New Hampshire Winery

• Best of the best: LaBelle Winery 345 Route 101 in Amherst, 672-9898; 14 Route 111 in Derry, 672-9898; labellewinery.com
• Zorvino Vineyards 226 Main St. in Sandown, zorvino.com, 887-8463
• Fulchino Vineyard 187 Pine Hill Road in Hollis, fulchinovineyard.com, 438-5984
• Flag Hill Distillery & Winery 297 N. River Road in Lee, flaghill.com, 659-2949
• Sweet Baby Vineyard: 260 Stage Road in Hampstead, sweetbabyvineyard.com, 347-1738

Best Cocktail

• Best of the best: Mudslide at Puritan Backroom Restaurant (245 Hooksett Road in Manchester, puritanbackroom.com, 669-6890) This drink is made with Baileys Irish Cream, Kahlua coffee liqueur and vodka and is offered in flavor variations.
• C.R.E.A.M. at Industry East (28 Hanover St. in Manchester, industryeastbar.com, 232-6940) This drink is made with Mi Campo tequila, ancho verde, cucumber, lemon and jalapeño.
• Espresso Martini at Giorgio’s Ristorante & Bar (524 Nashua St. in Milford, 673-3939; 270 Granite St. in Manchester, 232-3323; 707 Milford Road in Merrimack, 883-7333; giorgios.com) This drink is made with fresh-brewed espresso and it carries a froth on top.
• Blood Orange Cosmo at Copper Door (15 Leavy Dr. in Bedford, copperdoor.com, 488-2677) This drink is made with Tito’s Handmade Vodka, blood orange liqueur, cranberry juice and fresh squeezed lime.
• Margarita at Hermanos Cocina Mexicana (11 Hills Ave. in Concord, hermanosmexican.com, 224-5669) The standard margarita is made with Lunazul tequila, triple sec and a house fresh-squeezed sour mix.

Best Margaritas

• Best of the best: La Carreta Mexican Restaurant (139 Daniel Webster Hwy. in Nashua, 891-0055; 1875 S. Willow St. in Manchester, 623-7705; 545 Hooksett Road in Manchester, 628-6899; 44 Nashua Road in Londonderry, 965-3477; 35 Manchester Road, Suite 5A, in Derry, 421-0091; 172 Hanover St. in Portsmouth, 427-8319; lacarretamex.com) The margarita menu at La Carreta features multiple “signature margaritas” such as the Sangria-Rita, Berry Rita and Pineapple En Fuego.
• Hermanos Cocina Mexicana (11 Hills Ave. in Concord, hermanosmexican.com, 224-5669) The standard margarita is made with Lunazul tequila, triple sec and a house fresh-squeezed sour mix.The menu also features multiple varieties and a build-your-own offering with their extensive tequila menu.
• Puerto Vallarta Mexican Grill (865 Second St. in Manchester, 935-9182)and Nuevo Vallarta Mexican Restaurant (791 Second St. in Manchester, 782-8762; vallartamexicannh.com) offer the same Margaritas Especials menu featuring Wildbery Margarita, Vallarta Margarita, Hot Rita and a cucumber margarita.
• Tupelo Music Hall (10 A St. in Derry, tupelomusichall.com, 437-5100) The Tupelo offers a classic margarita with tequila, triple sec and sour mix.
• Taco Time Cocina & Cantina Mexicana (1 Wilton Road in Milford, tacotimenh.com, 554-1424) The house margarita is available in strawberry, watermelon, pomegranate, mango, peach, and orange flavors.
• Amigos Mexican Cantina (20 South St. in Milford, amigosmilford.com, 673-1500) Their margarita is made with Lunazul Reposado tequila, triple sec and Jamaican Lime Juice.

Restaurant with the Most Inventive Cocktails

• Best of the best: Industry East (28 Hanover St., in Manchester, industryeastbar.com, 232-6940) Offerings include the Caribbean Kilt (Scotch, amaretto, orange, lime, orgeat and bitters, with a rum float) and Granny Panties (dark rum, Zucca, creme de violette, pineapple, lemon and grapefruit, with celery bitters).
• Stash Box (866 Elm St. in Manchester, stashboxnh.com, 606-8109) Drinks include Religion and Politics (Barr Hill Gin or Peloton Mezcal, ancho, lemon, honey, orange, carrot, and pepper tincture) and Stay Classy (a smoked cocktail with Plantation Stiggin’s Fancy Pineapple Rum and bitters).
• Prime at Sky Meadow (6 Mountain Laurels Dr. in Nashua, skymeadow.com, 888-9000) The menu includes Royal Bermuda Yacht Club Cocktail (Plantation Rum, velvet falernum, freshly squeezed lime juice and Cointreau) and a Gin Basil Smash(gin, fresh-squeezed lemon juice, basil syrup and fresh basil).
• The Hop Knot (1000 Elm St. in Manchester, hopknotnh.com, 232-3731) Offerings include the Nova (blueberry vodka, house-made blueberry syrup and lemon) and a Zero-Proof Margarita (agave, lime and alcohol-free tequila).
• Greenleaf (54 Nashua St. in Milford, greenleafmilford.com, 213-5447) The selection includes There’s Something About Rosemary(Uncle Nearest 1884, rosemary red wine reduction and orange bitters) and Fizzy Lifting Drink (prosecco, creme de violette and lemon).

Bar Where They Make You Feel Relaxed as Soon as You Sit Down

• Best of the best: The Stumble Inn Bar & Grill 20 Rockingham Road in Londonderry, stumbleinnnh.com, 432-3210
• The Hop Knot 1000 Elm St. in Manchester, hopknotnh.com, 232-3731
• Industry East 28 Hanover St., in Manchester, industryeastbar.com, 232-6940
• The Shaskeen Pub and Restaurant 909 Elm St. in Manchester, shaskeenirishpub.com, 625-0246
• Stash Box 866 Elm St. in Manchester, stashboxnh.com, 606-8109

Where They Make Your Coffee Perfect Every Time

• Best of the best: Flight Coffee Co. 209 Route 101 in Bedford, flightcoffeeco.com, 836-6228
• Brother’s Cortado 3 Bicentennial Square, Odd Fellows Avenue in Concord, brotherscortado.com, 856-7924
• Revelstoke Coffee 100 N. Main St. in Concord, revelstokecoffee.com, 715-5821
• Hometown Coffee Roasters 80 Old Granite St. in Manchester, hometownroasters.com, 703-2321
• Aroma Joe’s locations include 2 S. Beech St. in Manchester, 518-5409; 527 Hooksett Road in Manchester, 782-7173; 13 Manchester Road in Derry, 552-3581; 71 Calef Hwy. in Lee, 749-7700; 478 W. Main St. in Tilton, 729-0030; 3 Chambers Dr. in Hooksett, 932-2890; 135 Loudon Road in Concord, 715-8109; 214 Fisherville Road in Concord, 565-5497; 171 N. Broadway in Salem, 458-6335; 401 Main St., Suite 112, in Salem, 458-2770; 140 Daniel Webster Hwy. in Merrimack, 459-8702; 2 Paul’s Way in Amherst, 402-1195; 1912 Dover Road in Epsom, 736-0505, and others; aromajoes.com.

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Work Life

Best Spot for a Quick but Tasty Lunch

• Best of the best: Pressed Cafe 216 S. River Road in Bedford, 606-2746; 108 Spit Brook Road in Nashua, 718-1250; 3 Cotton Road in Nashua (drive-thru only); 1 Artisan Dr. in Salem, 458-5922; pressedcafe.com
• Patz Deli & Catering 900 Elm St., Suite 102, in Manchester, 644-7289
• Troy’s Fresh Kitchen 4 Orchard View Dr., No. 6, in Londonderry, troysfreshkitchen.com, 965-3411
• The Stumble Inn Bar & Grill 20 Rockingham Road in Londonderry, stumbleinnnh.com, 432-3210
• The Bridge Cafe on Elm 1117 Elm St. in Manchester, thebridgecafe.net, 647-9991

Best Place to Order Lunch for the Office when the Boss is Buying

• Best of the best: Pressed Cafe 216 S. River Road in Bedford, 606-2746; 108 Spit Brook Road in Nashua, 718-1250; 3 Cotton Road in Nashua (drive-thru only); 1 Artisan Dr. in Salem, 458-5922; pressedcafe.com
• Troy’s Fresh Kitchen 4 Orchard View Drive, No. 6, in Londonderry, troysfreshkitchen.com, 965-3411
• Puritan Backroom 245 Hooksett Road in Manchester, puritanbackroom.com, 669-6890 for the restaurant.
• The Bridge Cafe on Elm 1117 Elm St. in Manchester, thebridgecafe.net, 647-9991
• The Stumble Inn Bar & Grill 20 Rockingham Road in Londonderry, stumbleinnnh.com, 432-3210

Best Happy Hour

• Best of the best: The Stumble Inn Bar & Grill 20 Rockingham Road in Londonderry, stumbleinnnh.com, 432-3210
• The Farm Bar and Grille 1181 Elm St. in Manchester, farmbargrille.com, 641-3276
• Feathered Friend Brewing 231 S. Main St. in Concord, featheredfriendbrewing.com, 715-2347
• Tandy’s Pub & Grille 1 Eagle Sq. in Concord, tandyspub.com, 856-7614
• Backyard Brewery and Kitchen 1211 S. Mammoth Road in Manchester, backyardbrewerynh.com, 623-3545
• Hare of the Dawg 3 East Broadway in Derry, hareofthedawgnh.com, 552-3883

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Happenings

Best Food Festival

• Best of the best: Glendi at Saint George’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral (650 Hanover St. in Manchester, stgeorgenh.org, 622-9113) is slated for Friday, Sept. 13, through Sunday, Sept. 15.
• Taco Tour in Downtown Manchester (tacotourmanchester.com, 792-4107) is Thursday, May 2, from 4 to 8 p.m.
• Hampton Beach Seafood Festival (on Route 1A in Hampton, seafoodfestivalnh.com, 926-8718) will take place Friday, Sept. 6, through Sunday, Sept. 8, from noon to 9 p.m.
• Bacon & Beer Festival at Anheuser-Busch Brewery (Outdoor Fields, 221 Daniel Webster Hwy. in Merrimack, nhbaconbeer.com) will take place Saturday, June 1, from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m.
• NH Poutine Fest from the Franco-American Centre and held at Anheuser-Busch Biergarten (221 Daniel Webster Hwy. in Merrimack, nhpoutinefest.com) will take place Saturday, Oct. 12. Sign up for the newsletter to get information about ticket sales.

Best Farmers Market

• Best of the best: Concord Farmers Market takes place Saturday, 8:30 a.m. to noon, on Capitol Street next to the Statehouse Lawn, starting May 4 and running through Oct. 26, according to concordfarmersmarket.com.
• Derry Homegrown Farm & Artisan Market takes place at 1 West Broadway in Derry on Wednesdays, 3 to 7 p.m., beginning June 5, according to derryhomegrown.org.
• Salem NH Farmers Market is open year-round, with the winter market open Sundays, November through April, from 10 a.m through 1 p.m. at the LaBelle Winery, 14 Route 111 in Derry, and the summer market open Sundays, May through October, 10 a.m. through 2 p.m. at the Mall at Rockingham Park, according to salemnhfarmersmarket.org.
• Candia Farmers Market runs every third Saturday, June 15 through Oct. 19, from 9 a.m. to noon at 55 High St. in Candia, according to candiafarmersmarket.org.
• Church St. Farmers Market is at 9 Church St. in Deerfield and is open two Saturdays a month June through October (only once in September), 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., starting June 8, according to churchstmarket.com.

Event That Puts the “Fun” in Fundraiser

• Best of the best: Glendi at Saint George’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral (650 Hanover St. in Manchester, stgeorgenh.org, 622-9113) is slated for Friday, Sept. 13, through Sunday, Sept. 15.
• Castle in the Clouds Gala (455 Old Mountain Road in Moultonborough, castleintheclouds.org, 476-5900) on Friday, July 12.
• Special Olympics Penguin Plunge (Hampton Beach State Park in Hampton, fundraising.sonh.org/event/penguin-plunge, 624-1250) Next year’s high school plunge will be on Saturday, Feb. 8, and the Penguin Plunge will be on Sunday, Feb. 9.
• Aviation Museum Car Show ( 27 Navigator Road in Londonderry, aviationmuseumofnh.org, 669-4820) is Saturday, July 13.
• Wags to Whiskers Festival to benefit the Humane Society For Greater Nashua (hsfn.org, 889-2275). Saturday, September 21, at the Anheuser-Busch brewery at 221 Daniel Webster Hwy in Merrimack. See the Humane Society’s website for details.
• NH Renaissance Faire Martin Road in Fremont, nhrenfaire.com, Saturday, May 11, Sunday, May 12, Saturday, May 18, and Sunday, May 19.

Best Community Event

• Best of the best: Market Days Festival on Main Street in Concord will run Thursday, June 20, through Saturday, June 22, according to marketdaysfestival.com.
• Glendi at Saint George’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral (650 Hanover St. in Manchester, stgeorgenh.org, 622-9113) is slated for Friday, Sept. 13, through Sunday, Sept. 15.
• Winter Holiday Stroll in downtown Nashua takes place the Saturday after Thanksgiving; see downtownnashua.org.
• Milford Pumpkin Festival takes place on and at locations near the Oval in downtown Milford and will be held Friday, Oct. 11, through Sunday, Oct. 13, according to milfordpumpkinfestival.org.
• Goffstown’s Giant Pumpkin Weigh Off and Regatta will take place on Main Street in Goffstown on Saturday, Oct. 19, and Sunday, Oct. 20, according to goffstownmainstreet.org.

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Family Fun

Best Place to Take Your Kids

• Best of the best: Aviation Museum of New Hampshire 27 Navigator Road in Londonderry, aviationmuseumofnh.org, 669-4820
• The Nest Family Cafe 25 Orchard View Dr., Unit 1, in Londonderry, thenestfamilycafe.com, 404-2139
• Fun Spot 579 Endicott St. North, in Laconia, funspotnh.com, 366-4377
• Fun City 553 Mast Road in Goffstown, funcitygoffstown.com, 606-8807
• Canobie Lake Park 85 N. Policy St. in Salem, canobie.com, 893-3506
• Nova Trampoline Park 300 Main St., Suite 402, in Nashua, novanashua.com, 825-4131

Best Outdoor Spot to Let Kids Get Out Their Energy

• Best of the best: Benson Park 19 Kimball Hill Road in Hudson, hudsonnh.gov/bensonpark, 886-6018
• Livingston Park 156 Hooksett Road in Manchester, manchesternh.gov/Departments/Parks-and-Recreation/Parks-Trails-and-Facilities/Parks/Livingston-Park, 624-6444
• Hampton Beach in Hampton, hamptonbeach.org
• Mel’s Funway Park 454 Charles Bancroft Hwy. in Litchfield, melsfunwaypark.com, 424-2292
• White Park 1 White St. in Concord, concordnh.gov/facilities/facility/details/White-Park-21, 225-8690

Best Spot for All-Ages Family Fun

• Best of the best: Canobie Lake Park 85 N. Policy St. in Salem, canobie.com, 893-3506
• Aviation Museum of New Hampshire 27 Navigator Road in Londonderry, aviationmuseumofnh.org, 669-4820
• The Nest Family Cafe 25 Orchard View Dr., Unit 1, in Londonderry, thenestfamilycafe.com, 404-2139
• Fun Spot 579 Endicott St. North in Laconia, funspotnh.com, 366-4377
• Mel’s Funway Park 454 Charles Bancroft Hwy. in Litchfield, melsfunwaypark.com, 424-2292
• Hampton Beach in Hampton, hamptonbeach.org

Best Restaurant for the Whole Family

• Best of the best: Puritan Backroom 245 Hooksett Road in Manchester, puritanbackroom.com, 669-6890 for the restaurant.
• T-Bones Great American Eatery 39 Crystal Avenue in Derry, t-bones.com, 434-3200
• The Nest Family Cafe 25 Orchard View Dr., Unit 1, in Londonderry, thenestfamilycafe.com, 404-2139
• T-Bones Great American Eatery 25 S. River Road in Bedford, t-bones.com, 641-6100
• The Common Man Merrimack 304 Daniel Webster Hwy. in Merrimack, thecman.com, 429-3463

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Pets

Best Doggie Day Care

• Best of the best: All Dogs Gym & Inn 505 Sheffield Road, Manchester, 669-4644, alldogsgym.com

American K9 Country 336 Route 101, Amherst, 672-8448, americank9country.com

• Chewie’s Playland 472 Amherst St., No. 24, Nashua, 921-1875; 217 W. Hollis St., Nashua, 921-0745; chewiesplayland.com
• Superdogs Daycare 637 Daniel Webster Hwy., Merrimack, 424-1515, superdogsdaycare.com
• Pawquet’s Play & Stay 302 Rockingham Road, Londonderry, 216-1147, pawquetsplaystay.com

Best Dog Groomers

• Best of the best: Sarah’s Paw Spa 16 Manning St., Derry, 512-4539, find them on Facebook @sarahspawspa
• D’Tails Dog Grooming 178 Route 101 in Bedford, 703-6288, find them on Facebook
• Wag Grooming Salon & Spa 15 Ermer Road in Salem, 898-0924, wagplace.com
• Grooming at Tiffany’s 127 Rockingham Road, Derry, 432-8000, groomingattiffanys.com
• Woofmeow 19 Manchester Road, Suite A, Derry, 965-3218, woofmeownh.com

Best Pet Retail Store

• Best of the best: Woofmeow 19 Manchester Road, Suite A, Derry, 965-3218, woofmeownh.com
• Pets Choice 454 Daniel Webster Hwy., Merrimack, 424-7297, petschoicenh.com
• The Wholistic Pet 341 Route 101, Bedford, 472-2273, thewholisticpet.com
• Sandy’s Pet Food Center 141 Old Turnpike Road, Concord, 225-1177, sandyspetfood.com
• State Line Pet Supply 137 Plaistow Road, Plaistow, 382-6873, statelinepetsupply.com

Best Place to Let Your Dog Off Leash

• Best of the best: Hudson Dog Park inside Benson Park, 19 Kimball Hill Road, Hudson, 886-6000, hudsonnh.gov
• Derry Dog Park Fordway and Transfer Lane, Derry, 432-6136, derrynh.org
• Hooksett Dog Park 101 Merrimack St., Hooksett, 485-8471, hooksett.org. This park is open daily from 6 a.m. to dusk.
• Nashua Dog Park One Groton Road (Route 111A) in Nashua, nashuadog.org (where you can find information about membership)
• Bear Brook Canine Camp a fenced area designed for private, pre-booked play in Allenstown; book a time at sniffspot.com
• Raymond Dog Bark Park in Riverside Park (98 Sundeen Parkway in Raymond), raymondnh.gov/riversidepark

Best On-Leash Dog Outing

• Best of the best: Benson Park 19 Kimball Hill Road, Hudson, hudsonnh.gov/bensonpark
• Mine Falls Park Whipple Street, Nashua, 589-3370, nashuanh.gov
• Lake Massabesic Trail a 3.7-mile loop with parking in the Massabesic Center parking lot (though dogs are not allowed on any Audubon trails), according to alltrails.com
• Benedictine Park on Wallace Road in Bedford, featuring 27.4 acres of active and passive recreational land and walking trails that are just under a mile, according to bedfordnh.myrec.com
• New Boston Rail Trail a 4-mile rail trail with a trail head at Lang Station (Gregg Mill Road in New Boston); see nbrailtrail.com
• Windham Rail Trail windhamrailtrail.org, 4.1 miles of trail

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Beauty & Wellness

Best Barber

• Best of the best: Homegrown Barber Co. 18 Orchard View Dr. in Londonderry, homegrownbarber.com, 818-8989
• Lucky’s Barbershop 50 S. State St. in Concord, luckysbarbershop.biz, 715-5470
• Polished Man Barbershop & Lounge 707 Milford Road, No. 3A, in Merrimack, thepolishedman.com, 718-8427
• Polished Man Barbershop & Lounge 178 Route 101 in Bedford, thepolishedman.com, 233-7991
• Dude’s Barbershop 1328 Hooksett Road in Hooksett, dudesbarbershop.com, 626-0533

Best Salon

• Best of the best: Blank Canvas Salon 1F Commons Dr. in Londonderry, find them on Facebook, 818-4294
• Pellé Medical Spa 159 Frontage Road in Manchester, pellemedicalspa.com, 627-7000
• Salon Bogar 25 Orchard View Dr. in Londonderry, salonbogar.com, 434-2424
• Color Trends Hair Salon 25 Merritt Parkway in Nashua, colortrendshairsalon.com, 880-7504
• Topknot Salon and Spa 1 Nashua St. in Milford, topknotnh.com, 212-6863

Best Spa

Best of the best: Renew MediSpa 23B Crystal Avenue in Derry, renewmedispa.com, 931-4345
Redefine The Way You Age To Look and Feel Your Best. Advanced Anti-Aging Technology Combined with Experienced Care

• Chill Spa 1224 Hanover St. in Manchester, chillspa.com, 622-3722
• Pellé Medical Spa 159 Frontage Road in Manchester, pellemedicalspa.com, 627-7000
• Innovations Salon and Spa 228 Naticook Road in Merrimack, innovationsnh.com, 880-7499
• Serendipity Day Spa and Float Studio 23 Sheep Davis Road in Pembroke, serendipitydayspa.shop, 229-0400

Where They Do a Good Brow

• Best of the best: Renew MediSpa 23B Crystal Avenue in Derry, renewmedispa.com, 931-4345
• Pellé Medical Spa 159 Frontage Road in Manchester, pellmedicalspa.com, 627-7000
• Art of Eyebrows 449 Amherst St. in Nashua, 888-2186; 1500 S. Willow St., Mall of New Hampshire, in Manchester, 624-1414; Pheasant Lane Mall, 310 Daniel Webster Hwy. in Nashua, 864-8679; 1 Mall Road in Salem, 898-2444; Art of Beauty, 291 S. Broadway, Suite 3A, in Salem, 898-1212; artofeyebrows.com
• Beauty Works 123 Nashua Road in Londonderry, beautyworksnh.com, 275-8672
• Kriss Cosmetics 145 S. Main St. in Manchester, krisscosmetics.com, 624-2333

Where They Make Your Nails Look Fabulous

• Best of the best: Glossy Nails 1 S. River Road in Bedford, 935-8383; 655 S. Willow St. in Manchester; glossynails.net
• Exotic 9 Nails 30 Crystal Avenue, Suite 6, in Derry, exotic9nails.com, 425-7731
• Chill Spa 1224 Hanover St. in Manchester, chillspa.com, 622-3722
• 9 Nails and Spa Salon 7 Rockingham Road in Londonderry, 9nailsandspasalon.com, 216-1668
• Beautiful Nails 1525 S Willow St., Suite 2, in Manchester, 232-4700, find them on Facebook

Best Tattoo Shop

• Best of the best: New Inkland Tattoo Co. 1358 Elm St. in Manchester, 518-7493, find them on Facebook
• Tattoo Angus 179 Elm St., Unit C, in Manchester, tattooangus.com, 935-9398
• Underworld Tattoo Co. 282 Main St. in Salem, 458-7739, find them on Instagram or Facebook
• Capital City Tattoo 8 N. Main St. in Concord, capcitytat.com, 224-2600
• Wayne’s Tattoo World 6 West Broadway in Derry, waynestattooworld.com, 432-4828

Best Workout Space

• Best of the best: Collective Studios 4 Orchard View Dr. in Londonderry, thecollective-studios.com, 216-2345
• Executive Health and Sports Center 1 Highlander Way in Manchester, ehsc.com, 668-4753)
• Dynamic Strength & Conditioning 115 Northeastern Blvd. in Nashua, dynamicsc.com, 882-2348
• The Workout Club 18 Orchard View Dr., Unit 2, in Londonderry, theworkoutclub.com/londonderry, 434-6565 (there are also locations at 16 Pelham Road in Salem and 35 Hamel Dr. in Manchester)

Hampshire Hills Athletic Club 50 Emerson Road in Milford, hampshirehills.com, 673-8123

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Shopping

Best Place to Buy Jewelry

• Best of the best: Bellman’s 1650 Elm St. in Manchester, bellmans.com, 625-4653
• Princess Jewelers 55 Crystal Ave., Unit 5, in Derry, princessnh.com, 247-3773
• Day’s Jewelers 66 March Ave. in Manchester, 641-0034; 567 Amherst St. in Nashua, 595-2780; daysjewelers.com
• Jonathan’s Jewelers 460 Route 101 in Bedford, jonathansjewelers.com, 471-2828
• Richters Jewelry & Design Studio 4 Orchard View Dr., No. 16, in Londonderry, richtersjewelry.com, 437-2655

Best Independent Shop to Buy Clothes or Shoes

• Best of the best: Alec’s Shoes 1617 Southwood Dr. in Nashua, alecs-shoes.com, 882-6811

Gondwana and Divine Clothing 13 N. Main St. in Concord, gondwanaclothing.com, 228-1101

• Alapage 25 S. River Road in Bedford, alapageboutique.com, 625-5601
• Joe King’s Shoes 45 N. Main St. in Concord, joekings.com, 225-6012
• George’s Apparel 675 Elm St. in Manchester, georgesapparel.com, 622-5441

Best Secondhand Store

• Best of the best: Corey’s Closet 1329 Hooksett Road in Hooksett, coreyscloset.org, 722-2712
• M&C Clothing and Gifts 135 Route 101A in Amherst, mcclothingandgifts.com, 886-6727
• Kelly’s Kloset in Hooksett, kellysklosetllc.com
• Lilise Designer Resale 7 N. Main St. in Concord, liliseresale.com, 715-2009
• Outfitters Thrift Store 394 Second St. in Manchester, fitnh.org/outfitters, 641-6691

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Outdoors

Best Farm for Pick Your Own

• Best of the best: Sunnycrest 59 High Range Road in Londonderry, sunnycrestfarmnh.com, 432-9652
• Mack’s Apples 230 Mammoth Road in Londonderry, 432-3456, macksapples.com
• Lull Farm 65 Broad St. in Hollis, 465-7079, livefreeandfarm.com

Brookdale Fruit Farm 41 Broad St. in Hollis, 465-2240, brookdalefruitfarm.com
Celebrating 177 years! Seasonal PYO: Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, 19 varieties of apples and pumpkins. Check our website for the latest picking options.

• J&F Farms 108 Chester Road in Derry, 437-0535, jandffarms.net

Best City Park

• Best of the best: White Park 1 White St. in Concord, 225-8690, concordnh.gov
• Livingston Park 244 Hooksett Road in Manchester, 624-6444, manchesternh.gov/parks
• Benson’s Park 19 Kimball Hall Road in Hudson, 886-6000, hudsonnh.gov/bensonpark
• Greeley Park Concord Street in Nashua, 589-3370, nashuanh.gov
• Mine Falls Park Whipple Street in Nashua, 589-3370, nashuanh.gov

Best State Park

• Best of the best: Pawtuckaway State Park 128 Mountain Road in Nottingham, 895-3031, nhstateparks.org
• Bear Brook State Park 61 Deerfield Road in Allenstown, 485-9869, nhstateparks.org
• Odiorne Point 570 Ocean Blvd. in Rye, 436-7406, nhstateparks.org
• Wellington State Park 614 W. Shore Road in Bristol, 744-2197, nhstateparks.org
• Hampton Beach 160 Ocean Blvd. in Hampton, 227-8722, nhstateparks.org

Best Bike Trail

• Best of the best: Derry Rail Trail traillink.org, 3.6 miles of paved trail
• Londonderry Rail Trail, londonderrytrails.org, 4.5 miles of trail
• Windham Rail Trail windhamrailtrail.org, 4.1 miles of trail
• Goffstown Rail Trail Goffstown, goffstownrailtrail.org, 5.5 miles of trail
• Nashua Rail Trail Nashua, 12.5 miles of paved trail

Best Hike in Southern New Hampshire

• Best of the best: Mount Monadnock 169 Poole Road in Jaffrey, 532-8862, nhstateparks.org
• Mt. Major in Alton, nhstateparks.org
• Pawtuckaway State Park 128 Mountain Road in Nottingham, 895-3031, nhstateparks.org
• Pack Monadnock in Miller State Park, 13 Miller Park Road in Peterborough, 924-3672, nhstateparks.org
• Mine Falls Park Whipple Street in Nashua, nashuanh.gov, 589-3370

Best Spot for a Long Run

• Best of the best: Mine Falls Park Whipple Street in Nashua, nashuanh.gov, 589-3370
• Goffstown Rail Trail in Goffstown, goffstownrailtrail.org, 5.5 miles of trail
• Londonderry Rail Trail londonderrytrails.org, 4.5 miles of trail
• Windham Rail Trail windhamrailtrail.org, 4.1 miles of trail
• Massabesic Lake area Rockingham Recreational Rail Trail, 27.3 miles of trail from Auburn to Manchester, nhstateparks.org

Best Lake to Canoe or Kayak in

• Best of the best: Lake Massabesic Off Londonderry Turnpike in Manchester, manchesternh.gov, 642-6482
• Pawtuckaway Lake Pawtuckaway State Park, 7 Pawtuckaway Road in Nottingham, 895-3031, nhstateparks.org
• Newfound Lake Wellington State Park, 614 W. Shore Road in Bristol, 744–2197, nhstateparks.org
• Lake Winnipesaukee in Belknap and Carroll counties intheLakes Region, lakewinnipesaukee.net, which says it is the largest lake in New Hampshire
• Squam Lake located in Grafton, Carroll and Belknap counties, lakesregion.org/squam-lake

Best Ski Hill

• Best of the best: Pats Peak Ski Area 686 Flanders Road in Henniker, 428-3245, patspeak.com,
• Loon Mountain 60 Loon Mountain Road in Lincoln, 745-8111, loonmtn.com
• Gunstock 719 Cherry Valley Road in Gilford, 293-4341, gunstock.com
• McIntyre Ski Area 50 Chalet Way in Manchester, mcintyreskiarea.com
• Cannon Mountain Ski Resort 260 Tramway Drive in Franconia, 823-8800, cannonmt.com

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Personalities

Most Inventive Chef

• Best of the best: Chris Viaud at Greenleaf 54 Nashua St. in Milford, 213-5447, greenleafmilford.com
• Bobby Marcotte at The Tuckaway Tavern and Butchery 58 Route 27 in Raymond, 244-2431, thetuckaway.com
• Corey Fletcher at Revival Kitchen & Bar 11 Depot St. in Concord, 715-5723, revivalkitchennh.com
• Scott Ouelette at Canoe Restaurant and Tavern 232 Whittier Hwy. in Center Harbor, canoecenterharbor.com
• Shawn Harris at Prime at Sky Meadow Country Club, 6 Mountain Laurels Dr. in Nashua, 888-9000, skymeadow.com

Restaurant with the Friendliest Staff

• Best of the best: The Stumble Inn Bar & Grill 20 Rockingham Road in Londonderry, 432-3210, stumbleinnnh.com
• Prime at Sky Meadow Country Club, 6 Mountain Laurels Dr. in Nashua, 888-9000, skymeadow.com
• The Nest Family Cafe 25 Orchard View Dr., Unit 1, in Londonderry, 404-2139, thenestfamilycafe.com
• Troy’s Fresh Kitchen 4 Orchard View Dr., No. 6, in Londonderry, 965-3411, troysfreshkitchen.com
• Smoke Shack Cafe 226 Rockingham Road in Londonderry, 404-2178, smokeshackcafe.com

Butt-kicking-est Fitness Instructor (in the Good Way)

• Best of the best: Biliana Mihaylova is currently an independent instructor in Concord. You can message her via instagram.com/pop.kween.
• Claudia Michel of The Collective Studios Apple Tree Shopping Center, 4 Orchard View Dr. in Londonderry, 216-2345; 125 S. River Road in Bedford, 782-3321; thecollective-studios.com
• Leah Heath of The Collective Studios Apple Tree Shopping Center, 4 Orchard View Dr. in Londonderry, 216-2345; 125 S. River Road in Bedford, 782-3321; thecollective-studios.com
• Tricia Hoyt at Journey Fitness 333 27 Buttrick Road, No. 6, in Londonderry, 247-9334, journeyfitness333.com/Londonderry
• Ashley Oberg at Barre Life 944 Elm St., No. 23, in Manchester, barrelifenh.com

Best Barber

• Best of the best: Traci Evans at Tooky Village Barbershop 12 Maple St., Unit 1, in Contoocook; 746-2170, tookyvillagebarbershop.net
• Benny D’Ambrosio at The Polished Man Barbershop & Lounge 707 Milford Road, Unit 3A, in Merrimack, 718-8427, thepolishedman.com
• Juliet Lord at Clean Cut Jewels Barbershop 604 Daniel Webster Hwy. in Merrimack, 657-6376, cleancutjewels.com
• Erica Juneau at Juneau The Barber 1802 Elm St. in Manchester; find Juneau the Barber on Facebook, 490-2421) Josh Craggy at Lucky’s Barbershop and Shave Parlor 50 S. State St. in Concord, 715-5470, luckysbarbershop.biz

Best Hair Stylist

• Best of the best: Jessica Moll at Lightened & Lifted 22 Greeley St., Suite 10, in Merrimack, lightenednlifted.glossgenius.com
• Mariana Bortolossi at Mari Lossi Hair Studio 40 S. River Road, Unit 63, in Bedford, 782-3908, marilossihairstudio.com
• Aaron Losier at Hairpocalypse 904 Hanover St. in Manchester, 627-4301, hairpocalypse.com
• Tashia Landry at Studio 22 1191 Hooksett Road in Hooksett, 703-7418, vagaro.com/hairbytashia
• Amanda Noonan at Topknot Salon 1 Nashua St. in Milford, 213-6863, topknotnh.com

Friendliest Dentist

• Best of the best: Danielle London of London Family Orthodontics 502 Riverway Place in Bedford, 622-2100, londonfamilyorthodontics.com

Dr. Elizabeth Spindel and Dr. Victoria Spindel Rubin at Spindel General and Cosmetic Dentistry 862 Union St. in Manchester, 669-9049, elizabethspindel.com
Thank you for voting us the friendliest dental office in NH for 16 years in a row!

• Leonard M. Attisano, D.M.D. 700 Lake Ave. in Manchester, 668-0227, leonardattisanodmd.com
• Dr. Nicholas C. Rizos at the Office of Dr. Nicholas C. Rizos, D.M.D. 103 Riverway Place in Bedford, 669-4384, drnickdmd.com
• Charles Pipilas, D.D.S. 280 Main St., Suite 311, in Nashua, 881-8280

Friendliest Mechanic

• Best of the best: Chris McNeil in Concord St. Motors 15 Concord St. in Nashua, 882-8642, find them on Facebook
• Bill Morin at Morin’s Service Station 1091 Valley St., Manchester, 624-4427, morinsservicestation.com
• Sean Roaf at In Tune Automotive 4 Lafayette Road in Hampton Falls, 926-6910, intuneauto.net
• Jason Ux at Proficient Automotive 546 Mast Road in Goffstown, 361-4514
• Pete Koster at Second Car Center 181 Rockingham Road in Derry, 432-4200, secondcarcenter.com

Best Local Musical Act

• Best of the best: Jennifer Mitchell The next events on her calendar are JMitch Karaoke on Friday, March 29, at 7 p.m. at Penacook American Legion Post 31; Good Vibes Music Bingo on Monday, April 1, at 6 p.m. at Salona in Manchester and Tuesday, April 2, at 6 p.m. at Backyard Grill Burgers & Wings in Manchester, and then Jennifer Mitchell Solo Acoustic on Friday, April 5, at 7 p.m. at Hill Top Pizza in Epsom, according to jennifermitchellmusic.com.
• Justin Jordan According to his Facebook page, you can next find Justin on Thursday, March 28, at the Copper Door in Salem from 7 to 10 p.m. and on Friday, March 29, at Luna Bistro in Salem from 7 to 10 p.m.
• Nicole Knox Murphy See her Saturday, March 30, at the Bristol House of Pizza in Bristol from 6 to 8 p.m., according to nkmsings4u.com.
• Small Town Stranded Catch the band Saturday, March 30, from 8 to 11 p.m. at the Derryfield in Manchester, where they will return on Friday, May 10, from 8 to 11 p.m., according to their Facebook page.
• Ramez Gurung A regular at area restaurants; see his Facebook page, facebook.com/ramezmataz, for updates on his shows.

Best Local Comedian

• Best of the best: Bob Marley Bob Marley lives in Maine and regularly performs in New Hampshire — he’ll next be here Thursday, April 11, through Sunday, April 14, during a run of five shows at the Palace Theatres in Manchester. See bmarley.com.
• Juston McKinney McKinney lives in New Hampshire, according to justonmckinney.com, where you can find his schedule packed with New Hampshire and New England shows. Up next is a performance at the Park Theatre in Jaffrey on Friday, March 29, at 7:30 p.m. He’ll return to New Hampshire for a show at the Colonial Theatre in Laconia on Saturday, May 25, at 8 p.m.
• Paul Landwehr Check out Landwehr’s Instagram for new comedy clips. He’s scheduled to be at the Rex Theatre in Manchester on Friday, April 5, at the 7:30 p.m. comedy show and the Saturday, July 20, Tupelo Night of Comedy at the Tupelo Music Hall in Derry at 8 p.m.
• Matt Barry See Barry Saturday, March 30, at Main Street Grill & Bar in Hillsborough; Thursday, April 4, at the Stone Church in Newmarket and Saturday, May 4, at Chunky’s in Manchester, according to mattbarrycomedy.com.
• Queen City Improv This Manchester-based comedy troupe performs regularly, with upcoming shows at Stark Brewing in Manchester on Monday, April 1 (the first of several first-Monday-of-the-month shows slated at Stark Brewing) and Chunky’s in Manchester on Friday, April 19, according to queencityimprov.com, where you can also find information about their upcoming six-week improv intensive starting April 3.
• Jimmy Dunn Dunn is now Frasier’s Jimmy Dunn, landing a role on the Paramount+ reboot of the sitcom. He is a fixture of the Hampton Beach Comedy Festival, slated for Aug. 14 through Aug. 18, according to jimmydunn.com.

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Living Here

Coolest Historic Site or Monument You Can Visit for Free

• Best of the best: New Hampshire Statehouse (107 N. Main St. in Concord, gencourt.state.nh.us) Self-guided tours are generally available between 8:15 a.m. and 3:15 p.m., when you may also be able to get a docent-led tour if one is available. For groups of 10 or more, see the website for information on booking a tour.
• Robert Frost Farm Historic Site (122 Rockingham Road in Derry 432-3091, robertfrostfarm.org) opens the New Hampshire home of Robert Frost to visitors from May to October. Admission costs $4 for adult New Hampshire residents and is free for residents who are 65+ or under 17. The grounds and trails around the house and barn are open from dusk to dawn all year, according to nhstateparks.org.
• Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park (139 St. Gaudens Road in Cornish, 675-2175, nps.gov/saga) is a 190-acre park featuring the preserved home, gardens, studios and works of American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens (who stayed there during the summers from 1885 to 1897). The park grounds, outdoor monuments and sculptures, gardens and wooded trails are free to visit and open to the public year round, from dusk to dawn. The visitors center and museum buildings are open, with guided tours available, from Memorial Day weekend to Oct. 31. Admission is free for children age 15 and under and for all visitors on Entrance Fee-Free Days (which for 2024 are June 19, Aug. 4 and Sept. 28). Regular admission for adults costs $10.
• Stark Park (550 River Road in Manchester, starkpark.com) is a 30-acre tract that was once the site of the Stark family farm in Manchester’s North End. The park is open daily from sunrise to sunset. Look for a concert series in July and August and see the website for information on sculptures in the park and the Walk in the Woods map.
• Madison Boulder (in Madison Boulder Natural Area, 473 Boulder Road in Madison, nhstateparks.org) “is a huge granite rock measuring 83 feet in length, 23 feet in height above the ground, 37 feet in width, and weighs upwards of 5,000 tons” that was deposited on the site by a glacier, according to the state parks site.
• The Old Man of the Mountain (Franconia Notch State Park, Exit 34B off Interstate-93, Franconia, oldmannh.org) Get a sense of what was at Old Man of the Mountain Profile Plaza, which recreates the Old Man profile.
• Memorial Arch of Tilton, which is actually on Elm Street in Northfield, was erected in 1882 by Charles Tilton, is made mostly of granite and was modeled on the Arch of Titus in Rome, according to an archives document available at nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com.

Attraction Worth Visiting Again and Again

• Best of the best: Aviation Museum of New Hampshire 27 Navigator Road in Londonderry, aviationmuseumofnh.org, 669-4820
• Canobie Lake Park 85 N. Policy St. in Salem, 893-3506, canobie.com
• Flume Gorge (852 Daniel Webster Hwy. in Lincoln, nhstateparks.org/visit/state-parks flume-gorge) is a natural gorge extending 800 feet at the base of Mount Liberty.
• Mount Washington (1598 Mt Washington Auto Road in Sargent’s Purchase, nhstateparks.org/find-parks-trails/mt-washington-state-park) is the highest peak in the northeastern U.S.
• Currier Museum of Art 150 Ash St. in Manchester, 669-6144, currier.org
• Castle in the Clouds 455 Old Mountain Road in Moultonborough, 476-5900, castleintheclouds.org
• Strawbery Banke Museum 4 Hancock St. in Portsmouth, 433-1100, strawberybanke.org

NH Organization You’d Give $1 million to if You Won the Lottery

• Best of the best: Aviation Museum of New Hampshire 27 Navigator Road in Londonderry, 669-4820, aviationmuseumofnh.org
• The New Hampshire Food Bank a program of Catholic Charities NH, 700 E. Industrial Park Dr. in Manchester, 669-9725, nhfoodbank.org
• Manchester Animal Shelter 490 Dunbarton Road in Manchester, 628-3544, manchesteranimalshelter.org
• CASA of New Hampshire 138 Coolidge Ave. in Manchester, 626-4600, casanh.org
• Animal Rescue League of NH 545 Route 101 in Bedford, 472-3647, rescueleague.org

NH Person, Place or Thing You Want to Say Thank You To

• Most thanked: Gov. Chris Sununu, who will finish his fourth term as governor in January 2025
• Readers’ moms and/or dads
• Justin Spencer of the band Recycled Percussion and the TV show Chaos & Kindness
• Jeff Rapsis, executive director of the Aviation Museum of New Hampshire, who also performs live music to accompany screenings of silent films (see silentfilmlivemusic.blogspot.com) (and is a Hippo associate publisher)
• All first responders
• Journey 333 — “Tricia and Janice at Journey Fitness 333 in Londonderry, N.H., for helping me gain my confidence back and being the sweetest people!” said one reader
• The Old Man of the Mountain — “Thank you for looking over us for so long. Rest in Peace!!!” said one reader
• Tupelo Music Hall — “for keeping music alive,” said one reader
• Fritz Wetherbee, who appears on WMUR’s New Hampshire Chronicle

Your Favorite New Hampshire Fun Fact

Most favorite: That our motto is “Live Free or Die”

• New Hampshire has the shortest coastline of any coastal U.S. state
• We (still, mostly) have the first-in-the-nation presidential primary
• The one-time existence of the Old Man in the Mountain (RIP)
• We have no sales or income tax
• Chicken tenders were invented here
• First man in space Alan Shepard was from New Hampshire (born in Derry)
• Elm Street in Manchester is the longest dead-end street in the U.S.
• New Hampshire had the first free tax-supported public library in the nation (as explained by peterboroughtownlibrary.org).
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was created in New Hampshire (in Dover, where there are public markers about the Turtles’ creation including a manhole cover, dover.nh.gov).

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Things We Forgot to Ask About

Best NH Food Product

Laurel Hill Jams and Jellies (laurelhilljams.com) offers a wide variety of flavors: fruit (such as strawberry rhubarb, Marvelous Multiberry, Raspberry Lavender), Summit Wines (Rosé, Pinotage, Moscato), tea (Earl Grey, chamomile) and spirits (Captain Banana’s Jam, Screwdriver Jelly). In 2023, Rachel Mack and Sara Steffensmeier took over from founder Sue Stretch. See the website for all the offerings.

Best Children’s Birthday Party Business That Comes to You

Party Palace features more than 45 costumed characters and offers live character entertainment at a variety of occasions including business events and children’s parties, where the mission is to empower children “through fun and engaging activities,” according to the business’s website, apartypalace.com. 

Best Dance Studio

Dimensions in Dance (84 Myrtle St. in Manchester; dimensionsindance.com, 668-4196) offers camps and classes for the youngest dancers (“Twos in Tutus”) through adult. Dimensions is also the home of Ballet Misha, a dance company that presents productions such as the run of The Nutcracker that was performed at the Dana Center in December.

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