Summer flies by around here, and I don’t want to waste a single second of it ty.

That being said, the other night my friend KG and I motored over to Atwells Avenue (aka, Providence’s Little Itay) for dinner, only to find that the restaurant I thought I’d made a reservation for was closed.

At that point, we decided the best fallback option would be grabbing seats for some al fresco dining on DePasquale Square, especially since the amazing fountain is back up and running. (When I had lunch on the plaza a few years ago and saw it filled with plants — because it was broken and the cost to repair it was in the neighborhood of 500K — I was crestfallen.)

And we got there just in time, a little before 6pm, because right after we sat down, the orange umbrella-ed tables at Venda Bar started filling up. (For the record, you can make reservations and that’s probably a fab idea to avoid experiencing any disappointment after making the trip over. Also, thank goodness there’s valet: I say this as someone who breaks out in a cold sweat if they have to parallel park.)

My go-to order at Venda is usually the house salad (KG says it’s one of the better house salads she’s tried btw) and their scrumptious Margherita pizza, but the other night we changed things up a bit with two ginormous glasses of their red sangria, a nice midweek treat. We couldn’t finish them, but absolutely delish.

Weather permitting, this is something I highly recommend that everyone do this summer in Rhode island at least once. Once you go, though, you’ll probably have such a terrific time that you will be hooked. The atmosphere and menu remind me so much of an enchanting trip I took to Italy back in 2016.

And my friend KG was in awe of the exterior of the building which reminds me of somewhere you’d discover while exploring a non-touristy section of Rome.

Find Costantino’s Venda Bar & Ristorante at 265 Atwells Avenue in Providence, RI.

As always, if you go (or go back) after reading THIS, please let them know you were inspired by Patty J and PattyJ.com.