Spring Hill students have always used downtown Mobile for their end of the week celebrations, but with new attractions added to the downtown scene, students have other reasons to visit besides the bars late at night. Multiple brunch spots and other restaurants have opened in the past year along with new breweries.

Senior Caroline Herrera is happy to see how downtown has progressed from a typical bar scene to a place her and her friends can visit any time of day, she said “Downtown my freshman year was more so just partying. Now we can go downtown for brunch, go downtown for coffee or go downtown to see a concert. It’s not only just partying and drinking.” Herrera says she looks for a place to study that is not too crowded and loud. “It’s nice to have places downtown that you can kind of escape from Spring Hill a little bit,” said Herrera.

Nova Espresso opened last month on the corner of St. Anthony and Claiborne street. It is a new coffee shop students can come to for their caffeine fix and study sessions, especially if they want to get away from Spring Hill for a while. Their menu consists of the traditional espresso drinks along with a few snacks. People can also come in and grab a pre-made lunch in the refrigerator.

Another new addition to downtown, Game Over, is a restaurant and bar with a unique twist: it is also an arcade. Located on Dauphin and Joachim, guests can enjoy downtown by eating and drinking while playing retro video games like Ms. Pacman and Star Trek pinball that are placed throughout the entire restaurant. Junior Jared Jacoby is one of the officers for the Spring Hill game club and he is very excited for his club to try out the new restaurant that just opened last month. “I think this would be a really cool opportunity to get out of the college and go somewhere really nice,” said Jacoby.

While Spring Hill students have been using downtown as their late night destination on the weekends, they now have more options to visit and experience during the day. Jacoby says that new places like Game Over and Nova Espresso will let students see everything else downtown has to offer: “We will get to appreciate downtown more.”