With its open-brick aesthetic and new-age hipster vibes, The Shop offers a refreshing environment that complements its eclectic combination of foods and creates a casual yet stylish atmosphere.

The Shop is located on Washington Street, right around the corner from Lost Dog Café and Garage Taco Bar, and this tucked-away location makes the restaurant feel like a hidden gem in the city of Binghamton.

This Restaurant Week, The Shop is offering a $12 three-course lunch special where you can pick from three appetizers, six entrees and four desserts. However, three of the four desserts include tea, coffee and espresso, leaving the milk and chocolate chip cookies the main option for an actual dessert.

But if this lunch menu leaves you wanting, have no fear — the dinner special for $20 has a lot more options in both the entree and dessert sections, including more pizzettas and Nutella crepes.

We decided to sample the lunch menu, as it was four in the afternoon when we were able to visit. First, we tried their house heritage greens salad with cucumbers and sweet tomatoes. While the house salad looked underwhelming and plain, thankfully, it didn’t taste anything like that. The honey-orange red wine vinaigrette dressing created a tangy flavor that was sweet but didn’t overpower the salad. The cucumbers and sweet tomatoes tasted fresh and meshed well with the sweet dressing.

Next, we sampled the roasted chicken-and-vegetable sandwich, which featured zucchini and squash, some vegetables that aren’t normally found on sandwiches. The texture and taste of the zucchini and squash added a surprising and delicious contrast to the toasty ciabatta bread and the Sriracha mayonnaise, which really solidified this sandwich as my favorite. The potato chips on the side were almost as good as the sandwich — perfectly salted and so thin that they practically melted in my mouth.

The staff was nice enough to also let us sample the roasted pork loin bánh mì sandwich, which did the traditionally Vietnamese sandwich justice. The pickled carrots, radish and jalepeño cilantro were perfectly proportionate to one another, creating a spicy and delicious dish. Thankfully, this dish also came with those heavenly potato chips, along with tiny pickles that, aside from making me feel like a giant, were crispy and oddly refreshing.

While waiting for my dessert, milk and chocolate chip cookies, I was able to relax in the warm lighting of the restaurant and listen to the calming jazz music playing from the speakers. It made me feel as if I were in a posh Parisian cafe.

At last, the milk and cookies came, but the classic dessert was not as good as I had hoped. The cookie was chewy but in a hard-to-chew kind of way, and the fact that the cookie wasn’t warm was also a little disappointing. However, the chocolate chunks were a huge perk, and the glass of milk that accompanied the cookies was a cute touch that made the whole experience very homey.

Overall, The Shop made me feel at ease while truly living up to the hype I had heard about it. The restaurant features a wide variety of dishes, including quinoa salad and crepes made with truffle oil, that combine to create an original menu and restaurant. It is, and should undoubtedly be, a hotspot for this Restaurant Week.