Day Tripper: Williamsburg

Between keeping within your budget and scheduling time off from work, planning a vacation can be stressful.

If you find you have too little time to travel and not enough money in your bank account, there’s no need to fret.

Each Thursday, Douglaston Patch will profile one of the five boroughs’ unique neighborhoods, where you can sample some local culture and culinary delights.

This week’s pick is Williamsburg:

10 a.m.

Check out Williamsburg’s numerous thrift shops, such as Beacon’s Closet, which sells a wide variety of gently used clothing that includes dresses, jeans and shoes, or Treehouse Brooklyn, which is a craft school, boutique and thrift store.

1 p.m.

Grab a bite of lunch at DuMont, located at 432 Union Ave. The restaurant may be famous for it’s mac and cheese, but it also has burgers, pan roasted skate, chicken dishes, pasta as well as starters such as crab cake, lamb meatballs and salads.

3 p.m.

Drop by the Brooklyn Brewery, which was founded in 1987, for a free tour and then stick around to sample one of its 30 varieties of beer. 

Click here to visit the brewery’s website.

5 p.m.

For dinner, stop by Diner, an eatery with an ever-changing menu that has been voted the best in the neighborhood by Zagat.

Chef Sean Rembold switches up the menu both seasonally and daily. The restaurant serves a variety of dishes, including pasta, chicken, fish, lamb, salads, pork, desserts and soup.

Diner is located at 85 Broadway. For more information, click here.

Evening

Catch a show at the Brick Theater, a 70-seat performance space that was founded in 2002 at the former site of an auto body shop and yoga center.

This weekend’s performances include “Gone,” during which two women sit and reminisce on their lives, and “Theater of the Arcade,” which adapts five classic video games for the stage.

Other current programs include “Puppetonia,” an interactive show for young children as well as “Red Cloud Rising,” which combines theater and alternate reality gaming that unfolds via text message. The latter show is held in Manhattan, and attendees must bring a cell phone.

The theater is located at 575 Metropolitan Ave.