Carmel-by-the-Sea Shopping Tips by Ewingjr98 Top 5 Page for this destination

Barnyard & Crossroads Shopping "Villages"

The Barnyard and the Crossroads are two upscale shopping malls/plazas catering to the people who actually live in Carmel. They have such necessities as a Safeway grocery store and banks, but also some of the area's good restaurants, and unique shops. The Barnyard also has one of the Peninsula's few sports bars, called Big Dogs (Closed in late 2008!), but like most of the other sports bars around its has only a handful of small to medium sized TVs.

The Barnyard Shopping Village (http://www.thebarnyard.com/) is an outdoor boutique mall with the buildings uniquely constructed to resemble barns. Its stores consist of 8 restaurants, 2 cafes, 4 art galleries, and 34 retail and service oriented businesses. The Barnyard Shopping Village is located one mile south of Carmel-by-the-Sea, off of Highway 1 and
Carmel Rancho Blvd.

Crossroads Shopping Village (http://www.crossroadsshoppingvillage.com/) is perhaps best known for its restaurants including the Rio Grill and Sea Harvest (also with locations in Monterey & Moss Landing), it also has around 50 boutique shops offering everything from clothes to flowers and cigars. This partly indoor, partly outdoor mall is located at the intersection of Highway 1 and Rio Road, just a block away from the Barnyard.

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Website: http://www.cityitinerary.com/activities/index.php?s=69

Carmel Plaza Shopping Center

While the Carmel Plaza Shopping Center might not have the variety of stores the bigger shopping centers on Highway One and Rio Road can claim, this shopping center is much better for a variety of reasons. It has a great location downtown within easy walking distance to hundreds of shops and restaurants that more than make up for any advantage the other shopping centers have. It is also a beautifully constructed, maintained, and landscaped location that is a pleasure to just walk through, not to mention to shop in. They have a good selection of classy stores including Anthropologie, Cole Haan, J. Crew-by-the-sea, Louis Vuitton, Tommy Bahama, Tiffany & Co., Wilkes-Bashford, and more. Restaurants in the shopping center include the great and popular Flying Fish Grill as well as a small cafe. Another fine feature in the Carmel Shopping Center is the "Fountain of Woof," a pleasing drinking fountain for Carmel residents' omnipresent four legged friends.

Parking is available on site for an almost obscene $3 an hour.

Address: Ocean Ave & Mission St

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Website: http://www.shopcarmelplaza.com/