Downtown Spartanburg has seen a lot of change, and a lot of growth, in recent years, but one of the constants has been the welcoming smells and delicious treats coming out of the Masonic Temple building each day.

The Masonic Temple, at 188 W. Main St., is home to Little River Coffee Bar, the Hub City Writers Project and the Hub City Bookshop, all popular spots for locals and visitors alike. Each space began its successful tenure downtown before strategic development helped create the Downtown Spartanburg so many people enjoy each day now.

With Little River taking the mantle of the treats formerly served by Cakehead Bakeshop, and the comfy, welcoming vibe of the Hub City Bookshop, the Masonic Temple is the perfect place to kick off a fall morning in Downtown Spartanburg.

Little River is still finalizing the menu items they’ll offer, but you can expect cookies, granola, breakfast pastries, and bread made in-house with some recipes you know and love, complimented by other recipes from Little River Owner Gervais Hollowell. Little River Staff is also working to expand their vegan offerings for customers looking for health food or with dietary restrictions.

Fall specialty drinks at Little River include:

• The Pumpkin Pie Latte, which is available hot, cold or frozen. The drink takes everything you love about a latte and adds the magic of pumpkin pie flavor – the comforting combination of nutmeg, cinnamon and fall spices.
• The Apple Cider Chai brings the cinnamon goodness of Chai together with the warm sweetness of apple cider. It’s like a trip to the orchard in a cup.
• The French Toast Latte is available hot, cold or frozen. It spins the breakfast classic’s flavors of maple and brown sugar cinnamon into Little River’s carefully-concocted latte.

Diners can expect to find rotating specials like pimento cheese biscuits, maple-bacon scones, blueberry lemon scones, pumpkin cream cheese muffins, honey mustard ham biscuits and cranberry orange scones.

Little River’s food offerings will expand into lunch in the future, but for now, staff is working on getting recipes together and determining a menu.

Once you’ve gotten your coffee and breakfast, the Hub City Bookshop is only a few steps away.

The Bookshop shines a light on Southern themes and writers, and it specialize in new titles, regional authors, fiction, history, children’s books and special projects with a Spartanburg flair.

The Hub City Writers Project is award-winning independent bookstore is one of the South’s leading literary publishers, and the only nonprofit, full-service independent bookstore and publishing company in the U.S., and they’re a cornerstone of Downtown Spartanburg.

Each year, the Bookshop promotes more than 100 community events promoting writing education, writing residencies, conferences, author appearances and more. Staff are book-lovers themselves and can provide recommendations, or even an author signature.

Every book purchased at the Hub City Bookshop helps them publish more local writers’ work, and helps fund bringing a writer-in-residence to Spartanburg. The Bookshop carries mostly new books, but they do have a selection of gently-used books, and they accept donations of good conditioned contemporary and classic hardback books.