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Best thrift stores in São Paulo

Minha Avó Tinha (Tomé de Souza Street, 100 - Lapa): the meaning of the name is: my grandmother had. Which basically explains the concept behind this shop, they have so many clothes from different decades, starting at 1920s to 1990s.

I Need Brechó (Alameda Lorena, 2132 - Jardins): for those wanting to buy clothes for a cheaper price but still being modern and fashionable, this one is for you.

Gato Bravo Vintage (Avanhandava Street, 37 - Bela Vista): unique and special clothes, coming from London, Barcelona, Berlin and New York, are sold in this store. And besides clothing items and accessories, it also sells art pieces, old bicycles, and many other things.

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Where to buy used books in São Paulo, or the best "sebos"

Here are a couple of options:

Sebo do Messias (Praça João Mendes, 140): one of the most famous ones in the city, the amount of used and rare books they have, whether it's on the actual store or on their online catalogue, is massive.

Sebo Nova Floresta (Praça João Mendes, 25 , Centro): specialized in old books, this store has over sixty thousand brazilian and international volumes, plus approximately four thousand LPs.

Desculpe a Poeira (Sebastião Velho Street, 28, Pinheiros): created by a journalist, it works in a garage and it has over five thousand books on there. And it's super famous on Instagram.

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Best destination to celebrate Pride at

A study was made by LarDeFérias in which many different aspects were looked through to decide what are the best destinations to go to celebrate Pride. And according to it, based on accessibility, popularity, laws, night life and accomodation, São Paulo is the best city, in the world, to come to.

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São Paulo - Football

To those interested in football - or soccer to some of you - São Paulo's feminine team has just closed its first exclusive sponsorship with Giuliana Flores. This will, hopefully, bring more attention towards the team and women's football in general.

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Festa Junina

Festa Junina, a very famous festivity in Brazil, that basically means a party on the month of June. Here are five of the best, one in each zone of São Paulo.

Center - Festa Junina da Paróquia Nossa Senhora da Consolação - Consolação Street, 585

Every friday, saturday and sunday of the month, this party has offers typical foods, games and live music for free, starting at 5pm to midnight on fridays and saturdays, and 11pm on sundays.

East - Paróquia San Gennaro - San Gennaro Street, 214, Mooca

Every saturday, from 6pm to midnight, this party offers traditional foods and drinks, games and live music, all of that for free.

North - São João de Nóis Tudim - Jacofer Street, 615, Bairro do Limão

The CTN (Center of Northeastern Traditions) party happens every saturday and sunday. With multiple live shows, games, dances, classes, typical foods and drinks, this is another great free option to have fun this month.

West - Quermesse do Calvário - Cardeal Arcoverde Street, 950, Pinheiros

This is one of the most traditional parties of the sort in São Paulo, it exists ever since the 1970s and it's on its 42nd edition. It offers multiple tents that sell typical food, from Brazil and from other countries, shows and freebies. Every saturday and sunday, it's a great option for those who don't mind paying a little bit more to have fun.

South - Festa Junina Vegana Vegnice 2019 - Dr. José de Queiroz Aranha Street, 92, Vila Mariana

The biggest vegan festa junina, every weekend, it offers, obviously, vegan foods and drinks. But other than things to eat, it also has charity games, vegan cooking classes, somewhere to adopt pets, and vegan cosmetics and artesanal products to sell.

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23rd Cultura Inglesa Festival

The 23rd Cultura Inglesa Festival will take place, just like every year, at Memorial da América Latina (Auro Soares de Moura Andrade Avenue, 664, Barra Funda). This year, the main attraction came all the way across the pond, the british singer Lily Allen will perform on the festival that will happen June 9th. Other than Allen, whoever goes to the festival will have the opportunity to watch Duda Beat and the rock band Mad Mother’s perform.

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Street cinemas in São Paulo

By Beatriz Salvia, Laura Okida and Madalena Derzi

Finding a nice movie theater in São Paulo is an easy task, but there are some hidden gems worth checking out. If you’re looking for the chain movie theater experience, they are on every single mall you visit. But if you want something a little different, a little special, street cinemas are your go to! Here are four of them:

Caixa Belas Artes

Where: Consolação Street, number 2423

Inaugurated in 1967, the Caixa Belas Artes movie theater has six different rooms, each one named after one brazilian artist: Villa-Lobos, Candido Portinari, Oscar Niemeyer, Aleijadinho, Mario de Andrade and Carmen Miranda. 

This movie theater plays a variety of movies, from the most popular ones, to independent and foreign films. They sometimes organize movie marathons called “noitão” (cause they play the movies throughout the night) starting at 22 o’clock and ending at about 6 am the following morning. Each “noitão” has it’s own theme, like movies by M. Night Shyamalan, or the Alien franchise.

Reserva Cultural

Where: Paulista Avenue, number 900

This one is a bit different, you won’t even find popcorn there. But you will find a bookstore called Reserva, the Reserva Bistrô restaurant and the Pain the France coffee shop. 

This cinema was inaugurated in 2005 and their goal is to offer their clients more than movies, there are even art exhibitions in the venue. They exhibit both national and foreign movies, but always giving preference to independent productions. Although they did screen Avengers Endgame, which was a bit of a controversy amongst movie goers.

Cinemateca

Where: Sen. Raul Cardoso Place, 207

The Brazilian Cinemateca includes a cinema, a library and a public garden. It has history. The building where now is the cinema, once was a slaughterhouse. Only in 1988, the São Paulo Government gave the place to the Cinemateca.

Nowadays, the institution has one of the richest movie archives, almost 30.000 titles - including documentaries, fiction, and even family’s movies, all of it produced since 1910.

The Cinemateca is known for its diversity. The films there are not mainstream, they choose to give space for underground directors and productions, national and international.

CineSala

Where: Fradique Coutinho Street,  361

Have you ever watched a movie completely laid down ? It is almost as if you were in your own sofa! This option is available in the couple front rows of CineSala.

It is a traditional “street cinema”, but not old. CineSala sure catches young people, its neon lights and bar transform the place.

The bar is called “Barouche” and it is a small version of a bigger place located downtown. They not only have drinks, but also popcorn, hot dog and deserts.

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Coffee Shops To Go In São Paulo

By Beatriz Salvia, Laura Okida and Madalena Derzi

Coffee shops are something quite common all around the world, and São Paulo isn’t any different. But instead of going to the same ones that you can find anywhere - Starbucks for example - how about you visit somewhere new?

Urbe Coffee Bar 

It’s located on Antônio Carlos Street, 404 near Augusta Street and it’s very popular. It exists since 2011 and has a very nice atmosphere, plus great coffee and food, such as cakes and breads. Something cool about this coffee shop is that they control the entire process of the coffee, from the grain to the liquid in your cup.

Coffee Lab 

A very famous one, does not only sell coffee, but also offers courses to those interested in learning more about the process of making the drink. With an intimate atmosphere, the shop on Fradique Coutinho Street, 1340, has the entire room filled with the smell of coffee.

King Of The Fork 

Located in Artur de Azevedo Street, 1317, this is a very modern coffee shop, that is very welcoming, has a small patio where you can park your bike, is pet-friendly, and obviously, sells amazing coffee and foods. You can also buy coffee-making and bike accessories there.

Coffetown 

In Vila Mariana, it serves “the american coffee and cake” through a diverse menu of foods and drinks. The place is beautiful and the atmosphere can be quite hectic depending on when you go - sundays tend to be quite busy.

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Vegan Places To Go In São Paulo

By Beatriz Salvia, Laura Okida and Madalena Derzi

Soroko Ice Cream Shop

On Augusta Street, number 305, in São Paulo, in a small establishment with a blue exterior, we found Soroko Ice Cream Shop, similar to a ice cream shop from country towns due to its self-service system (ice cream per kilo) and by receiving us, right by the entrance, with an old trash can in the shape of a clown. At the checkout counter we were served by João Batista, or Nino, the owner’s brother, and we talked about the ice cream that the store is famous for, the vegan options, that draw attention by the big diversity of flavors.

Approximately twelve years ago, a lactose intolerant client asked if Mrs. Regina Soroko made ice creams without milk, and after three days the shop owner managed to make ice creams with a soy extract base. That’s how the vegan ice cream line was born. Made with soy extract or water, an average of ten to twelve vegan flavors are produced daily - some are kept aside for replacement.

The clientele is in varying age groups - we saw both teenager and elders - and different socioeconomic ranges - the ice cream, in our opinion, has an accessible price and a very good taste. João told us that the public is pretty divided, half of them being vegan and/or lactose intolerant, these frequent the place for its variety of flavors and reasonable price, stay for about thirty minutes and, sometimes, bring friends and family members with them.

Arte Vegan - Galeria do Rock

Amongst the swarm of street vendors on the street between 24 de Maio and Largo do Paissandu, you can find the Galeria do Rock (Rock Gallery).

Arte Vegan, a store on the third floor of the building, sells a variety of vegan products. Of course, there’s the usual, food like vegan chocolate, cheese, bread, various snacks, almond milk with coffee, feijoada (an iconic brazilian dish made with beans) and burgers. However, we can also buy things like wallets and shirts with vegan lifestyle prints and cosmetic products.

One of the owners, whose entire family is vegan, opened the store twelve years ago. Even though a few stores on the gallery have closed doors in the last few years, she vouches for her client’s loyalty. They keep coming back after all these years and even people who work at the gallery buy their lunches there. They actually prefer their food over the restaurant on the second floor, which doesn’t offer vegan or vegetarian options and isn’t as healthy.

ASSEAMA Gastronomia Saudável

The “Gastronomia Saudável” (Healthy Gastronomy) is a unit of the Assema Group, a spiritual and vegan organization that works in behalf of animals rights. The store is located on França Pinto Street (Vila Mariana) and it offers vegan food and products that attracts both those who don’t consume anything from animal origin and those who want to experiment something new.

With products costing a little bit more than the average price, most of the clients are upper middle class. And, because it is a local coffee shop and an emporium, the clients can spend some time shopping or eating meals.

Loving Hut

Loving Hut is a vegan restaurant that exists in a lot of different countries, all of which have their own menus, which brings individuality to them, the restaurant chain was created by vietnamese Ching Hai, and, because of that, has asian influences. It has two units in São Paulo, one in Vila Mariana (243 França Pinto) and another one in Brooklyn Paulista (1613 Rua Guararapes).

People of all ages can go and, since its a pay-by-weight restaurant, in a price range that can be considered within the standard, it’s more common to see middle or upper class people. They spend approximately one to two hours inside, a sufficient amount of time to have lunch, since the establishment only works during this period, and, just like any other restaurant, clients can be vegan or not, specially because they offer a big variety of foods, which appeals even to those who consume animal products.

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Hello!

We are three journalism students from São Paulo and this is a project we’re developing this year. Here you’ll find out more about São Paulo through our eyes!