Support new East side businesses

Two East Side businesses opened in Austin recently operated by friends of friends of mine. Both deserve your patronage.

Treasure City Thrift, 1720 E. 12th St.

• "Treasure City Thrift is a collectively run non-profit thrift store designed to raise money for small grassroots community groups and projects that traditionally have difficulty finding funding." Stop by to shop, or donate useable furniture, books, clothing, toys, dishware tools, and other items in good condition.

East Side Pies, 1401-B Rosewood Ave. (across from the Carver Library)

• ESP has been around a few months, but still counts as a new business in my book. Their pizza may well be the best in town. Try the Jamaican pizza which includes jerked chicken (I ask them to leave off the habañeros), or the Austinist recommended the Guiche (spinach, goat cheese, green chiles, sun-dried tomato and roasted garlic). Best of all: they deliver on the East Side!! Hardly anybody does - I live a mile from the state capitol and before ESP couldn't get a pizza delivered. Congrats especially to co-proprietor Noah Polk, who I knew a little when he was roommate to a friend of mine a few years back.