One of the great simple pleasures of traveling abroad is stumbling upon a restaurant frequented by locals, followed closely by bathing in gelato and loudly explaining why everything in America is better. Replicate that feeling with today’s Groupon: for $30, you get $60 worth of contemporary American cuisine at Bread and Circuses Bistro in Towson.

The chefs at Bread and Circuses Bistro—formerly called The French Press Cafe—serve up colorful American cuisine with a contemporary edge in a vintage-café-inspired dining room. The bistro's menu, like a yellow-marker-wielding culinary student, highlights an eclectic array of paninis, such as the grilled vegetable, a sumptuous repository of root vegetables and roasted red pepper garbed in bruschetta and balsamic vinaigrette ($8), or the new york strip steak and cheese ($10). Chew into the crusty exteriors of nonpressed sandwiches, including the baltimore club, a double-stacked crab-cake BLT (market price). Explore entrees such as the shrimp-and-scallop risotto ($17) or the salmon, pampered with a molasses kneading, rainforest-fruit-salsa dressing, and a French manicure before nestling against roasted red potatoes and grilled vegetables ($15).

Bread and Circuses Bistro houses local and national bands, treating ear canals to an auditory smorgasbord of live jazz, rock, and acoustic tunes every weekend. Patrons lounge in plush red club chairs amid a collection of books and wall-mounted mirrors, capable of summoning Ernest Hemingway if you look into their reflective surfaces and read The Old Man and the Sea three times.