😬🥗 Bad news for Sweetgreen

Happy Friday, Boston!

☕ Here’s how to kick off the weekend right. Step 1: Head to Blank Street Coffee’s new Coolidge Corner location today for $2 drinks celebrating their opening. Step 2: Grab a limited edition Boston Creme babka at Bakey all weekend long. YOU’RE WELCOME.

🥳 And an early happy birthday to B-Sider Olivia! We’d get you a gift, but honestly, how could we top a $2 daydream latte and babka? 

👀 What’s on tap today:

• A *new* type of MBTA shutdown

• How to get heating bill help

• A Dunkin’ fistfight

Up first…

FOOD AND DRINK

This Greenway food truck is worth the $$$

Your lunch breaks are about to get a whole lot better. ‘Cause it's Greenway food truck season, baby! 

A rotating cast of 22 food trucks are popping up around downtown every day of the week. So we tried and ranked this year’s four new trucks to help you decide what’s worth a bite.

🍛 No 1: Suya Joint. West African flavors and heaping portions are on the menu here. We tried the vegetarian samosas ($12) and a “three kings” meal ($16) with jollof rice, sweet plantains, and stewed chicken. The samosas were crisp and golden brown with a flavorful veggie filling, best dunked in the side of spicy sauce. And while the plantains were a little dry in the “three kings meal,” the smoky, savory jollof rice and fall-off-the bone stewed chicken (not to mention the massive portion) more than made up for it. 

🍔 No 2: Hungry Nomads. If you’re going to eat at Hungry Nomads, come with an empty stomach and an arsenal of wet wipes. We grabbed the hot honey chicken sandwich ($13) and buffalo cauliflower “nuggets” ($12) — both of which were sizeable. We wish the cauliflower were a little crispier, but its tangy, spicy buffalo sauce was a winner. And though the chicken, bacon, and slaw on the sandwich were all good, it was the addictive hot honey sauce and crispy wedge fries that brought the dish to another level.

🍗 No. 3: Butter “UR” Biscuit. For what Butter “UR” Biscuit’s food lacks in appearance, it makes up for with flavor that's described as “Latin soul fusion.” Our order: Beef empanadas ($10) and “the classic” chicken sandwich ($15). The empanadas got points for a well-flavored, warm and complex beef picadillo filling, but the star of the show was the perfectly fried buttermilk chicken in the classic sandwich. It was so good that we almost don’t care that there were no biscuits left … or that it was a little pricey for the portion.

🌮 No. 4: Mi Corazon Taqueria. Nothing we got at Mi Corazon was bad, but the flavor and value just didn’t stand up to the others. Our order: Steak and carnitas tacos ($3.75 per taco) and a steak quesadilla ($15). Starting with the good: The quesadilla was solid, if a little dry, but the side of spicy sauce saved the day. However, the tacos were a little disappointing. The meat was not particularly flavorful and a little dry, which wasn’t helped by the fact that the standard tacos come without queso or sour cream — which both cost extra. 

😋 Hungry for more? Check out the schedules of all the food trucks here.

TOGETHER WITH EMERSON COLONIAL THEATER

Get in loser. We’re going to see “Mean Girls” 

🛍️ 💅💄The hottest seat in Boston isn’t at Regina George’s lunch table — it’s at the Emerson Colonial Theater. “Mean Girls” the Broadway musical is bringing Tina Fey’s iconic comedy to life from April 29 to May 4 in a way that’s even more fetch than the movie you’ve watched 300 times. Catch Cady, Regina, and the rest of the plastics serving looks, drama, and backhanded insults live on stage. Tickets are selling fast, and if you wait too long… well, you can’t sit with us. Grab yours today! 

CITY

Quick & dirty headlines

🚃 Allow us to introduce … a *new* type of MBTA shutdown. Station closures! Starting at 7 p.m. tonight, Bowdoin station will be closed through Monday, April 14, so Blue Liners will need to walk an extra five minutes to Government Center for service. On the Green Line, Boston College station will be closed starting at 8:30 p.m. tonight through the weekend, but riders only have to walk about 350 feet to board at the intersection of Lake Street and Commonwealth Avenue instead. TBH, we’ll take it over a train shutdown any day.

🔌 Heating bills got you down? This new tool might help. Enter: The Mass. Energy Savings Finder. It’s a new search engine for homeowners and renters for finding rebates, incentives, and tax credits to help reduce energy use and fossil fuel reliance. We found deals like $100 off a smart thermostat, up to $3,500 off an EV, and $500 off an electric stove. You can search yours here.

🌧️ May better have a LOT of flowers … because this weekend is bringing some serious April showers. As of Thursday evening, Boston is looking at a very rainy (and chilly) Saturday, with widespread rain from the morning into the evening, followed by clouds and potentially even more rain on Sunday (though Monday’s weather is looking GORG!). And thankfully, there’s a pretty solid silver lining in the fact that all of this rain is finally chipping away at Mass.’ seemingly perpetual drought. 

🐘 It’s never been a better time to be a college Republican. That’s according to college Republicans themselves. Data from Tufts University shows that Gen Z voters shifted to the right in a big way in the 2024 election. We’re even seeing that change play out on college campuses in mega-blue Mass. Campus Republican clubs and societies have seen their mailing lists triple, event turnout has jumped from dozens to hundreds of students, and fewer students are worrying about social rejection for being open about their conservative beliefs.

THINGS TO DO

Weekend plans

🍕 Eat a pizza pie as fast as you can. Literally. Or at least watch others try to do it at Sal’s pizza eating contest TONIGHT. Last we checked, there were still some contestant sign ups left!

🦆 Watch the most Boston competition EVER. We’re talking about the first-ever duck boat pull competition happening April 12 on the Common. We’ll be there, so come hang!

⛸️ This weekend’s weather doesn’t exactly scream spring … So pretend it’s still winter at the Skating Club of Boston’s skating party benefiting the LGBTQ+ community on April 12. Your ticket gets you parking, skate rentals, and a skating sesh.

📚 Trade beer crawls for bookstore crawls. Twenty-one bookstores around Boston are hosting a bookstore crawl all month leading up to Independent Bookstore Day (April 26). The rules: Grab a free bookstore passport, get as many stamps as you can, and win these cool prizes.

🧘 Skip the trendy yoga class … and go to this FREE one at the Honan-Allston BPL branch on April 12 instead. An hour of movement and mindfulness are on the agenda. Plus, it’s open to yogis of all levels.

💃 Embrace your inner dancing queen. Because Remnant is hosting a literal ABBA-themed dance party on April 12. There’s no cover — just good music, good drinks, and what we imagine will be a very competitive costume contest.

🥑 Don’t pay extra for guac. Amateur guacamole chefs are throwing their best recipes in the ring at The Painted Burro’s annual guac off on April 13. You can sign up to taste-test allll the guac (and vote for the best) here. 

✍️ Spend a rainy Sunday writing love letters. That’s what’s happening at this snail mail letter-writing event on April 13. They’ll provide letterpressed note cards, envelopes, pens, stamps, and writing prompts to get your creative juices flowin’. 

MEDIA PARTNERSHIP

Learn more about your favorite Boston beer!

At the Sam Adams Boston Brewery, the original location in Jamaica Plain, enjoy classics and R&D beers in the Taproom and Beer Garden, or grab exclusive cans to go. Find yourself Downtown? The Sam Adams Boston Taproom has 20 draft lines, exclusive brews, a rooftop, bar snacks, and weekly entertainment! B-Side members get 20% off tickets to Sam Signature Experience at the Boston Brewery and 20% off tickets to Twilight Tastings at the Boston Taproom. 

Join the B-Side Membership to unlock this perk!

QUICK QUESTION!

🍀 Which of the following is the most “Boston:”

ONE LAST THING

The most Boston things … ever

We got bored. So we took to TikTok to ask people: “What’s the most Boston thing that’s ever happened to you?” And let’s just say, the comments section is WILD.

TL;DR, if we had to make a word cloud of the comments, “Dunkin’” “fight” and “T” would definitely be the biggest. But some of our favorites include:

A Boston firefighter and a construction worker fistfighting over a medium iced regular, using the Freedom Trail to find the way home after a night out, seeing Eliot from Jordan’s Furniture on Newbury, and breaking up with someone while “merging on exit 131” toward Cambridge. 

Ah Boston, never ever change!

— Written by Gia Orsino and Emily Schario

☕ Thanks for reading! If anyone can top a Dunkin’ fistfight, our inboxes are WIDE open.

💜 Special shoutout to today’s sponsor, Emerson Colonial Theater, for supporting local journalism and bringing the groolest Broadway production to Boston.

🏉 The results are in: 31% of B-Siders are on the women’s sports bandwagon — and another 27% said they’ve been on the bandwagon long before Caitlin Clark. One reader said: “Ilona Maher brought me in - queen!”

💃 Keep up with us @BostonBSide on IG, TikTok, and Twitter. Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected].