🥘 Boston’s new comfort zone

Happy Friday, Boston.

🚨 Heads up, Red Line riders! Shuttle buses will replace service between Harvard and JFK/UMass this weekend, so make sure to budget extra travel time if you’re going out and about.

👀 What’s on tap today:

• Storm updates

• Mass. Beer Week

• Bean Boot lawsuit

Up first…

FOOD & DRINK

Comfort Kitchen opens for business

A hotly anticipated restaurant opening is finally here. Comfort Kitchen, a new cafe by day and restaurant by night in Dorchester, is showcasing ingredients and flavors from the African diaspora. The restaurant owners describe it as “global comfort food.”

Here’s everything you need to know (and what you need to order):

📝 The backstory. Co-owners Biplaw Rai, managing partner, and Kwasi Kwaa, chef partner, met in 2009 when they were both working at Hi-Rise Bread Company in Cambridge. After years of running their own cafes and pop-ups in the area, the opportunity to open a restaurant in Upham’s Corner came about. The restaurant’s opening was set for 2020 — which didn’t happen for obvious reasons — so they pivoted to pop ups. And this past January, it was game time.

🥘 The food mission. While every culture has a different kind of comfort food, they were particularly interested in the intersection of the ingredients and cultures that tie these foods together. “America is a very densely populated country of immigrants,” Kwaa said. “To be able to see other immigrants just really relate to those items, and connect it to points in their past, is what my idea of comfort food is.”

🤝 And they’re not in the business of just being a restaurant. “We're very community-centric,” Kwaa said. That ethos is embodied through partnerships with local orgs like Future Chefs, giving students a chance to intern at the restaurant. They also pay their café servers a minimum of $17 an hour, experienced dinner servers start at $18 an hour (both plus tips), and kitchen staff make $18 to $22 an hour, while earning pay from a 5% service charge added to each bill.

😋 Thinking of going? Here’s what we recommend:

• Drinks: Sumac Sour, Dream Street

• Apps: Plantain chips, jerk jackfruit sliders, beef kafta, seared okra (chef’s rec)

• Mains: Yassa chicken, Spiced Roasted Eggplant, Jerk Roasted Duck (chef’s rec)

• Dessert: Basque Cheesecake with orange blossom caramel (unreal)

👀 Eat with your eyes? Tap the link below to see what a night out at Comfort Kitchen looks like.

CITY

Quick & dirty headlines

🥫 Will Mass. extend COVID SNAP benefits? We’ll know next week. The extra COVID funding that supplemented SNAP benefits during the pandemic ended Thursday, leaving half a million Mass. families in a lurch. House lawmakers voted unanimously on a spending bill that includes $130 million to bridge the abrupt end of the extra SNAP benefits (which would give folks about 40% of the federal pandemic benefit for another three months). The bill still has to go through the Senate, so it won’t hit Healey’s desk until at least next week.

❄️ Here’s where we’re at with tonight’s storm. Right now, meteorologists are still predicting that the system will hit tonight and bleed into tomorrow, with the biggest impacts happening between midnight and 7 a.m. These are the current snowfall predictions. The northern part of the state will likely see more snow, while the southeastern part will see more rain. But it’s kind of a toss-up for those of us along I-90. As one meteorologist said: “Don’t be surprised if you wake up Saturday and the ground is just wet!’

😢 Atwoods Tavern is closing its doors. March 31 will be the beloved Cambridge stomping ground’s last day in business, according to a post on their website and Facebook page. While it’s unclear who will be “picking up the mantle,” they’re confident the next tenants “will provide the neighborhood with the community space it deserves.” The reasoning behind the closure is unclear, but it’s worth mentioning that Atwoods was featured in a Washington Post story this year about the restaurant industry’s post-pandemic hiring struggles.

🍺 Mass. Beer Week kicks off tomorrow. This week-long event is all about celebrating local brews and community. And this year, over 50 breweries around the state will be hosting a slew of events ranging from classic tastings to taproom yoga. You can see the full list of participating breweries and events here. In other beer news: Widowmaker Taproom & Kitchen is opening up shop in Brato Brewhouse’s old space, bringing a “gothic ski lodge” vibe to Brighton.

ONE LAST THING

Bean Boot lawsuit

L.L. Bean is facing a lawsuit claiming some of their waterproof boots aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

A woman in New York is suing the company, saying that a pair of their Storm Chaser boots weren’t as waterproof as they were advertised because they use non-waterproof zippers. She learned the boots weren’t truly waterproof after wearing them on an “inclimate” April day in 2020, says the 123-page suit.

The suit also says that L.L. Bean started changing their marketing of the boot after they got a pre-suit notice in 2022. Bottom line: Don’t promise no wet socks if you can’t keep it.

😬 Thanks for reading! As a former Mainer, I think I offer some authority on this subject when I say that Bean Boots are kind of overrated anyway.

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