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- đ„ Bostonâs new comfort zone
đ„ Bostonâs new comfort zone
Plus: đ„Ÿ Bean Boot lawsuit
Happy Friday, Boston.
đš 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 youâre going out and about.
đ Whatâs on tap today:
Storm updates
Mass. Beer Week
Bean Boot lawsuit
Up firstâŠ
FOOD & DRINK
Comfort Kitchen opens for business
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Video: Emily Schario; Gif: Katie Cole
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 âglobal comfort food.â
Hereâs everything you need to know (and what you need to order):
đ 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 Uphamâs Corner came about. The restaurantâs opening was set for 2020 â which didnât happen for obvious reasons â so they pivoted to pop ups. And this past January, it was game time.
đ„ 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. âAmerica is a very densely populated country of immigrants,â Kwaa said. âTo 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.â
đ€ And theyâre not in the business of just being a restaurant. âWe're very community-centric,â 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 cafĂ© 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.
đ Thinking of going? Hereâs what we recommend:
Drinks: Sumac Sour, Dream Street
Apps: Plantain chips, jerk jackfruit sliders, beef kafta, seared okra (chefâs rec)
Mains: Yassa chicken, Spiced Roasted Eggplant, Jerk Roasted Duck (chefâs rec)
Dessert: Basque Cheesecake with orange blossom caramel (unreal)
đ Eat with your eyes? Tap the link below to see what a night out at Comfort Kitchen looks like.
CITY
Quick & dirty headlines
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đ„« Will Mass. extend COVID SNAP benefits? Weâll 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 wonât hit Healeyâs desk until at least next week.
âïž Hereâs where weâre at with tonightâs 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 itâs kind of a toss-up for those of us along I-90. As one meteorologist said: âDonât be surprised if you wake up Saturday and the ground is just wet!â
đą Atwoods Tavern is closing its doors. March 31 will be the beloved Cambridge stomping groundâs last day in business, according to a post on their website and Facebook page. While itâs unclear who will be âpicking up the mantle,â theyâre confident the next tenants âwill provide the neighborhood with the community space it deserves.â The reasoning behind the closure is unclear, but itâs worth mentioning that Atwoods was featured in a Washington Post story this year about the restaurant industryâs post-pandemic hiring struggles.
đș 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 Brewhouseâs old space, bringing a âgothic ski lodgeâ vibe to Brighton.
ONE LAST THING
Bean Boot lawsuit
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Image: Keith Bedford
L.L. Bean is facing a lawsuit claiming some of their waterproof boots arenât all theyâre cracked up to be.
A woman in New York is suing the company, saying that a pair of their Storm Chaser boots werenât as waterproof as they were advertised because they use non-waterproof zippers. She learned the boots werenât truly waterproof after wearing them on an âinclimateâ 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: Donât promise no wet socks if you canât keep it.
đŹ 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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