👍🗳️ It’s a good day to be Mayor Wu ...

It’s Wednesday, Boston.

🌮 But it *feels* like taco Tuesday. To celebrate the big 3-0, Anna’s Taqueria is offering their legendary super burritos for just $3.50 in-store today (their price from 1995!) Bonus: The first 50 customers get a commemorative T-shirt.

👀 What’s on tap today:

• Tufts goes tuition-free

• This Seaport spot *isn’t* IG-bait

• A Coldplaygate divorce

Up first…

PRIMARY ELECTION

The votes have been counted

The primary election is over, and the results are IN! After a long night of counting votes, here’s who will be on the November ballot:

🏆 The mayoral race: Mayor Michelle Wu v. Josh Kraft. Shocker! While their spots on the ballot were pretty much a foregone conclusion, what we *didn’t* know was just how big Wu’s lead would be (spoiler: It was ~48%). For context: Kraft recently said a <15% gap would reinvigorate his campaign … so let’s just say, Kraft HQ probably isn’t feeling too invigorated, though he vowed to stay in the race.

🏆 City Council at-large seats: All four incumbents (Ruthzee Louijeune, Julia Mejia, Erin Murphy, and Henry Santana) made the cut, plus fresh faces Frank Baker (the former District 3 counselor), Alexandra Valdez, Marvin Mathelier, and Will Onuoha.

🏆 District 1: Incumbent Gabriela Coletta Zapata v. Andretti McDuffie-Stanziani. Coletta Zapata’s handy victory (76.77% of the vote) isn’t really a surprise, considering she was the only candidate actively campaigning. But even after announcing he wouldn’t run a campaign back in July, McDuffie-Stanziani still got 14.78%.

🏆 District 2: Incumbent Ed Flynn v. Charles Delaney. Although Delaney didn’t appear to actively campaign … at all … he still nabbed 6.59% of the vote, nudging out hardline President Trump supporter Brian Foley to appear on the ballot alongside Flynn. That said, neither got anywhere near Flynn’s 86.41%.

🏆 District 4: Incumbent Brian Worrell v. Helen Cameron. Worrell finished miles ahead with 81.42% of the vote to Cameron’s 11.52%, who was effectively MIA throughout the election, and is listed as a Republican.

🏆 District 5: Incumbent Enrique Pepén v. Winston Pierre. Though his margin of victory was comparatively smaller, Pepén still won the race easily with 63.54% of the vote. He’ll face off against Pierre, a Haitian immigrant and city planner, who got 23.44%.

🏆 District 7: Said Ahmed v. Miniard Culpepper. The council’s only open race has been whittled down from 11 to just two candidates, and the apparent winners were decided by less than 100 votes. Somali refugee-turned-track-star-turned BPS educator Ahmed, who got 15.72% of the vote, will appear on the November ballot alongside Culpepper, a civil rights advocate and pastor who got 15.00%.

👀 Wanna see for yourself? Dive into the results here.

CITY

Quick & dirty headlines

🧑‍🎓 All aboard! Tufts is joining the tuition-free train. Good news, future Jumbos: If your family is in America and makes less than $150,000 a year, Tufts will cover the full cost of your tuition starting next fall, joining a growing list of local universities to offer free tuition for middle-class families. That said, some students may still have to take out loans for non-tuition costs like housing, food, and books, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars. But at a school where the price tag can top $90,000 a year, that’s not too shabby.

🧩 Boston is passing “GO” … and collecting Hasbro's HQ! After 100+ years in Rhode Island, the iconic toy company (think: Monopoly, Nerf, Play-Doh, Scrabble) is relocating to the Seaport by the end of 2026, and bringing nearly 700 jobs with it. The move joins other big names like Lego, Keurig Dr Pepper, and BioGen, which have also recently announced relocations to Mass. Hasbro has already received a warm reception from Mayor Wu and Gov. Healey, who aptly welcomed them with Scrabble tiles and Play-Doh. 

🏆 The New York Times LOVES these local restaurants. Its 2025 Best Restaurants in America list just dropped, and not one, but TWO Boston spots made the cut: Back Bay’s La Padrona and Dorchester’s McGonagle’s. The NYTimes commended McGonagle’s traditional Irish fare that still challenges expectations around Irish food (“corned beef and cabbage could never,” they said). Meanwhile, the nod is just another feather in La Padrona's cap, the swanky (read: $$$) Italian spot in the Raffles hotel that’s already nabbed a James Beard Award and Best of Boston honor.

🍱 BREAKING: This new Seaport restaurant *isn’t* IG-bait. Today marks the opening of Mai, the Seaport’s newly opened French-Japanese spot, which might be the first of its kind in Boston. Though the vibes are giving “made-for-influencers” (see: Labubu decor and a “slimming” mirror in the bathroom), according to Boston magazine, all it takes is one taste to see that “there’s substance behind the style.” Menu highlights include $35 Wagyu steak frites, a ton of specialty hand rolls, and a matchatini (yes, that’s a matcha espresso martini).

QUICK QUESTION!

😋 You’re going out to a ~special occasion~ dinner. Would you rather: 

THINGS TO DO

Mid-week check in

🏩 Speed Dating at Castle Island | Monday, Sept. 15 | 6:30-8:30 p.m. | $38 standard | $30 B-Side Member | Start your week off with a fun flurry of first dates at our speed dating event with Boston Single Mingle. Members get a free drink along with their $8 discount. 

🏈 B-Side x Cisco Brewers Tailgate | Saturday, Sept. 21 | Doors 11 a.m. | Join us at Cisco Fenway to watch the Pats take on the Steelers at 1 p.m. The first 50 B-Side members to arrive will get a juicy combo deal: one canned item (beer, cocktail, tea) and mozzarella sticks for just $10. No registration needed. 

🥯 B-Side x Sustainable Swaps at Faneuil Hall | Saturday, Sept. 27 | 10 a.m. - 1 p.m. | Quincy Market 2nd floor | FREE | Swap sweaters for new fall clothes and goods c/o Sustainable Swaps, listen to local live artists, and grab a FREE PopUp bagel at our massive fall swap. 

At B-Side events, members get perks like discounted entry, free drinks, B-Side swag, and more. Stay tuned for more meetups, and become a member to get your perks!

ONE LAST THING

An update on Coldplaygate

Thought you’d heard the last of Coldplaygate? Not quite. Weeks after the scandal, news dropped that Kristin Cabot, one half of the now-infamous Coldplay kiss cam couple, has filed for divorce from her husband, Andrew Cabot. 

In case you’ve been living under a rock: Cabot, the former head of HR at AI company Astronomer, was caught canoodling with the company’s former CEO, Andy Byron, on Coldplay’s jumbotron, and the whole thing was caught on camera (you can watch it here). Internet chaos ensued — even Gwyneth Paltrow got involved.

But the real tea? According to a new statement from Cabot’s husband, the couple had decided to split “privately and amicably” several weeks before the concert. “Now that the divorce filing is public, Andrew hopes this provides respectful closure to speculation,” his spokesperson said. 

— Written by Gia Orsino, Emily Schario, and Claire Nicholas

👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨 Thanks for reading! Closure? Sure. End of speculation? In 2025? Good luck with that.

👭 The results are in: 64% of B-Siders say they’d NEVER join a frat or sorority. One reader said: “When a girl next to me said ‘What are you wearing?’ I said, ‘a sundress,’ and she said ‘no, what brand?’ at the first rush event, I knew I would never belong (reader, it was from Target).”

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