😋 New restaurant challenge? Accepted.

💜 Thank you SO much to everyone who signed up for our new B-Side membership! We know B-Siders’ love language is DEALS, so we’ve giving the next 100 people who sign up a discounted membership at $5/month (or $50/year) to show our thanks. Sign up here!

👀 What’s on tap today:

Up first…

Happy Black History Month, B-Siders! To kick it off, here are a few ways to honor Boston’s Black community and the contributions they’ve made right in our backyard:

📚 Not sure where to start? Hit up your local BPL branch. Seriously, the Boston Public Library system has a list of 40+ events celebrating Black History Month. See: This Afrobeats 101 class and headwrapping workshop at the Mattapan branch; a showing of “Fences” in Roxbury; or the JP branch’s queer book club reading of “Giovanni’s Room.” Can’t make it IRL? Crack open a book from its “Black is…” list featuring over 70 books for all ages about the Black experience.

🎥 See 70 years of icons on the big screen. The Coolidge Theatre is paying homage to decades of incredible performances by Black actors with its “icons” series. Watch films like “In the Heat of the Night,” “Judas and the Black Messiah,” “Sister Act,” and more. Bonus: Director Shaka King will be there for an IRL chat, too (omg!). Check out the whole lineup.

😋 Eat your way through the Black Restaurant Challenge. For years, Boston’s Black Restaurant Challenge has encouraged local foodies to try out local Black-owned restaurants around the city. Take out, dine-in, grab a drink, it doesn’t matter, if it's on the list, you’re IN. We’ll be hitting up The Pearl, BRED Gourmet, and Jamaica Mi Hungry ourselves, but the official list includes over 70 spots.

🛍️ Do your Valentine’s (and Galentine’s) shopping at a local biz. We bet you’ll be able to get it all done in one stop at the Cambridge-Somerville Black Business Network’s free Black History Month marketplace pop-up on Feb. 7 and 8, which promises all sorts of V-Day goodies. But why stop there? You can shop Black-owned businesses all month (and year) long at Black Owned Bos., or peruse its extensive local Black-owned business directory.

✊🏾 Delve into Black history IRL. Boston’s museum of African American History is always worth a visit, but as of this month, visitors can literally talk to Frederick Douglass. Well … kinda. The museum partnered with a VR company to create an AI version of Douglass based on primary sources. It looks WILD. 

👀 Speaking of history … We also gotta plug the Globe’s new project exploring local destinations from “The Green Book,” a 1930s guide for Black travelers of hotels, restaurants, barber shops, and more that they could safely visit. Some of them are still around today.

🛵 Mayor Michelle Wu is cracking down on DoorDash. On Monday, Wu dropped a new safety ordinance that would require major food delivery apps (DoorDash, UberEats, GrubHub) to get a permit to operate in Boston. The catch: In order to get said permits, the companies would have to have liability coverage for all their drivers and submit data on delivery patterns. It’s all part of Wu’s ongoing goal to squash the uptick in reckless delivery drivers. Now the ordinance needs the City Council’s OK.

💸 New England just dodged some major sticker shock. ICYMI: President Donald Trump planned to place steep tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada effective today, and New Englanders were bracing for some serious impact across industries. Think: Over 50% of the U.S.’ fresh veggies are imported from Mexico, and many Mass. homes rely on Canadian energy products. However, Trump agreed to a 30-day pause on said tariffs after Canada and Mexico pledged to boost border enforcement. That said, there’s no guarantee Trump won’t revisit the tariffs down the road.

🫨 The East Coast did some impressive West Coast cosplay last week. Not one, not two, but three earthquakes rumbled through the area since last Monday. Lots of New Englanders, including many Bostonians, noticed the first one, which registered at a 3.8-magnitude, six miles off the coast of Maine. But since then, two separate 2.0-magnitude quakes followed on Wednesday and Sunday, from the same location. That said, they were both likely minor aftershocks, and too weak to be felt anyway. Not that the internet cares.

🐀 An unlikely culprit for Boston’s rat problem: climate change. Boston’s growing rat population is probably linked to the warming climate, according to a new study. Long story short, cities that saw the greatest warming over time (including Boston) also saw faster increases in rat populations. Why? Like many of us, rats tend to spend Boston winters avoiding the elements, foraging and breeding less. A milder winter = more rats coming out of their burrows to mingle, eat, and even spread diseases. TBH, we don’t blame ‘em.

Another year, another DunKings ad. Amidst Queen Bey’s W’s and Sabrina Carpenter’s iconic performance, a new DunKings commercial dropped during Sunday’s Grammys ceremony. 

But this time, Ben Affleck dropped Matt Damon, Tom Brady, and J. Lo (RIP) for his brother, Casey, and fellow Boston native Jeremy Strong (you know, from “Succession”). 

The commercial, which appears to be teeing up a bigger Super Bowl ad, features Strong going “full method” for the spot by dunking himself in a tub of coffee beans. He says: “I think I found a way in. You’re from Boston, I’m from Boston. Dunkin’ is Boston. Boston is Paul Revere, one if by land, two if by sea, the redcoats are coming.” Poetry.

You can watch the whole ad here.

— Written by Gia Orsino and Emily Schario

🍩 Thanks for reading! Another thing Ben Affleck did last week: A Dunkin’-themed pap walk for … deuxmoi. The man never sleeps.

🏫 The results are in: 66% of B-Siders say that colleges shouldn’t get rid of DEI initiatives — another 25% say they understand why its happening, but wish there were another way. One reader said: “It’s too early to give in — let’s wait and see what happens in the courts.”

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