🏖️🤔 An island getaway in … Boston?

Happy Friday, Boston!

🎶And happy Noah Kahan concert day! To celebrate, we’ll Venmo $5 to the first person who replies to this email with a screenshot of a perfect score on this Noah Kahan quiz. Go, go, go!

👀What’s on tap today:

• Beacon Hill compromises

• Tipped minimum wage is on the ballot

• Boston’s new cat cafe

Up first…

SUMMER FRIDAYS

Sand, Spectacle Island, and “Stick Season”

It looks like Mother Nature is finally taking a chill pill this weekend. Which means the groutfit is coming off and we’re getting the heck out of the house.

Here’s what’s going down this weekend:

🏖️ See the world’s best sand sculptures. Revere Beach’s annual International Sand Sculpting Festival is back for its 20th anniversary starting today through Sunday. Not only will you be able to catch the unbelievable work of internationally renowned sand sculptors (seriously, check this out), but there will also be live music, food trucks, a beer garden, and more.

⛴️ Escape to a Boston Harbor Island. Spectacle Island’s “Spectacle Summer Nights” series kicks off Saturday, where a ticket gets you a round-trip ferry ride to the island, live music, lawn games, and beach sunset views. Plus, ZaZ and Night Shift will be on the scene providing bites and brews.

🚶 Ditch your car in JP. Boston Open Streets make their way to Centre Street in Jamaica Plain on Sunday between Lamartine Street and South Street for a day of car-free fun, food, and festivities. Bonus: Newbury Street will also be car-free the same day.

🎭 Catch some stellar local theater. Word on the street is, “Hoops,” a new play at the Strand about “family, resilience, and self-expression…  in a world that’s constantly trying to dim the lights,” is seriously good. And there are still (pay-what-you-can!) tickets available for this weekend.

🏃🏾‍♀️ Take your top off … no, seriously! Hundreds of people are expected to hit up the TrailBlazHers’ run club’s iconic annual “Bra Run” on Sunday. This three-mile run (or one-mile walk) is meant to disrupt and reclaim the streets, with giveaways, demos, activations, and a truly epic afterparty.

👯 Continue your “Brat” (or “Stick Season”) summer. Brats, head to this Charli XCX party at Jacques’ Cabaret for some non-stop club classics. “Stick Season” girlies, whether or not you have tickets to Noah Kahan’s Fenway show tonight, you can get your fix at Loco’s concert afterparty.

🧶 Pick up a new hobby. That’s the whole point of this weekly workshop series at the Foundry, which features 101-level classes on different pastimes. This Saturday’s theme: Fiber arts and crochet.

🤸 Stretch out for free, with a view, or with a goat. Boston’s yoga scene has a little something for everyone this weekend. If you want yoga with a little spice, try this free Equinox class on the Esplanade. Or if you just want a change of scenery, try these classes on the beach, on a ship, or even with goats(!).

⭐ Experience a star being born. The Museum of Science answered our prayers this weekend with a Lady Gaga-themed planetarium show which, you guessed it, is set to a soundtrack of her tunes. Catch it on Friday or Saturday night.

TOGETHER WITH MOUNT HOLYOKE

Learn beyond boundaries 

🎓️At Mount Holyoke College, bold and curious students receive a world-class interdisciplinary education that prepares them to solve problems creatively in a vibrant global community. Since 2014, the leading gender-diverse women’s college has been accepting applications from female, transgender and nonbinary students with one mission: to develop the voices and visions needed to make positive, ground-breaking change. Learn more and start building your future. 

B-SIDE FOODIE’S CHOICE AWARDS SPONSORED BY TOAST

🍸🎶 We’re looking for a place where everything (the service, decor, and music) just hits different. Let us know —  where’s the spot with the best vibes?

CITY

Quick & dirty headlines

🤝 The State House is making compromises. Mass. lawmakers released a compromise version of a long-awaited, sweeping gun bill that includes a crackdown on ghost guns (a.k.a. privately made and generally untraceable guns) and expansions to our “red flag” laws. The legislature also reached an “agreement in principle” on the 2025 fiscal budget that’s now *checks notes* 19 days past the deadline (but who’s really counting?). We can expect to see more deets on both fronts in the coming days. 

🗳️ Our November ballot question lineup is officially official. Remember earlier this week when the potential ballot measure about gradually raising Mass.’ tipped minimum wage from $6.75 to $15 was facing a challenge from the Mass. Restaurant Association (they called the validity of the campaign’s signatures into question)? Well, the association withdrew said challenge, saying they didn’t have enough time to compile the evidence for a complete review, which means the Q got the green light to appear on the ballot. So please give a warm welcome to the final five ballot Q’s.

🥵Where’s the worst place to be in a heatwave? We’re not sure, but an underground MBTA station is certainly a contender. Thanks to a little concept called “heat sink,” subway stations tend to get especially spicy during heat waves (think: high 90s/low 100s). This might only be temporarily annoying if we lived in a universe where the T ran on time, but the reality is that when riders face long wait times for delayed or broken trains, it’s a full-on safety hazard. And as Red Line riders faced several major delays this week, GBH reported station temps of 100+ degrees.

ONE LAST THING

Boston’s new cat-fé

What’s better than reading and sipping a latte? Reading and sipping a latte … with a cat.And with the recent soft opening of A Sanctuary Cafe in Beacon Hill, the city’s new (and only) cat cafe, we’re collectively one step closer to that dream. 

The cafe, which is half micro bookstore slash coffee shop and half cat lounge, has officially opened the shop to the public for limited hours, and it looks like the cat lounge is soon to follow. Apparently, they’re still waiting for the cats to settle into their new home before they’re ready for visitors. 

But if, like us, you want to be the first to say “hello” to the kitties when they’re ready for their debut, you can subscribe to A Sanctuary Cafe's email updates to find out more.

— Written by Gia Orsino and Emily Schario

🐱 Thanks for reading! BTW, if you want a seriously juicy local story, dig into this saga of another local attempt at a cat cafe. Spoiler: It did not go well.

💜 Special shoutout to today’s sponsor,Mount Holyoke College, for supporting local journalism and providing higher education to diverse communities.

🐀 The results are in: Unsurprisingly, 60% of readers think Allston/Brighton is Boston’s rattiest neighborhood, with Downtown trailing behind. As one reader (and many others) said: “It’s not called rat city for nothing!”

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