☕ You’re gonna want a cup of THIS

Happy Friday, Boston!

🍫 Here’s a sweet deal for you: The official opening of L.A. Burdick’s new spot in Coolidge Corner (more on that later) is this Saturday at 10 a.m. The first 75 guests will get a free chocolate assortment, a tumbler, and a cookie with their purchase. 

👀 What’s on tap today:

• Boston sets a rainy record

• Bye bye, Belichick 

• Surfing on Mount Washington

Up first…

12 DAYS OF B-SIDE

Boston’s best hot chocolate

On the seventh day of B-Side the newsletter gave to me: Five delish hot chocolates, Phillip Eng’s Spotify Wrapped, volunteer opportunities(!) … tips for Boston winters, one pop-up review, local gift recs, and a Boston holiday tree. 🎶

Hot chocolate is one of the ultimate winter treats, but let’s be real: Not all cups are created equal. So in honor of National Hot Chocolate Day, for this round of small biz telephone tag, we asked a few spots with great hot chocolate what makes a killer cup, and where they like to get it.

🍫 Thinking Cup wants a cup of Pavement Coffeehouse. Mason Reiter, a barista supervisor at Thinking Cup’s Boston Common location, prefers a darker, more savory cup, “not like that Swiss Miss kind of sugary chocolate.” For that, Reiter always hits up L.A. Burdick for its spicy, dark drinking chocolate … who unfortunately declined to chat with us, lol (they’re busy opening their new location). So Reiter’s second pick is Pavement Coffeehouse, which, though it’s “nothing too fancy,” has a pretty solid cup. 

☕ Pavement Coffeehouse wants a cup of Farmers Horse Coffee. “If I'm drinking hot chocolate, I expect it to be sweet and foamy,” said Leah, a shift lead at Pavement’s Newbury location (who declined to give her last name for publication). And, most importantly, it’s got to be well mixed, meaning no chocolate sitting on the bottom. She thinks Farmers Horse Coffee’s hot chocolate is milky and sweet, and always gets the basics right. “They do their chocolate and milk really well … I respect them as a cafe,” she said.

🍪 Farmers Horse Coffee wants a cup of The Bittersweet Shoppe. If Emma, a barista at Farmers Horse (who also declined to give her last name) is honest, she likes her chocolate to taste a little bit like a Swiss Miss packet: “It’s a classic, nostalgic, wintry feeling,” she said. For that, she hits up The Bittersweet Shoppe on Newbury. “They have a lot of fun little flavors” that you can add to the hot chocolate, from cinnamon sticky bun to snickerdoodle.

♨️ The Bittersweet Shoppe wants a cup of L.A. Burdick. Our second L.A. Burdick mention of this telephone tag came from Tracy Casavant, Bittersweet’s owner. Casavant enjoys any chocolate that’s rich and topped with whipped cream, but will opt for a peppermint or white chocolate raspberry flavor if it’s available. She’ll take a walk to L.A. Burdick’s Back Bay spot to grab a “delicious, rich” white hot chocolate and a white chocolate chip cookie, and take in the cozy cafe vibes. 

B-SIDE AWARDS

Welcome to the first-ever B-Side Awards! 

A.k.a. our new mini year-end awards show that aims to recognize the best, worst, silliest, floppiest, and wildest things we covered in the newsletter. 

We’ll be asking you to vote for the best of the best in each category through Dec. 19 (we’ll reveal all the winners on Dec. 20). So without further ado, our next category is:

Mass.’ biggest eye roll.

CITY

Quick & dirty headlines

🌧️ Wednesday’s storm almost set a rainy record. It came in as Boston’s second rainiest day in the past decade, delivering around 2.76 inches of rain, causing some truly epic flooding, and disrupting travel. By 6 p.m. Wednesday evening, approximately 5,400 Mass. customers were left without power and commuters dealt with some major challenges (see: this wild video of cars in a flooded tunnel on I-93 and commuter rail trains being cancelled). And that’s not to mention the subsequent sewage discharge. Gross.

❄️ “Baby, it’s cold outside” — The City of Boston, probably. Translation: Boston just dropped its annual winter preparedness reminders. Among the highlights: All property owners (including your landlord) are required to clear the sidewalk and curb ramps of snow within three hours of snowfall’s end or sunrise and to keep your space heated to at least 68 degrees during the day (or 64 at night). Another goodie: When the city declares a snow emergency, you gotta move your car off the street, but they offer discounted garages and allow space savers (minus the South End and Bay Village).

🏈 Bill Belichick’s Mass. era is officially over. The local legend and former Pats coach might’ve stopped coaching for New England back in January, but now, he’s officially moving on as the head coach at the University of North Carolina. The announcement of his new, five-year contract with the school came on Wednesday night after a week of heavy speculation, and it marks his first foray into collegiate coaching, although he has some ties to UNC. So … Does this mean we have to stop covering Jordon Hudson?

🎶 Noah Kahan won BIG at the Boston Music Awards. And yes, that’s a thing! 2024’s awards show went down at Big Night Live on Wednesday night, and Kahan took home top honors as the “Artist of the Year” and “Folk Artist of the Year.” Other big Ws included Yanna G as “Best New Artist of the Year;” “Katrina's Son” by Millyz as “Best Album/EP of the Year;” Mallcops as “Best Alt/Indie artist of the Year;” and Roadrunner, The Sinclair, and O’Brien’s Pub nabbed awards for best venue by size. You can check out all the winners here.

THINGS TO DO

Weekend plans

⛸️ Dust off your ice skates. The Skating Club of Boston is celebrating World Skating Day on Sunday with FREE lessons on the Frog Pong and its Norwood rink. Note: Advance registration is required!

🍦 Grab a scoop at Boston’s newest museum. If your sweet tooth and an Instagram influencer had a baby, you’d get the Museum of Ice Cream, which opens Saturday. Expect lobster ice cream (!) and a slide that ends in a pool of sprinkles. 

🎤 Keep sing-screaming “That’s so true.” Because tickets to Gracie Abrams’s Boston tour stop next July go on sale TODAY at 10 a.m. Grab them here.

🎁 Trade your Amazon cart for local goodies. There are three stellar places to start. See: Time Out’s holly jolly market, Castle Island Brewing’s shop and sip market, and this Black-owned business pop-up.

🕯️ Start your hygge engines. Head to the Boston Public Library’s central branch on Saturday to collect a free, take-home hygge kit equipped with treats, relaxing activities, and a surprise cozy book! 

🤮 Break out your ugliest holiday sweater. This weekend, fugly and cringe are encouraged at Dorchester Brewing’s bears, brews, and boys ugly sweater party, and you can dress up your pup at Park-9’s sweater party, too.

🚲 Soak in this weekend’s sunny weather via bike. Bikes Not Bombs is leading a beginner-friendly bike tour through JP and Roxbury on Saturday (it ends with free hot chocolate!).

🛍️ Crawl your way through Boston’s best vintage. Found is hosting a vintage store crawl around Boston where you can get 10% your purchase at each (with potential for more free swag).

ONE LAST THING

Surfing Mount Washington

New Hampshire’s Mount Washington is famous for its extreme winter weather. But this week was a little different, producing the perfect conditions for a day of December surfing. Well, kind of. 

Conditions on the mountain were such that they made a perfect “rime ice wave,” which is essentially an ice structure produced by very specific weather conditions, and it looks a lot like an ocean wave. 

So, the folks who work at Mount Washington did what anyone else would do: They put on some bathing suits, grabbed some boards, and headed out for a rime ice wave surfer photo shoot. The pics are pretty sick.

— Written by Gia Orsino

❄️ Thanks for reading! We’re freezing just looking at them.

🎵 The results are in: 32% of B-Siders say that they would let Gov. Maura Healey DJ after seeing her top songs of the year. But MBTA GM Phillip Eng came in a solid second place. One reader said: “If I heard the Game of Thrones theme song come on at a club, I would be IMMEDIATELY running to the dance floor.”

💃 Keep up with us @BostonBSide on IG, TikTok, and Twitter. Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected].