Chicago's Newest Luxury Apartments: Old Orchard Mall

BEST DATE NEWS

Feb. 15, 2024: Best Date News Volume #62

Good morning and welcome to another edition of Best Date News, Chicago’s most fun and interesting Thursday newsletter. We hope that you had a good Valentine’s Day! If not, at least today is National Singles Awareness Day!

In today’s newsletter, we dive into the future of Old Orchard Mall, the wild story of what has been happening with Etta, Chicago having the best pizza spot in the entire United States, Chicago’s Lunar New Year Parade, a release date for the new season of The Bear and more!

Feb. 15: National Holidays

• National Singles Awareness Day

• National Hippo Day

• National Love Reset Day

• National Gumdrop Day

• National Wisconsin Day

Chicago News

• Old Orchard Mall: Woah, this is pretty interesting! The well-known Old Orchard Mall in Skokie is going to be completely transformed. They are reimagining the space to make it a mixed-use residential community. They will do this by adding 400 luxury apartments inside the mall with a new park and event space that can house things like farmers markets, events and more. You have to see what it’s going to look like.

• Etta’s Seen Betta: Popular Italian restaurant Etta has been in the news quite a bit lately. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been for the best reasons. You may call that last month Etta River North permanently closed seemingly out of nowhere. The hits keep coming as now the owner has began multiple Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings, which also impact well-known bakery Aya Pastry. Take a second to read Eater Chicago’s big story on all the drama that has been unfolding.

• Top 100 Pizza Spots: Speaking of Italian food, people love to debate which city does pizza the best, and with so many ways to make a pie, it doesn’t come as a surprise that it’s a highly-debated subject. Yelp decided to do a deep dive into the topic by uncovering pizza trends for 2024 in addition to putting together a list of the Top 100 Pizza Spots in the U.S. Guess which city had the #1 spot? Chicago!

• Architectural Artifacts: One of Chicago’s most interesting stores has decided that it’s time to move on after 37 years in the city. Architectural Artifacts, an antique store on the Near North Side, shared that it will be moving to Texas in two months. Watch the news story and get the full details.

• Love Whims: If you are looking to go out this weekend, you should check out WHIM Chicago in Lake View. We highlighted it last week, and we were excited to see that so many of you liked it! ICYMI, check out how cool this immersive experience was when we went. FYI, you can also use our custom promo code BDF15 for 15% off tickets and drink packages when you buy them online in advance.

Just for Fun

• Lunar New Year: This Sunday, Feb. 18 is the Lunar New Year Parade in Chinatown. It celebrates the Chinese New Year that just took place on Feb. 10. The parade will begin at 1pm. It’s a cool celebration to experience in person and it’s free to attend. Get all the information.

• The Bear: If you read last week’s newsletter you know that The Bear will begin filming in Chicago for season three at the end of this month. Well here is some more good news. It looks like the turnaround time from filming to finish is going to be faster than you’d think. See when the show is scheduled to hit screens.

• Jennifer Lopez: Pop star Jennifer Lopez just announced her This is Me Now…The Tour that will take place in 2024, and it will have a stop in the Chicagoland area! She will be performing at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont on July 26. You can sign up for the presale if you are looking to get tickets.

Poll Question of the Week

Last Newsletter's Poll Results

Poll Results: Last newsletter we asked you which team you were rooting for in the Super Bowl. 54% of you were rooting for the 49ers.

Today's Sunset in Chicago

The sun will set in Chicago this evening at 5:23pm. Which means the sun sets today nine minutes later than it did last week.

Work with Best Date Food

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