A Drama-Filled Summer in Chicago

BEST DATE NEWS

July 13, 2023: Best Date News Volume #33

Good morning and welcome to another edition of Best Date News! In today’s newsletter, we dive into all the drama that has been going down in Chicago this month. From severe weather to local schemes and scandals, to National French Fry Day debates and Chicago food rankings, there has been a little bit of everything.

July 13: National Holidays

• National French Fry Day*

• National Barbershop Music Appreciation Day

• National Beans ‘n’ Franks Day

• National Delaware Day

Pop Quiz Winner: Congratulations to Lucy X. who was able to identify that the Midwest Fried Chicken from last week’s newsletter was from The Dearborn!

*National French Fry Day has always been July 13, but a petition was passed last year to move it to always be the second Friday of July. Get it Fry-Day… Friday…

That means that tomorrow (Friday, July 14) is technically National French Fry Day, however McDonald’s is holding on to history and is celebrating today anyways. Learn more in the Deal of the Week section below.

Top 5: Chicago News to Know

• Tornado in Chicago: Chicago has had quite the summer already in terms of atypical severe weather occurrences including wildfire smoke, flooding and now a tornado too. ICYMI, but your phone alerts probably didn’t let you, a tornado touched down near O’Hare airport and other parts of Chicagoland yesterday evening. People were forced to shelter in place in the airport. Take a look at the scenes from O’Hare and videos people captured elsewhere yesterday.

• Taste of Randolph Scheme: Did you know that Chicago street festivals cannot charge a mandatory entrance fee? Instead they are allowed to request an optional donation. This didn’t stop one West Loop festival as event organizers for Taste of Randolph got caught selling festival tickets online.

• Coke vs Pepsi: The United Center just announced this week that they are changing their beverage supplier partnership in advance of the upcoming Bulls and Blackhawks season. PepsiCo will now be the official soft drink provider, replacing Coca-Cola, as they have entered into a new multi-year partnership.

• Best High Schools: A new list of the 50 best high schools in the country came out, and Illinois absolutely dominated the list with 10 high schools making the top 50. Stevenson made the top 10 in the entire country yet was still beat out by one other Illinois school. See which Illinois high schools made the cut and their rankings.

• Northwestern Scandal: At this point, you have likely heard about the mess that has been unfolding with the football team at Northwestern University in Evanston. If not, there was a hazing scandal that the long-time head coach Pat Fitzgerald has since been fired for. However, in a highly-debated move, the school decided to keep all of its assistant coaches for this season and make the defensive coordinator the new head coach. Learn more.

Quick Hitters

• Best Mullet: The nationwide USA Mullet Championship is taking place this week, yes apparently it’s a thing, and Chicago has a seven year old trying to win the competition for the city.

• Fried Chicken: Eater put together a map of some of the best places to get fried chicken in the Chicagoland area.

• 50 Best Dishes: Speaking of best food in Chicago, Chicago Mag put together a list of what they believe to be the 50 Best Things to Eat in Chicago.

Thread of the Week

Chicago Picture Spots: View the thread by clicking the image or here!

Deal of the Week

McDonald’s Fries: In honor of National French Fry Day, McDonald’s is giving a coupon to everyone today for a “FREE any size Fries, no purchase necessary.” All you need to do is get the McDonald’s app and use the coupon on your profile. Yes, you can just get fries when you go without buying anything!

Poll of the Week

Last Week's Poll Results

Poll Results: Last week we asked you if you were planning on joining the new Threads app and 65% of you said no.

Today's Sunset in Chicago

The sun will set in Chicago this evening at 8:25pm. Which means the sun sets today three minute earlier than it did compared to last week.