Persona 3 Reload is a long game with an emotional ending — made more emotional by the sheer amount of time you’ve spent in this world and with these characters. If you got the game’s true ending, you may still find yourself watching the credits and asking: Wait, is there anything I could’ve done differently?
In this Persona 3 Reload guide, we’ll walk you through the ending of the game, the fate of the game’s protagonist (Makoto Yuki), what influence you have over its outcome (if any), and how it all connects to Episode Aigis — the upcoming epilogue expansion.
[Spoiler Warning: This post contains major spoilers for the true ending of Persona 3 Reload and some minor spoilers for “The Answer”epilogue from Persona 3 FES, which is being remade into the upcoming Episode Aigis DLC for Persona 3 Reload. If you want to stay as spoiler-free as possible, bookmark this guide and return to it once you see the credits roll. In the meantime, check out our guides for classroom answers and social link requirements.]
Graphic: Polygon | Source images: Atlus/Sega
Is the protagonist dead at the end of Persona 3 Reload?
Image: Atlus/Sega via Polygon
Yes. When the protagonist falls asleep in Aigis’ lap, as all his friends are rushing up to the rooftop of the school, he passes away. This happens regardless of whether you choose the “……” option or the “Close them” option when the game tells you your eyes feel heavy. The blue butterfly fluttering away is meant to symbolize the character’s death in that moment.
OK, but how do we know for sure? Well, that answer — funnily enough — comes from the game’s epilogue expansion called “The Answer,” which is a part of Persona 3 FES. That expansion is not part of Persona 3 Reload, but it’s coming in September of 2024 as the Episode Aigis DLC.
In “The Answer” — and presumably Episode Aigis, based on how faithful Reload is to Persona 3 FES — you play as Aigis a few weeks after graduation and the death of the Leader character (which the game explicitly calls out). If you look back at the final battle against Nyx, the protagonist uses the Universe Persona to perform the Great Seal ability. The cost for casting Great Seal is equal to the Leader’s max health, suggesting that he gave everything to stop Nyx.
The death is a little bit more complex than that, but we’ll leave you to discover those answers in Episode Aigis. Just trust for now that — unless Atlus makes an absolutely massive change to the story — the Leader is dead.
Can you save the Leader in Persona 3 Reload?
Image: Atlus/Sega via Polygon
No, technically. While you can choose to get the bad ending for Persona 3 Reload and kill Ryoji back in December, it’s understood that everyone on Earth will eventually die in that reality — even if you never see it. In order for everyone else to survive in Persona 3 Reload, the Leader must give up their own life to stop Nyx.
Sacrifice is part of the main story thrust of Persona 3 Reload, with many players losing loved ones to heroic moments of sacrifice. Yukari and Mitsuru’s fathers are both great examples of this theming at work. By dying for his friends and the world, the protagonist’s death completes the sacrificial theme.
Enjoy the game’s beautiful final moments knowing that you did nothing wrong here. You got the game’s good — albeit bittersweet — ending.
The owners of Bar Siena, Fioretta, and Lyra are about to open their sixth restaurant in the West Loop and Fulton Market area. La Serre, which should open mid-March, is a French-Mediterranean restaurant from DineAmic Hospitality Group with a unique all-season ledge room and guillotine windows overlooking Fulton Market.
Ownership describes the menu as coastal French-Mediterranean cuisine, something DineAmic’s team has experience in. Lyra partner Athinagoras Kostakos, the former Top Chef: Greece champion, has cooked in Monaco, home of legendary chef Alain Ducasse. Chef Nikitas Pyrgis has cooked at La Guérite, a restaurant in Cannes, France that’s only accessible via boat.
“Once we started talking about this, we thought, ‘Wow, you guys have a lot of background in [French cooking], we should do something with that,’” says DineAmic co-founder David Rekhson.
La Serre will break away from heavier brasserie fare and focus on the south of France, Saint-Tropez, and Provence in particular. Rekhson calls the “the Napa Valley of France” where a bounty of quality ingredients exists. Of course, being DineAmic, Rekhson and fellow DineAmic co-founder Lucas Stoioff blend all these ideas to create a restaurant that they think will appeal to local Chicago customers.
“Ours is a distinctly coastal French brand and fare, as opposed to a lot of the more inland Parisian classic brasseries that have opened up in the last couple of years,” Stoioff says, referring to a certain restaurant that opened in River North without mentioning its name.
Stoioff and Rehkson mention several tableside preparations and opportunities to splurge. A 44-ounce, double-cut beef ribeye cote du boeuf is cooked over hardwood charcoal before being trotted out on a tray outfitted with a satellite burner. The steak is sliced tableside while the sauce is prepared and finished Au Poivre or truffle Diane style (Stoioff is a big fan of the latter). An Old Fashioned uses truffle-washed bourbon and served with black truffles shaved tableside. A drink called the Caspian uses dill olive oil and is paired with a bronze bunny statue holding a small bowl of caviar. There are a few others that the duo wants customers to discover at the restaurant and be surprised. A raw bar and a menu of one-bite starters are also served in the French amuse-bouche tradition.
Located on the second floor of a new building on the corner of Green and Fulton Market, the space is light and airy with the kitchen in the back and a large bar greeting visitors at the front. The terrace, a ledge that flows along Fulton Market, features overhead heaters and the aforementioned windows which open vertically. DineAmic wants diners to feel like they’re in southern France, even when temperatures dip. Stoioff says the space looks like “an old provincial greenhouse that’s been here for 100 years.” The greenhouse design and the resources invested in the HVAC system will allow the restaurant to keep its windows open even on cold fall nights.
“When you come inside, it feels like it’s summertime in the south of France, and you’re overlooking Fulton market, and our heating, engineering, and capabilities give us the ability to have the windows open a lot longer than we would normally have because of all of our heat we’ve installed,” Stoioff says.
Not to be forgotten is a companion restaurant that will soon open. Bar La Rue is separate from La Serre. Look for more details in the coming weeks. But for now, take a walk through La Serre before it opens next week and enjoy photos of a few of the food and drink options.
A six-table restaurant in Seaside, Florida, named Lazy Daze Cafe is to blame. The 1991 restaurant opening was the first from Kevin Boehm, who 12 years later would, along with Rob Katz, go on to establish Boka Restaurant Group. Boehm, then a University of Illinois student, was encouraged to drop out to pursue his dreams by his future famous writer roommate, Dave Eggers.
“It was a two-person operation: myself and my girlfriend at the time, Theresa. Small menu, small wine list, centered around fresh fish from the gulf, a few pastas, sandwiches, and salads at lunch,” says Boehm. I’ve always thought of it as my bachelor’s and master’s education in restaurants, as every responsibility rested on both our shoulders.”
Boehm went on to open other spots, including Indigo in Springfield, before meeting Katz, a Vancouver, British Columbia, native who moved to Chicago to work in the trading pits. Katz became a nightlife impresario, opening up places like the Elbo Room in Lakeview.
Katz wanted to leave nightclubs and Boehm wanted an in to the Chicago restaurant market. The two met through mutual friends in 2002 in Old Town. “We sat for coffee at Nookies, and the meeting was supposed to be 15 minutes. We sat for four hours. We just clicked instantly, felt the same way about hospitality and food, and were both big believers that design was a huge part of the puzzle. We basically shrugged our shoulders and said, ‘Let’s do one. What’s the worst that could happen?’” says Boehm.
Boka Restaurant Group’s Rob Katz (left) and Kevin Boehm.Boka Restaurant Group/Anthony Tahlier
Boehm and Katz were once very much like the ex-GM of their beloved Chicago Cubs, Theo Epstein. Like with Epstein, who won two World Series championships with the Boston Red Sox and one with the Cubs, Boka’s success came in identifying unknown and undervalued top-level talent like Giuseppe Tentori, Lee Wolen, and Gene Kato. Now Boehm and Katz mostly partner with big-name celebrity chefs like Stephanie Izard, Michael Solomonov, and most recently, although it didn’t work out as planned, Daniel Rose.
The real hidden feather in their cap is partnership with designers like Karen Herold of Studio K Creative, as well as AvroKO, who create interiors that beget immersive experiences. Through this formula, Katz and Boehm have earned reputations as empire builders.
The following is a ranking of the restaurants that make up Katz and Boehm’s Chicago empire, from 2003 to present (though their influence now extends to New York and Los Angeles, with noteworthy spots like Laser Wolf Brooklyn and Girl & the Goat LA). We also stuck to restaurants, thus omitting Lazy Bird, Boka’s cocktail bar in the Hoxton hotel. Whether the contender is one of Boka’s OG stalwarts or its clubbier offerings, the paramount criteria for the rankings below was food quality followed by the level of commitment to experiential design and/or original style.
Deciding which of Boka’s stellar lineup of chefs is the greatest is kind of like asking which Avenger is the best. They’re almost impossible to separate. However, if someone put a Global cleaver to my jugular and made me pick, I’m probably choosing Lee Wolen. Wolen is a student of culinary history and a veteran of Eleven Madison Park. Though he runs a three-star restaurant (by choice) in Boka, many of his plates are four-star prix fixe-level studies in impeccable technique. From chefs Meg Galus to Kim Mok, the pastry program at Boka has also always offered a double threat unmatched by almost any other place in town save Daisies (whose chef Joe Frillman worked at two shuttered Boka restaurants, Perennial Virant in Old Town and Balena in Lincoln Park).
Pairing it with a Top Chef and Iron Chef champion like Izard would make McDonald’s a first-tier restaurant. Adding in Boehm and Katz’s business and service acumen and Herold’s creative interiors made G&TG the real inflection point of Boka’s rise in Chicago, and maybe the launching pad for its current celebrity chef-driven multimarket restaurant domination.
The smoky wood-fired oven, which churns out first-class bread you don’t mind being charged for, and the flame-charred walls make you feel like you’re eating inside a Pappy Van Winkle bourbon barrel. I’ve been to Girl & the Goat many times and it seems like I wait months or years between visits. But every time I return to a platter of wood oven-roasted pig face glistening with red wine and maple syrup, gooey with the remains of a breached sunny side egg, I wonder why I waited. At almost 14 years old, few local spots — save sister restaurant Boka, or Alinea and Avec — have stayed on top of their game for so long.
Generally, after you’re assaulted by the pomp and circumstance of a well-designed restaurant, the luster often wears off. Stick around a while and you start inspecting a dining room, notice the smoke alarms, the exit signs, and the cheap paint. You start to feel like you’re in a fake set piece.
Momotaro, though, is more than a restaurant. It’s a story. It’s not reality per se. Certainly never in history has a Japanese salaryman’s office/sushi bar/ 1960s airport lounge as frequented by Don Draper ever existed. And yet, the attention to detail, the pen stroke graffiti in the bathrooms, the bar menu — a vintage split-flap airport departures/arrivals style display — makes up a world so unique that it feels real.
On my first visits, the hot food was the thing, but on subsequent visits, the sushi execution finally caught up with the vision. Silky lithe scrims of toro blanket plump toothsome grains of rice. Outside the city’s omakase stylings there may be no finer place for raw fish in Chicago. Girl & the Goat may have made the empire, but Momotaro is the spot that put Boehm and Katz on par with the best of the mega-restaurateurs.
4. Alla Vita, 564 W. Randolph Street, (312) 667-0104
Alla Vita/Anthony Tahlier
There are hundreds of Italian restaurants in Chicago, but most are of the multigenerational-owned, Frank-Sinatra-got-hammered-in-this-very-booth, red-sauce variety. At Alla Vita, Lee Wolen brings a top chef’s eye to the cuisine, elevating beyond fried calamari with pillowy ricotta gnudi dripping in cacio e pepe cream. You also likely won’t find a more beautiful or stylish dining crowd in Chicago, a reflection of the sleek space that features hanging gardens and gauzy undulating lanterns that mimic the blazing energy weaving through the room.
I remember running over as fast as I could when GT Prime’s namesake Giuseppe Tentori took over the kitchen at Boka after he left as chef de cuisine of Charlie Trotter’s. Tentori had spent nine years working for Trotter, which, based on its exacting standards, is like spending 100 years in most other kitchens. Few, except maybe Matthias Merges, had put in that much time at Trotter’s and lived to tell the story with a great second act.
But Tentori dusted off his shoulder and rode his bicycle/pasta machine, aka “The Black Stallion,” to glory at Boka and then at GT Fish & Oyster. Prime, which features the coolest taxidermy in Chicago (the oryx and sable antelope mounted in the front vestibule are nicknamed Chuck and Tenderloin, respectively) is Tentori’s true masterpiece. At Prime, Tentori took the steakhouse to a clientele beyond expense account folks who buy Louis Vuitton trunks by the busload. By curating small cuts of Japanese A5 wagyu and prime strip loin and mixing them in with silky tagliatelle or world-class lasagna, Tentori made a meat emporium a welcoming place for all real food enthusiasts again. As a bonus (ever since his other spot GT Fish & Oyster closed), you might even find its legendary clam chowder as a special here.
6. Cabra at the Hoxton hotel, 200 N. Green Street, (312) 761-1717
Boka Restaurant Group
The first time I ate at chef Izard’s Cabra, I thought it was some kind of time warp from the 1980s. Everyone on staff seemed to be wearing acid-washed mom jeans. The food wasn’t quite of the era, but it was inconsistent relative to Tanta, the superior Peruvian choice in River North. Since then, a tightening of the menu, focusing on mouthwatering ceviche and delightful chorizo queso dip, has created an infusion of new energy that allowed the brand to extend to Los Angeles.
Duck Duck GoatAnthony Tahlier/Boka Restaurant Group
My love for Izard’s mashup of authentic and American Chinese is deep and endless. Were this a roundup of my subjective personal favorite Boka restaurants, it might be ranked higher. But in this ranking I’m looking for a superior mix of food quality, interior design, innovation, influence, and service, and the food quality and consistency at Duck Duck Goat has wavered in recent years, as with the recent receipt of a soggy Chongqing chicken. Still, as a regular diner, I just want to have fun, and DDG’s set-piece decor makes me feel like I’ve been dropped into Spielberg’s Shanghai in Indiana Jones. (No time for love, Dr. Jones!) And that environment still gives me pure delight.
8. Swift & Sons,1000 W. Fulton Market, (312) 733-9420
Swift & SonsBarry Brecheisen/Eater Chicago
This might be the best-designed of all the Boka restaurants. While I love the story of the Japanese salaryman told through Momotaro, I am foremost a Chicagoan — a faithful denizen of this former hog butcher to the world, one who screams “Da Bears!” and all that. Which is to say, my belly is often full of pork and my mind is truly raptured by the stories of the all-time local greats like Algren, Burnham, Sullivan, Wright, and Gustavus Swift.
The vestibule of this place looks like the abandoned offices of Swift, the great meatpacking magnate, and the interior simultaneously conjures the elegance of the Titanic ballroom and the corporate art deco aesthetic of the Coen Brothers’ The Hudsucker Proxy. You can almost smell the aftershave dripping off the leather bench seating. Though it is the most “steakhouse” of all the Boka restaurants, chef Chris Pandel doesn’t just give you a simple baked potato bigger than a T. rex egg. He’s putting out bacon-larded and horseradish cream-spiked potato and ricotta-stuffed pierogies that would make most babcias jealous. There is creamed spinach on offer, but also chile crisp- and gojuchang aioli-spiked roast brussels sprouts, which is to say, just like GT Prime, Swift & Sons is not a Gibsons knockoff.
9. Cira, inside the Hoxton hotel, 200 N. Green Street, (312) 761-1777
Boka Restaurant Group/Galdones Photography
Hotel restaurants demand all-day rigor, and few chefs are up to the challenge like Chris Pandel. The Hoxton hotel has become a coworking and de facto meeting spot for me over the last few years, and while the central location and comfy lobby play a role, it’s mostly because I know Cira’s gonna sate my cravings any time of day. If it’s early morning, there’s a perfect shakshuka waiting to break my fast. If it’s lunchtime, I’m digging into the crisp cumin- and coriander-perfumed falafel. If work is done and a celebration dinner is in order, I’m ordering a bowl of pistachio ravioli roofed with crisp breadcrumbs and gilded with saffron orange butter.
10. Itoko, 3326 N. Southport Avenue, (773) 819-7672
ItokoBoka Restaurant Group
I can count maybe a handful of dishes I still think about months after I visited a restaurant, but Gene Kato’s octopus at Itoko — a carpaccio flayed out like a giant hibiscus blossom and sprinkled with shiso and red onion slivers, then drizzled with the lifting acidity of ponzu — is one of them. If you’re looking for pristine sushi or perfectly toasted nori hand rolls bulging with king crab in an informal setting, Itoko is the spot in Lakeview.
The Izakaya under Momotaro in Fulton Market has that hidden speakeasy vibe. Even though it’s not invite-only like the Aviary’s the Office, or hidden behind a graffiti wall as with the Violet Hour, like both those spots, Izakaya is a windowless lair where time seems to stand still. You can drink and drink and drink with friends, and even better, sop it up with salty snacks like sweet soy-pepper glazed tebasaki wings or a big bowl of chicken curry. The design magic of AvroKO is in full force, as the space feels the kind of place John Wick might stop by to plot his next assassination over shots of sake.
Stroller parent-friendly salads and crispy chicken sandwiches are usually the domain of a Chick-fil-A, not a super chef like Wolen. But add in perfect mahogany-crusted rotisserie chicken and incredible consistency, and this might be one of Boka’s most dependable and delicious spots. The only thing keeping it from ranking higher is its informal nature.
13. Little Goat, 3325 N. Southport Avenue, (773) 819-7673
Little Goat Diner has moved to Lakeview.Boka Restaurant Group/Keni Rosales
In the move from the more spacious OG location on Randolph, Little Goat lost square footage, but gained more character. The new vibe, a kind of retro Fonzie-meets-midcentury modern, is actually more creative than the original. But what it’s gained in design, it’s lost in consistency of service and food quality. Stick to Izard’s classics like the This Little Piggy, a sesame cheddar egg biscuit sandwich stuffed with Sichuan pork sausage, or the okonomiyaki packed with bacon and bonito crunch, and you’ll still be satisfied.
Swift & Sons Tavern is across from Wrigleyville.Swift & Sons Tavern
Except for the nearby Mordecai, this is probably one of the best restaurants in Wrigleyville. Then again, that’s a lot like being the tallest kindergartener: Everything is relative to the competition. Thronged on Cubs game days, service sometimes suffers. Not as serious as its brother, the bigger original Swift, informal eats like fried cheese curds or an Italian beef stuffed with shaved rib-eye are the moves here.
820 W Randolph Street, Chicago, IL 60607 312 888 3455
Final Fantasy 7 and its compilation media have introduced some of my favorite video game characters. There’s Cloud Strife, the emotionally cagey but endlessly awkward dude who just wants to be cool. His childhood friend, a sullen-eyed Tifa, brings a sense of kindness and warmth to the most dire of situations. Hell, even the villains are charming in their own ways. I wouldn’t want to be a generic Shinra lapdog, but maybe I’d go and be one for Rufus, whose cutting-edge sense of style somehow makes me forget he’s the CEO of an evil company.
Then there’s Chadley, an unfortunate character whose design looks like if you combined 9S from Nier: Automata with a Boy Scout.
Chadley made his series debut in Final Fantasy 7 Remake when he recruited Cloud to collect battle intel by undertaking virtual fighting challenges. As we learned in Remake, Chadley is a humanoid robot created by Shinra’s Professor Hojo. Although he worked for that evil and cruel scientist, Chadley seemed harmless enough and Cloud could actually help free him from Hojo’s programming toward the end of Remake, turning him into a fully independent being. Now, he’s back in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and ready to help Cloud and Avalanche’s cause.
In Remake, Chadley served as a perfectly adequate character to talk to every now and again. Cloud could talk to him when he needed to, but he now plays a pretty big role in the larger world and gameplay in Rebirth. Toward the beginning of the game, he tasks Cloud with surveying each region by visiting different geographic locations — like a special spring or a cave dedicated to a summon — and scanning them with a device to collect data. Given that exploring each region and all the points forms a major part of the game, this forces players to interact with Chadley and hear his boring chatter frequently.
Image: Square Enix via Polygon
The scanning device Chadley gives Cloud doubles as a communications device that he can call Cloud up on at any moment. Chadley doesn’t talk every single time Cloud scans a new location, but he jabbers on about all kinds of random knowledge. If Cloud slashes a rock to find a Summon Sanctuary, he will give you background information on a god’s mythology. If Cloud scans a Lifespring or a tower, he might talk about any local regional phenomena. He frequently pops in with basic facts about the region, and then dips out. And his excited, pubescent voice doesn’t hold up well over long stretches.
Chadley functions as a living encyclopedia, but his prattling isn’t all that helpful. Something that I appreciated about Remake was how the developers showed us the way of the world. Little tasks, like going to another neighborhood, took additional quests to secure documents like ID cards and helped give a sense of Shrina’s tight grip on the city. We learned about the city by how it felt to play and the stories of characters. Now, Chadley is just used as a way to dump a bunch of decontextualized lore into a giant world. Sure, It’ll make great fodder for fan-run wiki pages down the line, but it doesn’t make for a compelling way to show us the larger world.
Luckily, there is at least one thing you can do to lower the overall Chadley levels in the game. The young savant largely talks through the built-in speaker on the PlayStation 5 controller, and you can mute it in the game settings. Unfortunately, this just means he’ll talk through the screen, but it at least minimizes any potential Chadley jump scares through the controller.
Overall, Chadley comes across as the annoying familiar that was never needed in the first place. The game has plenty of other, more interesting characters. Personally, I’d be more interested in learning more about what Red XIII has to say about a given desert landscape, or hearing what Barret thinks about the gods, rather than getting an encyclopedia-like entry on each topic via Chadley. So while I appreciate learning more about the larger world, I think I’d be better off without him.
Last Epoch’s offline mode is an awesome option if you’re sick of fighting with the game’s servers. However, the offline mode does create some additional issues for you depending on how you want to play the game.
In this Last Epoch guide, we’ll walk you through what offline mode is and tell you how to play offline.
What is offline mode in Last Epoch?
Image: Eleventh Hour Games
Offline mode in Last Epoch is exactly what it sounds like: It allows you to play the game without needing to connect to the servers. This is awesome when the game’s servers are experiencing instability (as has been common in the immediate wake of its late February 1.0 release). It’s also a useful tool if you find yourself without internet access for a long period of time.
However, offline mode does limit you in some very serious ways. Most notably, offline mode is a permanent decision you make at character creation. You can’t toggle a character online or offline — an offline character is offline forever. That means you can never use that character to play in groups with others.
How to play Last Epoch offline
Image: Eleventh Hour Games
In terms of activating offline mode, you have two options.
First you can launch the game in offline mode. This is an option you can select when you press “play” on Steam. Playing offline this way means you can bypass the login at the beginning, but you won’t be able to toggle between the two modes without relaunching the game.
The other option is a little more convenient, but requires an internet connection when you first boot up the game. In the character select screen, you’ll see an offline toggle at the top left part of the screen. Simply toggle that switch to “offline” and you’ll see your list of offline characters. If you turn on offline mode this way, you can still use the chat feature in-game to talk to friends — assuming you maintain an internet connection.
Rachel Lindsay and Jodi Walker begin this week’s Morally Corrupt by dissecting the idiotic comments made by Sandoval in his interview with The New York Times magazine (1:10). Then they launch into a recap of Vanderpump Rules Season 11, Episode 4 (12:30) and discuss the Season 13 finale of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (25:18), before Rachel is joined by Callie Curry to break down The Real Housewives of Miami Season 6 finale (41:26) and the Season 8 premiere of Summer House (54:25).
Ponce’s pollo guisado is a Puerto Rican classic. | Ponce Restaurant
Soups, stews, cookies, pancakes — and hot chicken wings to clear the sinuses
Winter is the season of sickness: stuffy noses, raw throats, throbbing sinuses, and queasy stomachs. The only sensible response is to crawl into bed and stay there until the illness passes. But a human cannot live on NyQuil alone. Here’s a guide to dishes at Chicago restaurants that may not be able to cure everything that ails you but can certainly make recovery more pleasant.
Patrons who are ill or experiencing symptoms can help keep hospitality workers safe by arranging for contact-free takeout and delivery.
This week on Guilty Pleasures, Jodi and Juliet talk through their feelings about the whirlwind-like quality and the “genius and camp” of Jennifer Lopez’s new movie This Is Me … Now, based on her album of the same name, which tells the story of her journey to love through her own eyes.
Hosts: Juliet Litman and Jodi Walker Producer: Jade Whaley
The pizza game isn’t easy in Old Town, a neighborhood with a sizable number of transplants without any ties to Chicago’s pizza lore. This has allowed chains like Papa John’s and Domino’s to thrive in a town with plenty of local options.
With its unique Quad Cities thin crusts and special chef approved-toppings, Roots Handmade Pizza, 1610 N. Wells Street, entered the neighborhood in September 2019, and months into its debut the state’s COVID restrictions quickly altered operations: “We opened at a terrible time,” Fifty/50 Restaurant Group co-founder Greg Mohr says.
Adobo Grill was the previous tenant and relocated around the corner after a 2015 fire. Longtime Chicagoans may remember the Victorian home built in 1872. Its most famous tenant was That Steak Joynt, a restaurant that opened in 1962 and closed in 1997. The second floor was supposedly home to numerous seances with folks believing the space to be haunted. The building’s history includes surviving the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
But after four years, Roots didn’t click as much as Mohr and co-founder Scott Weiner wanted. Fifty/50 is also involved as the food and beverage provider for Second City, whose legendary comedy theater is next door. They needed to try something new, and that’s how Anthony Scardino got involved. Scardino is a veteran Chicago pizzaiolo known as Professor Pizza.
Sometime in March, Fifty/50 will close Roots Old Town. Fans of Quad Cities Pizza will still be able to get their fix of the thin pies that Mohr grew up eating (they’re cut into strips with puffy edges and a malty crust) at Roots Printer’s Row and the original in West Town. Scardino, who since 2023 has been operating out of Tetto, a rooftop bar in West Loop, will take over. Yes, Professor Pizza is now a full-blown restaurant.
“I think this is the most incremental pizza story in Chicago — we’re finally opening a brick and mortar,” says Scardino.
While crews spruce up the space, Professor Pizza will launch with carryout and delivery. The plan is to open the new restaurant in late April. Mohr reiterated that while the space doesn’t need a major renovation — the space won’t be closed to the public for a long duration — Morh doesn’t want folks to feel the only difference between Roots and the new restaurant is the menu: “The goal is to make sure this place, this space, is transformed into Professor Pizza — it’s his concept, his vision.”
Having worked for Paulie Gee’s in Logan Square and Dough Bros. in River North, Scardino is proud of his pizzas. He’s a familiar figure on the pizza festival circuit, not that 2024 will necessarily be fruitful in that aspect. He’s been more interested in finding the right situation and partners to open a restaurant. His story is similar to Henry Cai’s at 3 Little Pigs (the two are friends and worked out of the same Humboldt Park ghost kitchen). Both pop-up shops have gone through multiple locations and flirted with signing leases. Cai continues to work from Molly’s Cupcakes’ kitchen in the South Loop.
Scardino is excited to show Chicagoans what he can do beyond pizza. He says the menu at Tetto is a “truncated version of where our passions truly lie and what we feel we can truly represent from a culinary standpoint.” They’re moving from a kitchen as big as a closet to a “dream kitchen.” The menu will be built out with pastas, sandwiches, and appetizers. Scardino isn’t ready to share details, but he’s excited. As a proud Italian American, he’s got several ideas.
For fans of Roots, cover your eyes — the pizzeria’s famed cheese sticks aren’t making the cut. Professor Pizza wants to be a truly different experience thanks to Scardino’s curiosity and research of various pizza styles from Chicago thin, New York, Detroit, and Grandma style. Part of the fun will be working with Fifty/50’s pastry chef Chris Texiera. The two speak the same language when it comes to bread and the fermentation process. The two are open to experimenting with doughs, which can provide delicious results. Scardino has already been experimenting with dough from deep-dish titan Gino’s East, using it for a special pizza made in a cast iron pan. Having a stable location will allow Scardino to offer more collaborations.
But back to the cheese sticks, Scardino says he has something brewing: “I have something on the menu that pays homage to them for sure,” he says.
Profesor Pizza will continue carry out and delivery out of the West Loop until further notice, he says. They’ll also have at least one more summer season outside at Tetto. He’s still evaluating his options.
Upstairs, Fifty/50’s rooftop bar — Utopian Tailgate — has been hibernating for the winter. The menus will remain separate. But the bigger news is a possible collaboration with Second City. Comedy fans might eventually have a chance to snag a slice of pizza before or during a show. The idea of a slice shop has been bantered about, but there’s nothing firm.
“It makes a lot of sense to me, certainly, but our first priority is making sure the restaurant itself is doing everything it needs to be doing,” Scardino says.
The professor describes comedy as one of his core passions. He’s spent a lot of effort in sending over pizzas to nationally touring comics when they’re in town, names like Sebastian Maniscalco, J.B. Smoove, and Kevin James. Moving close to downtown Chicago should open more opportunities to work with comic talent through Second City, down Wells Street at Zanies, or at United Center, Chicago Theater and other venues.
Scardino says he’s grown into the nickname; it was never his goal to turn the moniker into a brand. Mohr is struck by Scardino’s genuineness.
“This isn’t a made-up concept — this is him… it’s not an act,” Mohr says.
Professor Pizza, 1610 N. Wells Street, takeout to debut in late March or early April; dining room to open in late April
New York City-based hospitality brand The Group continues its splashy Chicago expansion with the launch of Parisian brasserie La Grande Boucherie, a restaurant trying to channel the joie de vie of La Belle Epoque-era France parked in the prominent former two-level home of Ruth’s Chris Steak House in River North which has remained vacant for nearly three and a half years.
Poised to open on Saturday, February 17 at 431 N. Dearborn Street, La Grande Boucherie is the second of three new restaurant projects The Group has planned for Chicago. It follows the late 2023 entrance of Olio e Più, a spacious trattoria perched just steps away from its French sister spot, and precedes the unveiling of intimate 10-seat sushi counter Omakase Room projected for the spring. That’s not to be confused with the Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises venue inside Sushi-San River North the bears the same name.
Design renderings show off the enormous scale.La Grande Boucherie
The New York restaurant made a cameo in Sex and the City reboot And Just Like That… La Grande Boucherie
Boka Restaurant Group attempted to usher a new age of French dining in River North when it opened Le Select in January 2023, but it closed 10 months later. Now, a new contender has emerged where Ruth’s Chris spent nearly 28 years; it closed in October 2020, mostly due to deflated downtown traffic during the pandemic.
The Group invested around $1.5 million to build and install a new facade for the Dearborn Street building, replacing the steak chain’s unremarkable beige brick with a soaring, scrollwork-gilded stone exterior that’s outfitted with 25-foot windows. Despite the time and cost involved, founder Emil Stefkov feels the juice is well worth the squeeze. “It was a super ugly building that we transformed into a jewel, so I’m very happy [and] very proud of it,” he says. “[It’s] literally another landmark building in Chicago.”
At a whopping 10,120 square feet, La Grande Boucherie Chicago is The Group’s largest restaurant, outpacing even the New York original, which seats up to 600 and spans half the length of 6 1/2 Avenue in Manhattan. The massive construction project extended to the building’s interior, where workers gutted the structure to create a grandiose ground floor and mezzanine with curved vaulted ceilings, custom mosaic tile floors, and a century-old French glass mural featuring a scene from a Paris cafe — a collection piece that survived the Nazi bombardment of Paris during World War II.
Stefkov and New York-based designer Julien Legeard (Olio e Più) tapped French and Chicago crews to create the restaurant’s most prominent element — a 40-seat, 82-foot-long oval-shaped pewter bar crafted with 200-year-old metalworking techniques. That’s where bartenders will lavish special attention on absinthe, a famed symbol of Parisian decadence, served out of traditional fountains. Drinkers can expect around a dozen varieties of absinthe as well as cocktails starring the so-called Green Fairy, a drink favored by Ernest Hemingway. Even happy hour gets the absinthe treatment, as La Grande aims to resurrect the 18th-century tradition of the green hour.
For some local color, the team has brought in Chicago bartender Tim Williams of Pour Souls to design the cocktail and absinthe menus (he also created the drinks for Olio e Più) and partnered with modern Jewish deli Steingold’s of Chicago, which will furnish smoked salmon for La Grande’s menu.
The Chicago outpost’s food menu will strongly resemble that of its older sister restaurant with a focus on brasserie classics (think French onion soup and escargot) alongside a raw bar and large cuts of meat including chateaubriand for two and plateu de boucher, a “meat-lovers plate” featuring several cuts that can feed up to four. The Group sources its beef from Idaho’s Snake River Farms and ages it on-site.
Chargers are big, nasty bugs in Helldivers 2, and you’ll need to take out multiple of them if you want to complete some Personal Orders (as of this writing, it’s “Strain Culling”) and pick up extra Medals.
In this Helldivers 2 guide, we’ll tell you where to find Chargers and give you some bonus tips on how to deal with them.
Where to find Chargers in Helldivers 2
Image: Arrowhead Game Studios
Chargers aren’t the first “mini-boss” style enemy you’ll encounter in Helldivers 2, but they’re the first that should really scare you. They have loads of armor, are very fast once they charge, and even their weak spot can take a ton of punishment. But we’ll get to how to kill them later; first, you need to actually find a Charger.
Chargers only seem to appear in missions that are rated Medium difficulty or above (meaning you’ll have to work your way up through the difficulties by clearing easier missions first). However, even on Medium you’ll only really find Chargers in missions that ask you to specifically kill Chargers. And while that can be useful, none of the Chargers I killed on the Medium difficulty counted for “Strain Culling.” That could have something to do with the server issues at the time of this writing, but your best bet regardless is to play on the difficulty above Medium: Challenging.
Starting on Challenging difficulty, Chargers will just show up in nests or when you’re trying to complete an objective. They seem to spawn more frequently when you’re in a group (which can be difficult given the aforementioned server issues). Just keep playing missions on Challenging and hunting down nests. You should find all the Chargers you need in just a handful of missions.
How to kill a Charger in Helldivers 2
Image: Arrowhead Game Studios
So, you’ve found some Chargers, but now you have to actually deal with them. I won’t lie to you, until you and your squad have a handle on how Helldivers 2 really works, a Charger is probably going to kill one or two of you unless you’re very well-equipped or extremely careful.
But that actually leads us to one of our first big tips for Chargers or any big enemies: Drop directly on them. Yes, that’s right, you can drop your respawn pod on top of a bug and they’ll explode. It’s not worth the revive if you can kill the Charger another way, but if you’re already pulling in a reinforcement, do your best to squish the Charger on your way in. It’s a pretty fast way to end any fight.
Now you’re not going to squish a Charger every time you kill one, so it’s important to have other tactics. First, you can just shoot it in its big, glowing ass. The Charger is heavily armored at the front, but its back is exposed. Shred it with a turret or your own personal heavy machine gun. You can, of course, just use your primary assault rifle or pistol, but on Challenging and above, it’s going to take a long time if you do that.
You can also destroy the Charger’s armor with something like the Recoilless Rifle. Now this is a great option if you can consistently get two to three shots onto the same spot on the bug, as the Recoilless Rifle and other armor-piercing weapons seem to be better at punching a hole through armor and finishing the job that way than raw damage against already exposed weak points.
Your best bet for Chargers, however, is to simply blow them to hell with Stratagems before they even get the chance to see you. They’re big — big enough that you can spot them in their nest before they spot you. And, until they’re threatened, they move pretty slow. You and your group can use this to your advantage by dropping Orbital Strikes, Eagle Strafing Runs, and all other kinds of Stratagems on top of the Charger. If you can score a direct hit, you’ll probably kill it before it even gets the chance to chase you.
Season 3 of The Bear, the critically acclaimed TV series that has showcased many of Chicago’s most popular restaurants, should release in June, according to FX. The network’s chairman, John Landgraf, confirmed the time frame during the Television Critics Association winter press tour last week.
Season 2 and its 10 episodes were released all at once on June 22, 2023 on Hulu. Season 3’s news follows that template. Since then, the series has garnered 10 Emmys and three Golden Globes. After enduring the ire of some Chicagoans for its depiction of the city in Season 1, where some natives railed about inaccuracies, creator and suburban native Christopher Storer and his team began Season 2 as a love letter to the city with plenty of pretty shots of the city and cameos from chefs and restaurant owners.
The show moved away from Italian beef in Season 2 and focused on the opening of an upscale neighborhood restaurant. A handful of local chefs told Eater Chicago that TV reps approached them to see if they were interested in cameos in Season 2; there’s no shortage of possibilities in terms of filming locations. Eater Chicago has some opinions on where the show should go in Season 3. Perhaps they’ll also include a certain rodent-shaped crevice.
Two Chicagoans featured on Top Chef Wisconsin
In more TV news, a pair of local chefs will appear on Season 21 of Top Chef, set in Chicago’s mostly pleasant neighbors to the north, Wisconsin. Get ready for national writers to parachute in and Columbus supper clubs as the TV show heads to Madison and Milwaukee. The season premieres on March 20 and Bravo with Alisha Elenz (last seen at Bambola in Fulton Market) and Kaleena Bliss. Elenz won a local Jean Banchet Award for her work at Mfk in Lakeview. Bliss recently moved to Chicago from Seattle where she worked as executive chef at the Thompson Seattle hotel and its flagship food and beverage offering, Conversation. Bliss also won Chopped Casino Royale. She’s now the executive chef at Chicago Athletic Association. Like the Thompson, it’s a Hyatt property.
Dark Matter Gives Skeletor Some Love
Yes, the world of He-Man is set in Eternia (which perhaps is as fictional a realm as River North was to viewers as Season 1 of The Bear). But the ‘80s cartoon, a series created as a way to sell toys to kids, has made a comeback via Netflix. The latest installment, titled Masters of the Universe: Revolution, dropped in late January, and Chicago’s very own Dark Matter Coffee has released a coffee with toy maker Mattel. “Skeletor Blood” features gorgeous art from Dark Matter’s Jourdon Gullett. Beer fans may recognize his work on bottles for Solemn Oath Brewery. Dark Matter is also selling coffee mugs with the art: “This caffeinated concoction permeates dark chocolate and luscious fruit, fueling the evil lord of destruction to accomplish universal domination.” The mug, canned cold coffee, and 12-ounce bags of beans are available online and at stores.
Maybe the ancient ritual will help. Checked on her two hrs ago. Got worried and went back to check on her again since she went to the hospital friday. Now im waiting in the ER as the condition i found her in was much worse. Anybody got some cat memes i can disassociate with? Ill update later today.
I saw a post about a follow tubby getting ripped in two years. There was a debate in the comments on if he was using roids or not. This is me losing 43kg and 4 pant sizes in 6 months just following what I heard from a free audio book I got called bigger leaner stronger. 100% natural going to the gym 3 days a week. Not looking for thumbs just trying to help show natty vs not.
Callie Curry jumps in as guest host for today’s Morally Corrupt, and she begins our episode by chatting with Jodi about her recent experience seeing Ariana Madix sing and dance in Chicago on Broadway (1:27). Then, Callie and Jodi move on to recap Season 11, Episode 2 of Vanderpump Rules (16:49) and Season 13, Episode 15 of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (43:29). Finally, Callie is joined by Rachel Lindsay to break down Season 6, Episode 15 of The Real Housewives of Miami (1:02:29).
It’s telling that in Chicago, Fat Tuesday — the day before Lenten Season begins, this year on Tuesday, February 13 — is generally referred to as Paczki Day. Weighing in at around 400 calories each, the Polish pastries inevitably whip up excitement among fans who form long lines, sometimes in the wee hours of the morning, to snag paczki by the dozen in a wide array of classic and contemporary flavors.
Amid all the paczki pandemonium, however, lie Fat Tuesday specialties from a variety of ethnic groups that now call Chicago home. In Andersonville, the city’s historic Swedish American enclave, a lauded local pastry chef is shining a spotlight on the Scandinavian tradition of the semla, a rich yet delicate sweet roll also known as fettisdagsbulle, literally “Fat Tuesday bun.”
Pastry chef Bobby Schaffer brings fine dining style to Swedish semlor.
As in the case of many Fat Tuesday treats, modern semlor (the plural of semla) evolved significantly from their original form. Historically, semlor simply referred to bread rolls floating in warm milk, a combination also dubbed hetvagg. In an ominous anecdote, 18th-century Swedish King Adolf Fredrick is said to have died after wrapping up a hearty, boozy meal with 14 servings of the dish. Today, typical semlor are small, baked yeast buns enriched with butter and egg, flavored with cardamom, stuffed with almond paste and whipped cream, and finally, dusted with powdered sugar. Sweden’s neighboring countries feature regional variations, such as Finnish laskiaispulla and Danish and Norwegian fastelavnsboller.
Bobby Schaffer (Grace, Blue Hill at Stone Barns), has made a name for himself in the city with his contemporary takes on Swedish pastry traditions at Lost Larson, his stylish bakeries and cafes with modern minimalist Swedish vibes in Andersonville and Wicker Park. The seasonal item has a crowd of eager adherents who start peppering Schaffer with questions about availability “as soon as January hits,” he says. This year’s lineup blends old and new, juxtaposing a traditional version with playful semlor, including one stuffed with raspberry jam and topped with raspberry whipped cream and a spin on bananas foster. They’re available to walk-in customers through Monday, February 12 in both Andersonville and Wicker Park, and online pre-orders are open for pickup on Fat Tuesday in Andersonville.
Lost Larson’s team starts the process by making cardamom brioche dough.
Like paczki, semlor are an opulent treat for those about to start the Lenten season.
The dough is then left to ferment overnight.
Each semla will receive its own little brioche “hat.”
The concept of fun and funky semlor is a full-on phenomenon in Sweden, says Karin Moen Abercrombie, executive director of Andersonville’s Swedish American Museum. In Stockholm, famed 90-year-old coffeehouse Vete-Katten typically sells around 14,000 semlor ahead of Lent each year. “Today, there’s almost a competition between bakeries of who makes the best semlor,” she says.
Schaffer had his first taste of semlor in January 2018 during a trip to Stockholm with his sister ahead of Lost Larson’s debut in Andersonville. His memories of the encounter, which unfolded in a “very old-school” bakery in Sweden’s capital, are vivid: “The texture of the cream [was] so soft, and hitting that layer of almond paste gives it a chewy, unctuous texture,” he says. “It’s very satisfying to dig into one of those.”
The “hats” are back.
Schaffer scales back the sweetness of the whipped cream to balance with powdered sugar.
Back in Chicago, he had a serious task on his hands with the debut of his stylish bakery and cafe with modern minimalist Swedish vibes. The Swedish Bakery, a neighborhood icon for more than eight decades, had closed the year prior in 2017, and residents made plain their high expectations of Schaffer’s endeavor. Given his recent semlor meet cute, Schaffer was eager to introduce his version and included them on his opening menu, which happened to arrive in June.
“I was a little overly exuberant to start making them,” he says, laughing. “I was quickly scolded by [Abercrombie] that it was not semla season… I didn’t want to start by offending Swedish people.”
Abercrombie, a Swedish immigrant who has spent nearly 40 years in Chicago, doesn’t remember her first semla but does recall eating them with warm milk (a la King Fredrick, though in smaller quantities) as a girl. For her, the Swedish Bakery’s closure struck close to home. “They were the ones, for many of us, who connected us back to our home country and childhood memories.”
Each bun undergoes a little surgery.
Almond paste is a popular flavor in Swedish pastries and baked goods.
Despite its more contemporary approach, Lost Larson’s dedication to Swedish baking and pastry — as well as Schaffer’s openness to feedback from the community — have played vital roles in maintaining Swedish American culture in the city. The museum will also feature semlor in its pop-up cafe on Fat Tuesday, but for Abercrombie and Schaffer, it’s not about competition. “We all have to work together because if we don’t support each other, none of us will survive,” she says.
GTA Online runs on money. That’s why there are no cheats for it in the game. (There are, however, cheats in GTA V proper.)
Everything you want to do in GTA Online costs money — basically, everything from a high-end car to the real estate you need to start a new type of event is going to cost you just shy of GTA$2,000,000.
Our guide on how to make money in GTA Online will tell you everything you need to know to get rich quick in Los Santos. Well, quick-ish.
Be patient
The answer to the question “how do you make money in GTA Online?” is slowly. What you do to earn cash is really a question of how much time and effort you want to put in. More time and effort means more money.
Image: Rockstar Games
Very few things you can do are going to earn you millions of GTA$ per hour (or even day) — especially if you’re playing solo. Saving up enough for that new car, submarine, or business is going to be a big time investment.
How to make a little money fast in GTA Online
These activities aren’t going to change your life, but they’ll be enough to refill your ammo or buy some health-replenishing snacks.
Steal a car and sell it at a Los Santos Customs. You’ll only make a few thousand GTA$ and you can only do it a few times a day, but it’s a quick and easy way to make a little cash.
Participate in events around Los Santos. Things like races will earn you up to about GTA$5,000 each for 10 minutes of effort.
Rob a store. Head into any store and point a gun at the cashier, and you’ll walk away with a couple thousand GTA$ (and a wanted level or two).
Watch for weekly 2x and 3x events
Each week, certain events and activities pay out double or even triple GTA$. You can check our weekly guide to see what this week’s are. Depending on the week, you might even get free money just for logging in — like this week’s GTA$188,888 for Lunar New Year.
How to make money in GTA Online every day
Image: Rockstar Games
Beyond the big things (below), you can also get yourself a steady income just by doing certain things every day. Things like:
Spin the wheel at the Diamond Casino. You’ve got about a 20% chance of winning between GTA$20,000 and 50,000. You’ve also got a chance to win a car that changes weekly.
Empty the safes of your legitimate businesses. Your businesses like the bar in your motorcycle club clubhouse or salvage yard will earn some cash every day and store it in the safe. You’ll have to visit each one to pick it up, though.
Find G’s cache. Gerald will drop a package that will earn you roughly GTA$20,000 in cache cash each day. The location changes, though, so you’ll have to do some driving to find it.
Clear stash houses. Each day, you’ll also find one stash house somewhere in Los Santos that you can clear of enemies for Gerard. Once you find the combination and open the safe, you just have to flee the scene. You’ll be rewarded with a little GTA$ and, just as importantly, you’ll get supplies for one of your businesses.
Buy businesses and facilities to unlock new ways to make money
Most activities that make you money in GTA Online require you to own a specific kind of business or facility and the cost of entry to just about all of them is between GTA$1,000,000 and 2,000,000.
Image: Rockstar Games
But, just remember, each time you buy a new piece of real estate or new business, you unlock another way to make money. And keep an eye on the weekly updates — each week a property (or type of property) goes on sale for 30% off.
Agencies unlock Security Contracts and Payphone Hits
Your apartment gets you access to heists (which is where you’ll make the most money)
Auto shops unlock Auto Shop Services, Contracts, and Exotic Exports
Bunkers (or facilities) unlock the Gunrunning business
Clubhouses unlock MC Contracts and MC Work (and a bar)
Hangars unlock the Air Freight Cargo business
Nightclubs allow you to store additional good from other businesses and make money on their own
Offices unlock Special Cargo, Vehicle Cargo, Special Vehicle missions
Salvage yards unlock Salvage Yard Robberies and the Tow Truck Service
The best activities for a lot of money in GTA Online
With the right properties and a good crew (or a lucky roll of the rando pool), you can make a lot of money pretty quickly in GTA Online by focusing on the best paying events.
Heists are multi-step events that will take you about an hour to complete, give or take. They’re also the best payout you’ll get in the game, with rewards ranging from GTA$100,000 to 4,000,000.
Salvage Yard Roberies work a lot like heists, but they’re doable with only one person. They’ll earn you GTA$200,000 to 300,000 for about an hour of work.
Police are investigating at least three attacks on buildings in the Napier CBD early on Wednesday morning.
In separate incidents, targeting front entrances, with no entry gained and all thought to be between 3am and 4am, a man using a rubbish bin smashed a window at fledgling business Cuteney’s Cakes in Dalton St, while a beam was smashed into a window at The Rose Irish Pub in Hastings St and another window beside the Brown St entrance of Waiapu Cathedral.
CCTV captured two of the offences being committed, but it was not clear if the same person was involved or if the incidents were related.
Boutique cake-shop proprietor Courtney Booth has had her business up and running just four months and was stunned when she was advised of the damage, but ultimately asked “Why ?” when it became apparent that the hit, by an apparently shoeless man at 3am, appeared to be nothing other than a random assault by an angry man.
The scene on Wednesday morning in Dalton St, Napier after Cuteney’s Cakes was the target of early-morning vandalism. Photo / Caron Copek
It was to have been the shop’s first Wednesday open, a trial run for Valentine’s Day next week, and the doors were closed for the day. A recent ram-raid victim provided their no-longer-needed boarding-up frame to cover the frontage until a glass firm had the window replaced by mid-afternoon.
The cake shop would reopen for its market-friendly midday-8pm hours on Thursday. It opens 10am-9pm Friday…
The Pokémon Company’s life-size Psyduck is back. It’s up for preorder on The Pokémon Center United States-based store, just weeks after it was restocked on the Japanese site. The Pokémon Company originally released its 31-inch Psyduck plush back in 2020, a blessing to Pokémon fans during the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. It’s been back in stock a few times before, and here it is again, with perfect timing with Netflix’s Pokémon Concierge, starring Psyduck.
Psyduck remains exactly the same as it was then, both stunning and perpetually stunned by its chronic headaches. (Psyduck is a migraine-haver’s icon.) Psyduck measures 31 inches in its Pokédex entry, making the big yellow duck true to life. The only problem is that it’s $324.99 — $45 more expensive than it was in 2020. That’s inflation for you.
The good news, though, is that you now can read user reviews to tell you how awesome owning a life-size Psyduck is:
Words cannot express how pleased I am with this massive Psyduck. Truly, massive. I’m thrilled that he finally came back in stock, and I had no qualms about purchasing him this time around. He shows up in random places around the house and it’s always a shock at first when I see him (most definitely he is using his confusion attack) but then a calmness quickly washes over me, and I feel comfort in knowing that he too, is confused all the time. Be aware that the shipping box is quite large, and says Psyduck on the outside, so don’t let him sit unattended for too long or someone else might try to capture him! He is way too rare and precious. Trust me – buy him and you will not regret it!! PS…he looks fantastic in hats.
There are actually two four star reviews out of the total 70 — the rest are top scores. The main gripe is that Psyduck is a little top heavy, so it falls over relatively easily. But for the most part, Psyduck has been worth the purchase for many Pokémon fans:
He is incredibly rotund and looks confused and distressed at all times, it’s like looking into a mirror! I couldn’t bring myself to place Psyduck on the floor so he takes up half my bed instead. A small price to pay for Psyduck to watch over me while I dream about an Appletun plush restock.
Also, Psyduck came in a box that was not discrete at all. Anyone will be able to read in big bold letters that a 31” Psyduck plush is inside so be ready to intercept the package once it is dropped off otherwise Team Rocket might steal him away.
The Pokémon Company expects to start shipping this new batch of yellow ducks in October. If you can’t wait until then but don’t care about what big Pokémon you have, a tall Lucario, big round Spheal, and massive Wailord are all in stock. In the past, The Pokémon Company’s sold big Mareeps, Slowpokes, and Gigantamax Pikachus among several other large dudes.
Civic leaders are disappointed a central Auckland commercial building site linked to a wealthy Singapore family remains undeveloped more than a year after buildings were demolished.
But Peter Wall, who works for the Kum family, said plans were being made and they are actively seeking an anchor tenant to turn the site into a vibrant commercial precinct.
The old Food Alley and ex-Yates building site between Federal St, Wolfe St and Albert St in the centre of Auckland CBD stands empty, most of its buildings demolished, the block fenced with barbed wire on top to stop people getting into it.
The Kum family, which also owns Auckland’s Hilton Hotel, had Ward Demolition remove buildings on part of the Auckland central-city block but work finished 15 months ago.
A large pile of bricks is on the Albert St side. Buildings that do remain are open to the elements and covered in graffiti, giving an unsightly effect.
Auckland Council’s Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson said it was very sad the site had been left in that state for so long.
“Auckland deserves better,” Simpson said of the 4371sq m block.
The Albert St site where buildings have been demolished in the central city. Photo / Chris Keall
Councillor Chris Darby, who commutes from the North Shore via ferry, said it was a blight on the landscape: “So much opportunity beckons with that site. It’s so disappointing to see promise not realised and a wasteland becoming permanent.
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