CHICAGO — Is it just us or did this week feel long? We blame daylight savings. If you were moving in slow motion this week, here are some stories you may have missed.
• Scalpers drew gasps from Deadheads when tickets to the Grateful Dead's farewell shows over Fourth of July weekend hit the Internet at sky-high prices. Now, some fans are hoping ticket prices drop as the show nears.
"My gut says ticket [prices] are going to go down," TickPick data analyst Jackson Riso told us. "But what we've seen with big events that people go nuts over, it's honestly impossible to tell."
• All those corned beef specials around St. Patrick's Day aren't so Irish after all:
"People think of corned beef as Irish, but beef was not traditionally eaten in Ireland. Pork was," said Jeanne Carlson, executive chef at Mrs. Murphy & Sons Irish Bistro, 3905 N. Lincoln Ave. She's been researching Irish cooking trends and food history.
"People do have preconceived notions of what Irish food is," she said. "Once I started delving into it, it was pretty exciting."
Among her discoveries: Seaweed, which is more typically associated with Asian cuisine, is frequently incorporated into dishes along Ireland's coastal regions.
• Al's Beef opened in Texas and people went BANANAS for it.
“We had people in line ordering $600 and $700 of food on a single ticket. And there would be six of those orders in line at the same time,” Al’s Beef marketing director Brian Curry said. “I was there. It took 45 minutes to an hour to get a beef sandwich. Guys ordered 50 tamales. We couldn’t even keep that many tamales warm. People didn’t care, they asked for them frozen.”
• We launched "Chicago Reviewed" this week. It's a series where we'll curate portions of some of the more bizarre reviews of Chicago landmarks, parks and streets. We started with Buckingham Fountain, which some Yelpers described as "kinda cool looking" fountain with great bathrooms.
• Unpaid taxes closed a popular restaurant/bar that catered to crowds for more than a decade on the UIC campus, state officials said Tuesday.
Morgan's on Maxwell, a University Village bar that drew big crowds for Blackhawks games and other sporting events, closed in October. A sign on the door at Halsted and Maxwell streets still reads: "Morgan's is closed and will not be reopening."
• Mayor Rahm Emanuel lashed out at Gov. Bruce Rauner Thursday for freezing funds designated for ongoing city park projects, including parts of the much-anticipated Bloomingdale Trail.
According to the mayor's press office, the state Department of Natural Resources moved late Wednesday to freeze $28 million in state grants set to go to the Chicago Park District.
A LOT of city parks will be impacted by the cuts. Check out the full list here.
• Earlier this week, we talked about dog poop and other weird stuff that surfaced in Chicago after the citywide snowmelt.
Now we know how the city cleans it all up.
As of Thursday, the city had handled 75 complaints about dog feces found in backyards, front lawns and parkways, said Molly Poppe, spokeswoman for the Department of Streets and Sanitation.
Whenever the city receives a dog feces complaint, it sends the ward superintendent to the home to tell the residents to clean it up, Poppe said.
• Some critics said Chiditarod organizers were two days late in addressing racist costumes at Saturday's shopping cart race by issuing an apology Monday and not stepping in sooner.
But it turned out that this has been a problem at the race in the past. Organizers vowed to address the issue, but the whole thing frustrated some Chicagoans.
"This was in the public space where people, kids could see this, these guys walking around making fun of black people, rape, suicide, transgender people" Chicago food and drink writer Audarshia Townsend told us. "It's just not going to be tolerated. This is not a time where people are quiet and afraid of speaking out. I'm going to do everything in my power to shut s--- like this down."
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