Café du Pays Celebrates Sugaring Season With a Maple Bonanza

Welcome back to AM Intel, a round-up of mini news bites to kick off the day.

Sugar Shack, Baby, Sugar Shack

Maple sugaring season has arrived, and Café du Pays (233 Cardinal Medeiros Ave., Kendall Square, Cambridge) is celebrating with a special sugar shack menu, available today, March 20, through April 8. These special menu additions are available a la carte or as a prix fixe meal. Options include pancakes with maple confit apple and pork belly; morels on a stick with rabbit and foie mousse and maple glaze; sap brined pork loin with Marfax beans, red onion, and parsley; crèpe cake with coffee cream, sap pickled rhubarb, maple candied almonds, and brown butter caramel; and more. Plus, there will be Botanical Springs/Café du Pays bottles of maple syrup available for sale.

Free Ice Cream

Spring is here, and today is Free Cone Day at Dairy Queen, which has a number of locations around Massachusetts. The fine print: Participating non-mall locations will give each customer one small vanilla cone. One per person, while supplies last. Donations accepted for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals.

Free Burritos

Today is the grand opening for the first two US locations of Zambrero, an Australian burrito-chain-with-a-mission: one in Cambridge’s Harvard Square (71 Mount Auburn St.) and one in Warwick, Rhode Island (1000 Bald Hill Rd.). Each is serving 1,000 free burritos today in celebration of the opening. Take a look back at yesterday’s feature for a sneak peek inside the Cambridge space. In partnership with international hunger relief non-profit organization Rise Against Hunger, the chain donates one meal for every burrito or bowl sold. Zambrero is aiming to donate one billion meals by 2025; it has donated over 20 million to date, since first opening 13 years ago.

Another Jazz Club Won’t Open in the Ryles Space for at Least 30 Years

With the closure of Inman Square institution Ryles Jazz Club (212 Hampshire St., Cambridge) looming, sadness has turned to anger for some fans due to a deed restriction tied to the sale: The space can’t be “used as a restaurant, bar, eatery, coffee shop, gourmet food shop or music venue for a period of 30 years.” The owners, who are also behind S&S Restaurant across the street, have said that the buyer is “retail in nature.” Although the historic space will apparently become a store of some kind, Ryles may live on elsewhere under new ownership — the current owners are working to sell the name separately.

RIP

Chef Robert Jean, owner of Pig Tale Restaurant in Nashua, New Hampshire, has died at 51. Jean was a familiar face in the Boston restaurant industry, having been at the helm of multiple restaurants in the Columbus Hospitality Group (Sorellina, Teatro, L’Andana Grill) and in the Alpine Restaurant Group (Posto, Painted Burro) before opening his own restaurant, Pig Tale, in 2015; it will celebrate its third anniversary this June. Find information regarding visiting hours and a fund for his young children here.

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