Downtown Champaign’s first Ethiopian restaurant has set an official opening date. The new Blue Ethiopian Cuisine & Cafe will ...

Ted’s Café at the Beckman Institute has re-opened in 2025 after a two-year hiatus for a renovation. The café was named after Beckman’s founding Director, Ted Brown, a proponent of community offered by ...

This year has felt a little like the WORST, huh? So much of 2025 has been a dumpster fire. It’s not just the antics of the federal government. It’s corporate greed. It’s IRL trolls. So let’s lean into ...

Doesn’t everyone love a good bang for the buck? Especially during December. This notoriously spendy time of year makes treating oneself tricky with the holidays and people to present with presents.

This week is the last week of publishing for the year on Smile Politely, and I want to end 2025’s Thirsty Thursday column with drink that’ll keep us warm on the cold weeks ahead. This week, I’m ...

Curious about the buzz surrounding the new restaurant Sumo Kitchen, I did what anybody would do and looked up what they had on their website. With a sumo wrestler as mascot, I read that the guiding ...

This January, the town’s most famous barbecue restaurant will close its Urbana location (again). Black Dog Smoke & Ale House reopened its original location on Broadway Avenue earlier this year after ...

A year ago, when we published this annual article, we were post-2024 elections facing the terrifying uncertainty of what the next administration would bring us. Well, we know how all of that has ...

Before the hustle and bustle of the end of the year wears us out so much that we prepare to hunker down after the new year, get out and make some friends with whom to keep in touch. Experience ...

Mark the calendar for Champaign-Urbana’s Restaurant Week 2026. The nine-day celebration of local restaurants will be from Friday, January 30th through Saturday, February 7th. I asked the person who’s ...