You may have noticed that the weather has taken a bit of a turn the past couple days.

That's actually a bit warmer than the lowest reading of -16 we had in Rockford earlier Wednesday morning.

Hoth-like temperatures in Rockford gets you thinking about warm foods. I had a craving for meatloaf earlier this week, which is odd because I don't particularly like meatloaf and haven't had it in years. But when your car reads negative temperatures on consecutive days, it can effect your appetite.

NOTE: After typing this sentence I realized that I might have subliminally been effected by the passing of Meatloaf last week. Which, additional side note, everyone remembered him from Fight Club, and rightfully so, he was great in it, but no one talks about one of his better cameos, The Pick of Destiny. He plays the father of a young Jack Black that hates rock music. There's a little bit of bad language in the below video, but if you can handle that, it's definitely worth it.

Anyway, back to the cold weather and hot chocolate.

The North End District in Rockford is having a Hot Chocolate Crawl this Saturday at several establishments in the area.

A similar event has been going on in Rockton with great success, so it's probably going to work in Rockford as well.

The concept is pretty simple, various restaurants and businesses in the North End District will be selling or giving away hot chocolate all day to encourage people to visit the historic area of Rockford.

Some of the business participating are:

  • Stockyard Burger Rock Bar
  • Whiskey's Roadhouse
  • Rooted
  • Fiesta Tequila
  • Village Green North
  • Rockford Family Dental
  • The Noregian
  • Mulligan's
  • The Olympic Tavern

In addition to hot chocolate, if anyone that participates in the crawl sends a picture of a receipt to rockfordnorthend@gmail.com, they'll be entered to win prize packs that include gift certificates to North End restaurants, clothes from one of the above businesses, prize packs, and more.

It'll be about 30 degrees warmer on Saturday than it was on Wednesday so don't think you can't handle a little chill.

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