If you’re still working from home, take advantage of a change of scenery at Union Station.
This month, the Downtown Raleigh Alliance (DRA) and the Warehouse District’s transit hub are offering a new, socially distanced Outdoor Office setup that will look a bit different than the one from last year. Instead of a conference-type layout, smaller tables from commercial furniture store Alfred Williams & Company, placed at least six feet apart, will offer workspace for groups of two to three people as well as single-person tables, with hand sanitizer stands placed throughout the outdoor plaza.
As current COVID mandates limit outdoor gatherings to 50 people in a space at one time, Outdoor Office patrons must reserve a two-hour time block in order to use the space. In between blocks, staffers will clean and sanitize tables and chairs; face coverings are also required, unless you’re eating or drinking.
David Moore, the DRA’s placemaking and activations manager, says he hopes the Outdoor Office will attract more than just downtown residents and employees. “We want to make sure the Outdoor Office is attractive to folks who need to spread out or get out of the house, whether it’s adults or kids doing remote learning,” Moore says.
A variety of free, physically distant outdoor activities will be offered for kids of all ages, so parents can work productively while their children are kept entertained.
Union Station’s Outdoor Office will take place from October 12-16 and October 19-23, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Reserve a two-hour time slot by visiting downtownraleigh.org/dra-programs/outdoor-office
SPONSORED CONTENT At the end of a long day of virtual schooling and endless Zoom meetings, the last thing you want is to get in the kitchen to cook dinner. Raleigh’s Salt & Lime Cabo Grill is there for an easy weeknight meal or a weekend feast of your favorite Baja California fare.
Whether it is a taco meal kit and a margarita pre-mix to go or a tequila flight and an impromptu tasting of ALL the guacamoles on the menu enjoyed on the restaurant’s patio, Salt & Lime Cabo Grill is the perfect place to end the day. Owners Ken and Katie Smith and chef DJ Nagle brought their love of laidback Baja cuisine and hospitality to the North Ridge Shopping Center off Falls of the Neuse Road in 2014. Their restaurant has developed a loyal following with its mix of Mexican street food and plated dishes that reflect the bounty of that desert peninsula next to the sea.
To whet your appetite, here’s a rundown of their most popular menu pairings:
#1. Taco Kit and Margarita Mixes
For an easy takeout meal, check out the family taco kits with a choice of two proteins: Pork Carnitas, Chicken Tinga, Grilled Chicken, Korean Pork Belly, or Braised Short Ribs. The kit includes all the fixins to create a taco bar at home: shredded cheese, lettuce, pico de gallo, rice, beans, sour cream, 12 tortillas, and chips and salsa. It costs $35 and serves three to four people.
Pair that easy meal with a 32-ounce margarita premix for $20. The house-made mixes are made fresh daily and come in a mouthwatering array of flavors: Prickly Pear, Strawberry Lemonade, Skinny, Habanero Peach, Blood Orange, Grilled Grapefruit and Desert Fire (chipotle and jalapeno to be ideally mixed with triple sec and gold tequila). Each mix makes 12 to 15 cocktails, will last 10 to 14 days in the refrigerator and freeze well. Just add your liquor of choice: tequila, vodka, gin or even prosecco. Top off your meal with an order of cinnamon sugar churros!
#2. Cabo Rolls and Tequila Flights
Who doesn’t love an egg roll? Nobody. This one is stuffed with barbecue chicken, poblano peppers, cheese, corn succotash and avocado and served with a spicy ranch dipping sauce. Yum! Pair that with a flight from the restaurant’s selection of more than 50 tequilas ranging from Lunazul to Don Julio 1942. Don’t worry mezcal fans: you can do a flight of those instead.
#3. Classic Fish Tacos and Lemon Basil Gimlet
No restaurant offering the flavors of Baja California can omit the classic fish taco. Salt & Lime Cabo Grill’s version features Dos Equis beer-battered cod served with flour tortillas, salsa verde, pickled radishes and a lime cream sauce. Pair that with a sugar-rimmed Lemon Basil Gimlet, a refreshing twist on that classic cocktail.
#4. Beef Short Rib Tacos and Pineapple Stinger Margarita
This is the taco for the meat lover in your group — made with marinated short ribs and served with Sriracha mayo, pickled Habanero red onions, guacamole and queso fresco. That hearty taco goes well with their Pineapple Stinger, a margarita with a bite. The drink is made with jalapeno-infused tequila and muddled cilantro, fresh pineapple and lime. It starts out sweet and spicy with a hint of heat as it goes down.
#5. Cabo Street Chicken and Sangria
The Cabo Street Chicken, one of many gluten-free dinner entrees on the menu, features a house-rubbed roasted chicken made with applewood smoked bacon and adobo sauce and served atop a pile of queso rice. It is topped with grilled avocado, pico de gallo, queso fresco and cilantro. Enjoy that with a housemade sangria, available in two flavors: Blackberry, made with Merlot, Tuaca liqueur, blackberries, apples and oranges; or the very popular Island Sangria made with Pinot Grigio, Malibu Passion Fruit rum, pineapple and orange juices as well as apple, orange and pineapple slices.
Patio dining and indoor tables are available for walk-in customers. The restaurant’s Covid-19 precautions include weekly professional deep cleanings, hand sanitizer stations throughout, socially distant dining inside and on the patio, and health checks for all staff prior to their shift.
The restaurant is open 4-9 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Saturday-Sunday. Weekend brunch is available 11 a.m.-2 p.m. For takeout, call 919-872-2230. Delivery is available via Postmates or Doordash. Gift cards can be ordered online HERE.
SPONSORED CONTENT In a city where adventure seekers thrive, garden gurus explore and culinary connoisseurs crave, the memory-making opportunities you’re looking to experience can be found right here in Charlotte. Even in our “new normal”, there are a variety of ways to bring your friends and family together safely to the Queen City. When you’re ready, hop on I-40 W, and in just over two hours, you’ll arrive to the 15th largest city in the nation.
A lot of experiences are here to give yourself the recharge you need to get back on track. Reconnect in a nature oasis at Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden, which features 110 acres of spectacular gardens, fountains, pavilions and walking trails.Get your tickets to the garden’s annual Chinese Lantern Festival beginning in mid-October. You’ll be in awe over the illuminated handmade lanterns of mythical creatures, flowers and trees, along with interactive light displays and colorful archways.
This city of green offers endless explorations to change your scenery and maintain social distancing. Walkers and runners can enjoy more than 50 miles of lush greenways and urban trails – from Little Sugar Creek Greenway to Anne Springs Close Greenway. For hikers and rock climbers alike, head to Crowders Mountain State Park, a 5,200-acre playground, where towering cliffs offer astounding views over the surrounding Piedmont. Finally, for all of the adventure seekers, the U.S. National Whitewater Center offers rapids for rafters and kayakers of every ability, as well as more than 30 miles of trails, a climbing center and zip lines across 1,300 acres of woodlands.
Your ultimate culinary bucket list begins with toasting to new adventures outside with a seasonal beer at a local brewery – like Free Range Brewing – or checking out the city’s skyline at Nuvolé Rooftop TwentyTwo. Share a seasonal small plate under the 150-year-old holly tree at The Goodyear House, and then sip on a glass of vino by the koi pond at Dilworth Tasting Room.
With so much to see and do, we invite you to spend time at the city’s coolest community hubs. Explore Camp North End, an innovative outdoor area featuring murals, diverse food stalls and retail spots, or grab a bite from Optimist Hall, Charlotte’s largest food hall.
With more than 5,600 hotel rooms in Uptown, you’ll find a hotel to accommodate multiple road trips to the Queen City. New hotel additions to the cityscape include The Grand Bohemian Hotel, MOXY Charlotte Downtown and the JW Marriott. Charlotte also offers smaller boutique properties such as The Ivey’s Hotel, which was just recognized as one of the top 25 hotels in the U.S. according to TripAdvisor’s Travelers’ Choice Awards. With hotels at varying price points in the heart of Uptown, visitors have plenty of options for their trips.
This city is magnetic, and you’ll find yourself awestruck by its ever-evolving cityscape and the diverse people shaping it. charlottesgotalot.com
SPONSORED CONTENT: Have you ever thought, ‘I just can’t wait to shave again’ or ‘I’m so excited to try and cram this waxing appointment into my packed schedule’? Of course, you haven’t—no one has!
It’s just part of the never-ending and expensive routine that you’ve become accustomed to in order to get smooth, hair-free skin. Well, that is until the razor burn or ingrown hairs show up a few hours later… or when the hair inevitably grows back a few days later.
If you’ve ever been frustrated with your shaving routine or had to deal with squeezing in a last-minute wax only to have to do the waxing waddle for days afterward, then chances are you’ve probably thought about laser hair removal at least once or twice.
So, why haven’t you ditched the wax and tossed out the razor to embrace the laser? It’s probably because somewhere along the way you’ve read or heard some common misconceptions about laser hair removal, which is not surprising since there is a lot of misleading, outdated, or just plain wrong information out there about laser hair removal.
That’s why we’ve consulted with the laser hair removal experts at Milan Laser to get the truth about laser hair removal.
Here are the top three reasons why laser hair removal is for everyone according to the experts.
Reason #1: Everyone Can Be Treated
We know what you’re thinking—but I thought that laser hair removal only worked for certain skin tones and hair colors. And possibly for our male readers, isn’t it something that only women do. It’s myths like these that have so many people clinging to outdated hair removal methods like shaving and waxing.
Now, no one really knows where the myth that it’s only for women came from, but it’s definitely a myth. A lot of men get laser hair removal to remove unwanted hair with the chest, stomach, back, and neckline, being the most popular body areas for men to have treated.
As for the misconception that it’s only for people with certain skin tones or hair colors,
that might have been true when the FDA first approved laser hair removal back in the late ‘90s, but a lot has changed since then.
Advances in technology have made laser hair removal safe for everyone—regardless of skin tone. For example, a laser like the GentleMax Pro—which is the laser Milan Laser uses—will provide you with the safest laser hair removal treatments. That’s because it’s really two lasers in one machine, which allows treatments to be customized to treat the specific skin tone and hair color of each client.
Unfortunately, one aspect of this misconception that is true is that laser hair removal does not work on white hair or “peach fuzz”. This should not be confused with blonde hair though, which is usually treatable.
Reason #2: Permanent Results
Anyone, and everyone, who shaves, plucks, sugars, or waxes wants to have smooth, hair-free skin. Otherwise, why would you go through the hassles of a hair removal routine at all? Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter how often that you shave or how good you are at sticking to your waxing schedule—with any of these outdated hair removal methods, you’ll only ever get temporary results. The hair will always grow back and these methods come with all sorts of negative side-effects like ingrown hairs, razor burn, razor nicks, or even wax burns.
The good news is that when done properly, each laser hair removal treatment will provide you with permanent results. That’s because, during the treatment, a laser pulse is delivered directly to the hair follicle which destroys it so that it can never—ever—grow again. Plus, because the hair is removed without damaging your skin there’s no skin irritation to mar your smooth skin.
That being said, new hair follicles can become active for a variety of reasons such as pregnancy, menopause, age, or simply genetics, and new hair can grow. Most places that offer laser hair removal services sell packages of 6 or 9 sessions, you’ll just want to keep in mind that at these places you’ll probably need to buy more packages or pay touch-up fees down the road. Your best option is to find a place that offers unlimited laser hair removal sessions for life at no additional cost as we do at Milan.
Reason #3: Affordability
When you compare the bottomless pit expenses of shaving and waxing to the cost of laser hair removal, you’ll actually end up saving money with the permanent results that you can get with laser hair removal.
For example, a monthly leg waxing appointment alone can cost more than $15,000 in a lifetime. But shaving is less expensive, right? Probably not. If you spend an average of $30 a month on shaving supplies—which is easy to do between shaving cream and those expensive razors—then you’ll probably spend about $18,000 on your shaving routine during your lifetime.
When you compare those expenses to the cost of laser hair removal, it’s easy to see that you’ll save money—not to mention time—with the permanent results that you can get with laser hair removal. Also, some places offer payment plans to help make it more affordable. For instance, Milan offers some great specials as well as no-interest laser hair removal payment plans with payments that can be as low as $29 a month.
This is by no means all of the reasons why you should trade your shaving and waxing routine for laser hair removal, but hopefully, it helps you better understand why laser hair removal really is for everyone.
If you have more questions, feel free to give the experts at Milan Laser a call at 833-No-Razor or go in for a free consultation. You can visit with a local laser hair removal expert at either of their Raleigh-Durham laser hair removal locations, which are conveniently located in the Shops at Falls Village in Raleigh and Southpoint Crossing in Durham.
Curious about the history of the infamous colonial pirate Blackbeard, also known as Edward Teach? Subscribe to writer (and Raleigh Magazine contributor) Megan Dohm’s new series “Long Way Around,” which explores the legends and truths about Blackbeard from various angles, whether a tall tale told by an eccentric uncle or a scrap of paper found inside a 300-year-old cannon.
Dohm’s findings will be delivered in eight monthly installments on the final Friday of each month. The series started August 28 and will continue through March 26. “‘Long Way Around’ is a series that will explore this old world, tie it to the new world, and give each person involved a fair hearing,” Dohm says. “We will take big ideas and snarled threads of history and smooth them out, using curiosity as a compass and everyday language as a guide. No short-cuts.”
