Whatcha got?
Not a closing (thankfully), but MF Dulock will be moving closer to Union Square. They are moving into their own building which will give them space to expand offerings a bit. The space is still to be built out, so they did not have a set time for the move, but it is in process.
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I love MF Dulock. We don’t eat meat very often, but when we do, I always go there. More often I do make pork and beef stock, and love that they always have the bony parts for that. I wish them the best…lovely people, too, and their house made sausages and salumi are also great. They have a wonderful collection of cookbooks you can browse to get ideas for cooking.
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valsos table and bar is opening in the old argana cafe location on shirley ave in revere
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I whole heartedly agree on all accounts. They mentioned hopefully using some of the extra space to expand their salumi offerings.
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Add me to the MFD love.
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4 season boba tea is opening on shirley ave in revere
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Terry O’Reilly’s Irish pub in Newton center is under new management and is closed for renovations. When it re-opens it will be as Baramor, a “cozy gastropub”. We’ll see. Losing Terry O’Reilly’s is no great loss, however.
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spicy world is opening a second location in the former oppa’s kitchen and bar location on pleasant street in malden
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Was it related at all to the great Bruin Terry O’Reilly? I’d seen it come up in searches once in a while and was interested if there was any cool B’s memorabilia which would be enough to bring me in.
He was a great Bruin, my favorite at the time. Used to cut his action shot pictures out of the Globe and put them up on my bulletin board. He couldn’t skate for beans though. 
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I asked the first time I went in there (and the only time I had food there), and was told there was no relation to the ex-Bruins great. Ah, hockey in the 70’s, where there would be a fight, and all of a sudden a hockey game would break out.
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That sounds like something straight outta Slap Shot (one of the greatest movies of all time).
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The deli portion of Moody’s in Waltham has now reopened, reports Boston Magazine.
The Backroom is not open because its liquor license has not yet been reinstated. Taco bar likewise remains shuttered and is apparently getting a new concept.
I appreciate the greater transparency reflected in this coverage, which unpacks the lack of foresight that compelled Waltham officials to abruptly shut the business down in April.
Moody’s management had not seen to it that the common victualler’s license and the liquor license were held by anyone still with the business after their ties ended with founding chef Joshua Smith. These licensing issues forced the temporary closure.
Hoping that the business recovers well.
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JH and I have a long and rocky relationship. My wife and I first moved to Cambridge in 1991, my wife fully and I partially (true to this day), and to the Harvard end of town in 1993. Around then we “discovered” JH and started taking out-of-towners there. It always had its limitations, but the occasional brew was quite good (at the time they made their own), the burgers acceptable, and the chicken pot pie surprisingly good. It was a decent, hopping place to take visiting extended family that at the time included several kids. But, don’t you know it, kids grow up and restaurants grown down, and as that happened we went less and less. Last summer we had occasion to entertain some of these “kids” again, or rather the grown-up versions of these kids, who now had young kids of their own and wanted to go back to JH. We hadn’t been in five years. We were shocked at how awful it was – the food, the drink, and (worst) the depressing emptiness of the space.
I’m not surprised they’re closing, but slightly saddened from nostalgia, and semi-amused that a place named as it is is closing the H^2 branch but keeping open the one in NYC.
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What a lyrical reminiscence! Thank you for that!
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Back in the day John Harvard’s was a go-to spot in Harvard Square for us too. Fresh beer. Decent food. And that room felt like a cozy oasis from the hubbub outside.
We would take out-of-town family and friends for a bite and a brew there, too. John Harvard’s aimed to please back then and it did.
Now it’s been many years since our last visit. Since then, Craft Beer 2.0 exploded onto the scene and tasting rooms have become a thing. From what you write, I gather that John Harvard’s became less than it was and that is not enough.
Let’s raise a virtual pint to the experiences we remember (also because it’s before 8 a.m. on a weekday as I write this, sheesh). Because the doors never close on that.
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I guess I’ll expose myself as being wicked old when I say that my friends and I thought of John Harvard’s as “the new place” and actually have more memories of its previous incarnation, 33 Dunster St. I definitely feel my age when I think of the old local places we enjoyed, way back when the drinking age was 18.
For example: The Blue Parrot, Simeone’s, Father’s Fore, Bova’s, the original Joyce Chen on Mem Drive, Elsie’s, Newbury Steak House, the English Room…
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LOL, I was trying to remember the name of the predecessor to John Harvard’s earlier today.
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Thanks, that’s interesting. We’d thought of John Harvard’s as “always having been there”, because as far as we were concerned it had, but the recent story made us realize that it had opened only a year before we moved to the Harvard area. We’d been at the MIT end for two years before that, and although we made trips to the Square, we don’t have clear memories of the restaurants there (I do remember, though, that at the time the Square had several used book stores).
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