It’s run by the owners of Forge, so it’s interesting that they’ll also carry Iggy’s.
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The Posto location at 187 Elm St, Somerville, MA (halfway between Davis and Porter Squares) has closed as of Nov 17th. Their social media pages indicate that they are reopening in Assembly Row in Somerville. They had been there since 2009.
There have been a string of other restaurants at that location. The building was built and initially occupied by Carberry’s (they also had locations on Prospect St in Cambridge and on Mass Ave in Arlington where Kickstand is now). There was also a Boloco there as well as Green Tomato 2. Might have been another business as well as it seemed to have a lot of turnover initially.
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I used to work right around the corner and remember well those days when it was “flavor of the month” in that spot. Anyone else remember the brief-lived O’Naturals, which was a casual healthy cafe concept owned by the Stonyfield Farm yogurt people?
Also, isn’t Page & Leaf actually IN the new Porter Square Books? They were still under construction when I went to check out the bookstore but it looked to be wholly inside the bookstore. I’m also not clear what’s happening with Cafe Zing, which appears still open inside the old location of Porter Square Books, surrounded by empty shelves.
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I remember. Out our way, O’Naturals was in Acton. That location even had a little play area for toddlers. Also another location in Portland, Maine for a time.
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and to go way, way back - it’s the site of the first steve’s ice cream!
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Even though you can walk from PSQ right into Page and Leaf (vice versa), I don’t know that I’d say it’s ‘inside’ Porter Sq books, since it has it’s own entrance, own seating, own cash register, etc.
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A vintage market is opening in the back of that location with Cafe Zing and seating in the front. Think something like Cambridge Antique Market (on Monsignor O’Brien Highway) but on a much smaller scale.
I was in there today and am not convinced that it will be a great fit for Porter Sq. Time will tell.
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I do! A cute spot, but when B and I go out for food, we’re generally not looking for healthy food. We get enough of that at home. 
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I don’t know why, but I feel that’s the death knell in terms of quality (also for any restaurants opening a food hall location). We haven’t been to Posto in ages but it used to be sooo good.
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We went to Posto last Thursday for what turned out to be their last Happy Hour at the bar (appetizer, pizza, dessert for $18). The arancini were fantastic, spicy with delicious sauce. The garlic bread had hardly any garlic, but the sauce was good. Warm olives excellent. Our son loved his pepperoni pizza. The spinach/mushroom pizza was good but somehow lacked seasoning…no herbs and low salt. We brought our leftover pizza home and it was better with some salt and Sicilian hot pepper flakes. Our son said the tiramisu was the best he has ever tasted (that’s his favorite dessert by far). We liked the tiramisu, too.
EDIT: I forgot to mention the arugula salad, which was so fresh and wonderful.
What stood out the most was how hospitable and friendly and obviously happy the bartenders were, dealing with every seat at the bar filled for happy hour at 5:15. They said they were thrilled with the move to Assembly, where they’d have a larger space and a very good brick oven. I think they are moving into that Assembly space that was supposed to be Frank [McClelland], which never opened. We’ll try them there since we live very close by.
EDIT: I can’t remember a restaurant I’ve been to in the last years where the servers/bartenders were so obviously havng a great time working and enjoying each other and all the customers. It was really a joyous experience for us because they were so exuberant. We don’t go to high end places for several reasons, but the only thing comparable was our last in person trip to Sarma well before the pandemic, sitting at the bar, watching the food prep, and everyone who was working there was projecting genuine happiness.
The other thing that stood out was a family of 3 children and 3 adults seated right behind us at a table. All three children were shrieking most of the time. One appeared to be under two, the others were older. Noise was very loud the few minutes they weren’t, but loud ambient noises didn’t stop the high octave impact of their shrieks. I love children and enjoy seeing them in restaurants and don’t mind noise, food dropped, etc. We hurriedly finished up to get away from the shrieks.
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One of Posto’s chefs, Juan Perez (not sure if he us currently also exec chef, has become quite well known in the pizza world over the last 1-2 years and I would assume he has a very high interest to keep the buzz by continuing delivery of high quality pizzas (and other menu items)
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That’s mostly what I remember. The Somerville location also had that and it must have been when I had a baby and a toddler. I have very little recollection of the food, but that play area was like a little piece of heaven and I clearly remember eating the food while actually sitting down. A rarity in those days. But yes, as mentioned elsewhere, it turned out that the Stonyfield Farms CEO’s plan to healthify fast food did not jibe with everyone else’s conception of what they wanted to eat as fast food. Maybe they were just ahead of their time- I see the proliferation of Sweetgreens and Life Alive locations and wonder if O’Naturals would have made it in this decade.
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It’s disappointing to see good neighborhood places close to move into a shopping mall. You’d think they’d keep the original location open, and open an outpost at Assembly Row. Oh well…
Yep. Posto was always a very popular and welcoming family spot. A loss for the neighborhood for sure.
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I suspect there might have been landlord issues. Not sure. The Somerville location is close to Assembly.
I don’t think of Davis/Porter Sq as being particularly close to Assembly Row. 2-3 miles anyway
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Forgot about Carberry’s. In the 90’s, I used to live around the corner from there and would bring a box of Icelandic Snudur to work once a week. Is that where the original Bertucci’s was as well, or was that just nearby?
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Bertucci’s was down the street a little, where Revival is now.
I remember that.
I hesitated to post this comment on Posto, but in the spirit that all posts are welcome here, even mine, I have to say that I was never blown away by the food at Posto. It was OK, in my view, but rarely better. Even the pizzas, praised here and there, were underflavored to me, and under-crusted. I thought it revealing that it was not brought up by anyone on our pizza thread.
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At least for me, the pasta dishes (and some meat dishes) at Posto were excellent and so there was never much interest in ordering pizza at Posto, even though, at least for me, it would have been one of the top pizza places in Boston.
