Owner of Nix's Mate close to buying Fenway music venue - to run as a restaurant

Bostonian Hospitality Group is negotiating with the owners of Church - which recently shut the concert part of its Kilmarnock Street location - to buy the place and operate it as a restaurant.

Bostonian Hospitality runs a chain of Nix's bars and restaurants across New England, including Nix's Mate downtown, named for a tiny Boston Harbor island on which executed pirates were gibbetted - their bodies left to sway in the wind as a warning to ne'er-do-wells entering Boston Harbor.

An attorney for the current owners asked the Mayor's Office of Consumer Affairs and Licensing for another month or so in which to finalize the paperwork. Church called off scheduled concerts pending the sale - which came as good news to owners of units in a neighboring condo building, who had hired an attorney to press for the end of concerts there.

If the sale does go through, Bostonian Hospitality will have to win approval from the Boston Licensing Board to buy the Church liquor license and to serve food.