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Busy Bee the cleaners could be reborn as Busy Bee the restaurant in Roslindale
By adamg on Thu, 01/15/2015 - 8:10pm
A neighbor of the closed Busy Bee cleaners at 4381 Washington St. reports current building owner Stelio Koutonidis outlined his plans to build a neighborhood restaurant serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, at a meeting tonight.
Koutonidis met with nearby residents to seek their approval before he goes to the Zoning Board of Appeals for the permission he needs to remodel the building and re-open it as the Busy Bee. He expects to go before the board in March - a January hearing was deferred so he could meet with neighbors - and, if he wins permission, to open this summer. In addition to zoning permission, he'll also need a food-serving license from the Boston Licensing Board.
Although he plans to re-do the exterior, he said he'll keep a brick facade.
Other notes:
Inside floorplan includes a long wavy counter top w/ diner stools in addition to standard seating.
His son will run day to day operations.
Expects to draw heavily from the nearby neighborhood.
Asked about the food type he said "breakfast is breakfast" but Greek/Italian influences may be seen in the dinner and lunch offerings - no promises or outright proclamations of a food style or type though.
I specifically asked about espresso (a secret hope of mine for a new cafe in the area) and he did not know the details but mentioned that his son is currently researching and also taking a class related to coffee so there are plans in the works. Personally I'd love to see an espresso rig and good pour-over coffee there.
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Comments
but there is already the
but there is already the awesome busy bee restaurant/diner in brookline (st marys T stop).
pick a new name!
Ditto on the espresso and pour over
I stopped by 7 Pond this morning, and all I can say is why can't Roslindale have that?
Or ...
Something like the Sweet Life Cafe in Lower Mills.
anything remotely resembling a real coffee house
would be very welcome. both wife and I are getting a little tired of venturing up to JP. we both have work to do on the weekends - young kids make it difficult for one of us to retreat to the office for more than 15-30 minutes... we did sometimes use select cafe, but the atmosphere there was a little off-putting - and the food kind of sucked. One day we'll get our hipster coffee place... one day...
There is only on: Tom's Busy
There is only on: Tom's Busy Bee in Watertown. RIP
greek!
they better have decent gyros...
Does anyone eat lamb anymore
Does anyone eat lamb anymore ?
That's a 5 minute walk for me
Coffee please. But I won't hold my breath for vegan options.
Seriously,
Seriously,
What gives with the lack of a coffee place? I can remember Emack and Bolios, never really sure what did them in. I figure if our square can sustain a cheese shop, multiple bakeries and now even a froyo place we surely can sustain a cafe. Is it the notorious rental situation? A lack of bank support? Anybody have a theory?
While I'm at it, when is somebody gonna open a toy store? With all the kids around here you could make a mint off birthday present sales. I have three kids and we enjoy shopping local, but aside from the odd thing in House and Garden there is nothing for kids in the square.
There's places to get coffee
Fornax
Diane's
The yogurt place
That chain Donut place
Okay, I'm not a coffee guy, but the lack of replacement for Emacks is rough. Of course, it could be that in order to get a business rolling in the Square, you need some odd connections, but that might just be my conspiratorial side.
Well, more or less
Don't forget the Blue Star and Derna's (wait, is that still open during the expansion?).
But none of those are places where you could do what I did this morning: Drop the kidlet off at her bus stop, then go for a bagel and coffee and fire up the laptop for some work (like, say, that little thing that happened on I-93 just as I was sitting down at Bruegger's in West Roxbury).
And that's for those of us who are perfectly happy with the coffee at The Chain that Dare Not Be Named, as opposed to folks who have more refined coffee tastes or want more than just a food-like substance in a pink-and-purple wrapper (if the Washington Street outlet is like others, it probably has WiFi, but it's not exactly conducive to quiet work or reading), .
Hmm, given that Derna's is being taken over by the Delfino folks and that they plan to serve breakfast and lunch, I wonder if that could become the coffee place you'd think the Square would already have.
Fornax comes closest to what people want
But it's too darned small. It is a victim if it's own success. Moms used to head over there with a small crew for coffee a few mornings a week.
I suppose that some are looking for a coffee shop akin to Enormous Seattle Based Coffee, but knowing the crowd that wants something like that, Enormous Seattle Based Coffee's announcement of a Square (oops, Village) store would be met with hackles.
The future of Derna's will be interesting, but then again it seems smaller than Fornax.
Not Roslindale, but not far
Not Roslindale, but not far down the road in West Roxbury, a new cafe called El Recreo is opening up at 1876 Centre Street in a few weeks that looks promising. The coffee comes from Nicaragua farmed by the owner's family and workers. I've heard great things from people who have tried it.
http://west-roxbury.wickedlocal.com/article/20150115/NEWS/150118032
Have you (aor anyone else) been to....
... the new place near Forest Hills, next to the kitty hospital (or whatever)?
simpli?
great place - open late... not terribly convenient to the square, though.
Simpli?
You mean the place that had people dressed as cartoonish mexicans with real live donkeys out in front one morning? Yeah, no thanks.
Really
Missed this. Get any pix?
I walk by it every day
(And if the backup at Ukraine Way gets worse, it might be twice a day)
From an outside perspective, it seems odd. Is it a coffee house or is it a bar? They even have a small menu, but nothing to write home about.
Depends on the time of day
It's a coffee house and a bar, and does a pretty nice job on simple food items to go with the beverage options. I like Simpli, but it's too far away from the square. Something similar a mile South would be fantastic!
We need to start pushing Main
We need to start pushing Main Street to concentrate on Belgrade Ave. There are so many open store fronts and they look like poop. Belgrade would be a great place for everything mentioned above and never mind how large the side walks are we could even have some cafe's with outdoor seat. That would be so nice and it would boost up value in our neighborhood.
Can they?
Maybe Chris K will weigh in, but I think RVMS is limited to the specific 'downtown' district as detailed by the BRA (basically Washington from Dunks to T-Bros and then around the square. So Belgrade isn't their purview.
Geo-Limited
RVMS has a defined boundary that limits them to the main business district of the square.... er... village.
You can always tell a noobie to Rozzie. All the people who grew up here and who live here call it "the square." The noobies say "village." Can always pick them out of the crowd.
RVMS coined that term because they needed to define their enterprise zone and mission-specific area. It was never meant to be used for Roslindale as a whole - and shouldn't.
For what its worth, there is another trade association, the Roslindale Board of Trade. They meet monthly at the Sons of Italy Hall. It's been around since the teen years, of the prior century that is.
but, but, but dmk
They all tell us that the term "village" is the old one while "square" is of a modern vintage. Of course, were that the case, we would just call it the Taft's Tavern part of the city, but that's neither here nor there.
How long have the k's been in Rozzie, anyway? I want to say the Waquiots first set foot in Rozzie in the 1950s, but sadly it might not have been until the 1960s.
soon...
Supposedly the owner of the former E&B and Select Cafe building died and things are hung up for a while. I would imagine a couple coffee type businesses are lined up waiting to roll once it's for sale/rent. Owner of Jimmies was one of them. I'm dying for a Flat Black right there, personally!
Health risk?
Dry cleaning facilities are known to pose environmental/health risks long after closing. I wouldn't eat in a cleaners-turned-restaurant.
So
You wouldn't eat at a 5-star hotel?
Not if they cooked food in
Not if they cooked food in the room where they were dry cleaning.
Dry cleaners turned into eatery
We have one where I live. Davis Square Cleaners closed, and a few months later Kung Fu bubble tea opened in its place.
Carbon Tetrachloride was our
Carbon Tetrachloride was our friend , Toxic Substances Portal - Carbon Tetrachloride
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/phs/phs.asp?id=194&tid=35
Carbon Tetrachloride Saved Their Lives!