Fancy barbecue place on Blue Hill Avenue that never actually opened could be replaced by a Dominican restaurant and function room

The Boston Licensing Board today approved plans for a proposed restaurant at 879-881 Blue Hill Ave. in Dorchester that would feature Dominican and Spanish food in a large space with 240 total seats, including in a lounge and a function room.

El Punto Restaurant & Lounge also hopes to serve rum daiquiris and Spanish wine, but that would depend on whether the city has any liquor licenses to hand out. If not, the restaurant could wait - and likely wait and then wait some more - or purchase a license on the open market, where they now go for prices around $400,000, because there is more demand for liquor licenses in Boston than the number of licenses allowed by the state legislature.

The new place would go in the space outfitted for Royalty Iron Grill, what was supposed to be an "elegant" barbecue and steak place run by a Worcester entrepreneur and the owner of a chiropractic clinic in the building, who did work to refurbish an even earlier spot that featured an indoor waterfall, pool, map of the Amazon and a ceramic lion, but that restaurant never opened.