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Where's the beef? Not at the Stockyard in Brighton anymore
By adamg on Tue, 07/10/2012 - 7:09pm
The Stockyard this evening.
Word is filtering in that the venerable Brighton steak place, named for the area's beefy past, has gone to that great cattle drive in the sky.
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Brighton stockyards?
Brighton stockyards?
http://goodoldboston.blogspot.com/2012/04/brighton...
OMG...I cant believe it.
OMG...I cant believe it. place had slid but still a great bar.
and Allston
from http://www.scribd.com/doc/36568510/A-Novel-and-Eff...
It was five-thirty on a late spring morning in Allston, Massachusetts. Unlike some of the other neighborhoods in the City of Boston, Allston had never had its own independent political being. Historically an area of industries in the Town of Brighton, it had been given its own name just a few years before Brighton was annexed by Boston. Large swaths of Allston land had once been railroad yards, slaughterhouses, and livestock yards. There was absolutely no reason to think the cosmos had arranged events so that the teeming campus of the University had ended up just where thousands of head of dumb cattle had once milled aimlessly waiting for a hammer blow to the skull.
Not surprising
My wife and I went to the stockyard back in the late winter for the first time in about two years. It was terrible. The menu changed for the worse, the hostess forgot about us and was surly about it, the service was poorer than ever and the prime rib was beat compared to before. Such a bad experience I made a point to tell the hostess that we wouldn't be back. It bummed us out as the prime rib / scallops combo they used to offer was a home run in our book.
We had a similar experience
We had a similar experience while attending a small private birthday party there 3-4 year ago. The once very good food, was now luke warm mediocrity served with instant potatoes can canned veggies.
In it's day it was a good solid middle-class steak house. Times change.
where will William Galvin go?
where will William Galvin go?
I heard its going to be a
I heard its going to be a Lowes Store...
Still going to be a restaurant
It was bought by the folks who own West on Centre, et al. Hopefully they'll retain all the good aspects of the place (with all due rewpect to the above comments, I went there regularly and loved the food and atmosphere).
West is Awesome
I love West - just not the drive to get there - hope they can do just as good a job with this place if true!
Oscoparkinglot: oh, how your
Oscoparkinglot: oh, how your name evokes memories of coming out of the Silhouette and running across the street to get donuts at Dunks before it closed. My BF at the time had a beer & donuts thang.
Now I never get to Brighton. Sad about the Stockyard, but not surprising. Frankly, a lot of there clientele has been moving away/dying off & the owners never made the clever old-man-to- hipster-hangout leap the Model did so many years ago.
I had lunch there a year or two ago.
The food was mediocre and overpriced. And steak houses probably find it hard to stay in business in today's low fat world.
Today's world is also....
...more Atkins diet than "low fat", that would be a plus for a steakhouse.
I think it's more like a Chain Restaurant world, especially where that price point is concerned, as Slim says below.
I'll bet the Brazilian style churrascaria (sp?) places are taking away business too.
All eyes on Frank' s in Cambridge and Jimmy's steer house in Arlington~!
Lots of reasons The Stockyard could have gone under
The staggering economy (its middle-class customers are still suffering, while the luxury steakhouses that cater to business entertaining and a wealthier clientele are doing fine), rising food costs (many places have shrunk portions or moved to inferior ingredients to avoid raising prices), difficulty in competing with national casual-dining chains that leverage scale economies to serve gigantic portions of mediocre food for cheap, an old-school vibe that doesn't attract younger customers.
Hard times for a certain kind of restaurant.
Another reason...
Regina's Pizza moved into the old Allston Depot. Those of us in the area who used to visit Stockyard occasionally now go to Regina's more often. Still I'll miss it.
First the Hilltop in Braintree, now the Stockyard?
Sheesh! Not all of us want to go to Morton's or The Capital Grille. Sometimes, you just want a cheap steak with a mediocre salad and a baked potato.
there is another...
I agree that while mediocre, Stockyard was a quick fix when you wanted a steak dinner for under $20. But don't despair, the Texas Roadhouse in Everett is a good substitute--peanut shells on the floor, loud customers in tank tops with unruly kids, cheap steak, decent salad bar--stuck in the middle of a strip mall, it's a step up from Sizzler...
Not really...
Texas Roadhouse is to BBQ what the Olive Garden is to Italian food. If you're in Everett, you're better off at Tony Floramo's.
floramo's
where the meat falls off the bone! sorry - too much sports radio.
I think that was his point.
I think that was his point. If you want some cheap steak and the Stockyard is closed, you can go to Texas Roadhouse.
What about my stockyard gift card!!!!
Bastards.
They told there employees
They told there employees they were closing for a 4th of July break. Then they called them 2 days ago and told them all they were out a job. No notice or severance or anything. Pretty rotten if you ask me.
Not many restaurants go out of business gracefully
And I don't recommend buying restaurant gift cards for the same reason. When I want to get someone dinner as a gift, I buy them an Amex gift card with a list of suggestions on where to use it instead.
I agree but...
Amex gift cards are kind of like cash cards. Not always the most thoughtfull gift.
True... But then we've
True... But then we've logically eliminated everything that isn't a hard gift. Gift cards come with strings, or non-usage fees, or a whole other bunch of usurious shit, and Amex cards are too much like cash, and do have that impersonal smell to them.
So what to do?
After getting stuck with a few unusable restaurant gift cards...
I've learned to live with the impersonal nature of an Amex gift card. The upside is it feels less impersonal than just cash, it says, "I want you to enjoy a restaurant meal on your own, not with me taking you there", it's very versatile (though admittedly there are restaurants that don't accept Amex), and it can sit around for a rainy day when the person is short of cash.
Ain't nothin better than a crisp Ben Franklin
inside a card.
I'm kind of more pissed at myself because I let it sit for so long and I go by the place all the time. I'm usually pretty good about using them up fast though.
Never understood this
Whats so personal about a gift card with it's money tied to one place, vs a gift card that can be used anywhere?...
I'll take the fungible card any day.
Just spend time picking out the card and writing a long, thoughtful message inside. That's always been more important in my book.
Here's the difference...
And it's a minor one, but you can go to any Walgreens or cvs, go to the gift card rack, turn it around and pick out a card, then go to the cashier and give them 100 dollars to put on that card, and then you just give that card to someone else.
All you really did was go to to a national chain store and exchanges cash for plastic cash. At least with a specific card, you might have to actually go there. Then when you get the card, you might like it because it is of your favorite places and you knew someone was thinking of you when they got it, rather than just buying a gift card in the same trip where you buy some toilet paper and shaving cream.
I agree with the thoughtful message part, but I feel there is a small difference between CVS gift rack cards, and other gift cards.
What about your staff?
Closing is one thing but the way the owners handled it was so insensitive. For a restaurant with numerous staff members that have given their blood, sweat and tears for years and years, day in and day after to simply get a call one day that they had no job is just down right despicable. I hope that the Manning's sleep well at night.
I'm willing to bet that the
I'm willing to bet that the owners tried some 11th hour tactics to keep the place afloat. No one WANTS to see their restaurant fail. Sometimes a company can negotiate a "stay of execution", so to speak, at the last minute. There's no need to freak out your employees by saying "Hey, we might be closing for good next week." If you do that, you're almost guaranteed to close because the employees will look for work elsewhere and, in theory, not work quite as hard they would normally. That'll lead to fewer employees and poorer service, which will be the death knell for an already-struggling restaurant.
Quite right. And you might
Quite right. And you might add that angry employees would have to be watched extremely closely to make sure they weren't taking it out on the till.
Former employees are being
Former employees are being contacted by Herald and Fox 25.