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French food under the watchful eyes of beavers could be coming to the edge of the Common
By adamg on Thu, 12/08/2016 - 10:24am
The Boston Business Journal reports on plans by a local restaurant group to open a French restaurant at the Grand Masonic Lodge at Boylston and Tremont streets, which is currently adorned by a large seal featuring two beavers that look like they're trying to eat a dove.
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Comments
Guess the Masons
are really hard pressed for new members if they're opening up a French restaurant in their sacred Grand Lodge.
Believe it or not their
Believe it or not their membership is actually way up - generally has a 3-6+ month waiting list to join nowadays. For whatever reason Millenials, unlike Gen X'rs seem to be much more interested in stuff like it.
A lot of Millenials
Buy I into the 'secret society runs the world' BS from YouTube and Alex Jones-types while most Gen X'ers probably know it's just an immensely boring waste of time with a bunch of old people.
Well..
GenXer here, and I have sad news for you-- We are old people.
Speak for yourself, buster!
Why I'm a mere child of ... 50?
Crap. I *am* old.
I think it's more that
I think it's more that millenials tend to have weird busy schedules and are starting to age way out of the bar scene, so it's this or join a recreational kickball league if you want to make new friends..
Plus, our generation simply outnumbers yours by a lot. Membership in everything is up :)
if only there were some sort of network..
Ah yes, that awkward stage when you age out of the bar/ student scene and it's so much harder to make new friends. But I keep hearing that these kids have some sort of new fangled electronic network thingie so they're always connected and loneliness no longer exists? Is that not working as advertised?
signal to noise ratio. social
signal to noise ratio. social media is great for staying in touch with your current friends and making contacts with people all over the world but hasn't yet filled that 'local but strangers' niche real well.
I went there 10 years ago for
I went there 10 years ago for a recruiting dinner and the four Boston Temples based inside the building did not seem to be hurting for members at all. It may be possible that state wide there is a shortage of people , especially in small towns etc. The Grand Lodge is also based in the building but they quite honestly don't really use that first floor area for much. It seemed to mostly be open space and reception like area that had not been updated for decades. Everything happened upstairs.
Like I said, they did not seem to be hurting for members in the least. I was 25 at the time and my friend was 22 and they did not blink an eye when they mentioned annual dues were 250 dollars a year. When I decided not to send my form back in to be considered with a payment check they didn't come calling to ask where I was. Once I was making enough that $250 a year didn't seem to be a killer number I worked too far from Downtown for it to be worth it and there was nothing local to me for several towns.
The one point of contention that I can imagine is in the dinner (they took us to a restaurant nearby) I got to know some of the members and the older guys would park in tandem in the back of the building. I imagine with a restaurant right there that will not be happening anymore... although they won't have to go far for their prospect dinners and catering for their own events will be a breeze with a restaurant in house.
Not uncommon
It's not uncommon for Masonic temples in cities to have commercial space on the ground floor. The Masonic building in Newton has a number of shops in it. When this particular building was first opened in 1899 those panels were windows for storefronts. I'm not sure when they decided to stop leasing out the first floor space.