Planned New Balance restaurant hopes to snap up liquor license from Downtown Crossing spot that never opened

The backers of a restaurant proposed for New Balance's Brighton Landing project go before the Boston Licensing Board on Wednesday for permission to buy the liquor license of the failed-before-it-even-opened Painted Burro on Temple Place downtown.

Rail Stop, on Guest Street near the Worcester Line station being built as part of Brighton Landing, is owned by Gloucester businesswoman Sheree Zizik and New Balance Chairman Jim Davis - who previously teamed up to build a luxury waterfront hotel in Gloucester.

At a hearing in October on its request for one of five new unrestricted liquor licenses the state granted Boston last year, company attorney Dennis Quilty said the restaurant is key to the development, to give residents and workers a much needed amenity.

The restaurant didn't get one of the licenses and instead reached a deal to buy the license the Somerville-based Painted Burro acquired about three years ago when it thought it would be expanding across the river to Downtown Crossing in the old Windsor Button Shop space. The deal fell through (as have other deals to put a restaurant in the space).

The licensing board's hearings begin at 10 a.m. in Rm. 809 in City Hall.