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Fate of Southie Tasty in hands of Boston Licensing Board
By adamg on Wed, 08/01/2012 - 4:16pm
The board decides tomorrow whether a proposal by Tasty Burger to limit its hours and cut back an outdoor patio at a proposed L Street location are enough to warrant a food serving license or whether some nearby residents are right that the burger outlet would ruin the neighborhood.
Tasty Burger had originally proposed staying open until 1 a.m. at the site of the old Boathouse ice-cream place and add a 40-seat patio, but in the face of criticism from neighbors scaled its proposed hours back to 10 p.m. most nights and midnight on Friday and Saturday - and agreed to cut the number of outdoor seats to 20. The patio will only be open until 10 p.m. all nights.
Tasty Burger lawyer Joseph Hanley, of McDermott, Quilty and Miller told the board this morning the Southie Tasty would be nothing like the one in the Fenway: No beer, no indoor seating, no parking lot. Instead, it would be sort of like the Boathouse, only with burgers - and also ice cream. He said 10 p.m. five nights a week was a more than reasonable answer to residents' concerns about late-night noise, noting several other nearby restaurants and bars are open until 1 a.m.
Hanley said Boston is in dire need of such high-quality, small outlets for burgers.
Several residents who attended the hearing, however, said the proposed patio directly abuts residential properties in an area where noise is already amplified and relayed long distances, that the concrete pad Tasty Burger has already put down for it could mean basement flooding, that South Boston already has places to get a good burger and that boozers coming out of nearby bars will use their stoops for eating burgers and their alleyways for relieving themselves. Residents said they were not opposed to any business at the site, but said they wanted something more like the Boathouse - a place that closed early in the evening and wasn't open at all in the winter.
Mayor Tom Menino, City Councilor Bill Linehan and state Sen. Jack Hart sent representatives to support the outlet, saying the restaurant had proposed reasonable compromises to respect neighbors and that if the later weekend hours proved a problem, the board could scale them back. State Rep. Nick Collins, however, opposed the burger outlet because of the concerns from neighbors.
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Comments
I don't get why they are
I don't get why they are making such a big deal about this place, personally I'm happy that they are doing something with the location.
YUPPIES, can't have em,
YUPPIES, can't have em, ruining the neighborhood with their non-violence and using neighborhood restaurants and stores.
Peterborough
http://www.bostontipster.com
Any word on what Mike Ross thinks?
After all, a vacant storefront is in danger of development!
(Yes, I know he's on the BCC, still inquiring minds would like to know)
Probably has no opinion whatsoever
Given that it's not in his district, as opposed to that sandwich shop going into the Common, for which he made a guest appearance at the licensing board to express his strong support for.
In fairness...
The partially finished, boarded up concrete bunker is far more beneficial to the neighborhood than a bustling small business could ever be. Probably.
Ridick
So ridicoluous; the two residential buildings that abut this property are within spitting distance of the debauchery fest which is the Beer Garden. Completely absurd, if you don't want people pissing in your alley, don't live across from the BBG. This is going to be such a nice neigbohood after the "nice" locals move to Dot.
Residences
were on Broadway long before the Beer Garden. You want burgers and creepy stares at young girls? Move to Florida.
Right. Don't fight for your
Right. Don't fight for your neighborhood, just leave. No sense of caring about one's space - go find another one. Not everyone has a disposable take on home environment. And before someone devolves into a class-based / townie-bashing discussion, I will just offer the fact that I am NOT a native of South Boston. I have many friends in the neighborhood, some of whom are natives and some of whom are not. I have been here for thirteen years, and I don't approve of some (not all) of the new aspects of living here. But I'm still here, and I'm not going to move just because I don't like something about a place I've called home for over a third of my life. PS - As far as I'm concerned, wanting a bit of peace and quiet at 1 am on a Friday night is a bit more normal than drink-induced public urination.
Tasty
I'm from the neighborhood. I've been here for over 55 years. My only question is: Are they going to deliver?
Yes, they will deliver!
If they get approval, they'll set up a delivery system.
I am on the fence on this one
Being the ORIGINAL South Boston Yuppie I am all for development but I understand where the residents that live near there are coming from.
Do we need a bunch of drunk 20-something frat boys hanging out on a patio until 1am??
This is a great idea and I hope it gets built but I am not so sure about the 1am closing on weekends.
Yes, the Beer Garden is open till 1AM but it doesn't have an outdoor patio and once that place closes people have to go home. When this place closes at 1AM who is going to kick out all the frat boys from the outdoor patio? Could be shit show all nite long...
boathouse patio
technically the boathouse already had a patio there with the handful of picnic tables. Not sure if this has ever been an issue with people hanging out there, but I don't believe I've ever heard of anything going on there.
I also don't really understand the "basement flooding" argument, considering that area has always been paved (assuming the patio is going where the picnic tables were). The only basement that would get flooded would be the boathouse/tasty/cox electric building, no?
Tables
Are going in the back, not in the front.
Being the ORIGINAL South
Being the ORIGINAL South Boston Yuppy Overlord, the point I was making was this: the corner of L & E. Broaday is already over run with drunken buffoons at all hours of the night on Friday and Saturday. But a burger joint that does not sell alcohol is what pushes them over? Like I said, if you don't like drunkards outside your window at 2AM on Saturday night, you really need to either move down the street, start picketing the BBG or petition to reinstate Prohibition.
Id argue the opposite.
BBG, Shenanigans, Junction...
They all have the problem every other bar in this city has, early closing times that dump everyone into the street at 1-1:30AM. So you get 50-100 drunk people standing around, trying to catch cabs, walking everywhere, urinating in alleys because they weren't allowed to hit up the restroom after losing track of time, ect.
Let them filter out slowly and naturally, and you won't have nearly the same amount of issues.
The term for this is "club sidewalk". And it causes problems.
Behind the scenes...
I think the real opposition is coming from people aligned with Billy Connolly over at Wolfies/Sidewalk Cafe. He's got one bar/restaurant almost directly abutting this proposed location (Wolfies) and a similar walk-up/take out place a block away (Sidewalk). Wolfies was in trouble recently and had to shut down for a while after less than a year in business. And I bet he's a big contributor to the Collins campaign.
It sounds to me like he's calling on the old neighborhood to prevent any competition from moving in. The same thing happened last year when American Provisions (organic food market on E. Broadway) wanted a beer/wine only license to sell craft beer and wine with their fancy cheeses. Every liquor store owner in 02127 showed up to the hearing in opposition, peddling a bunch of nonsense about the destruction alcohol causes in the neighborhood, despite the fact that the store wanted a very small selection of very high end stuff to go with their foods, and these same liquor store owners sell nips and 30 racks to children every weekend. Don't believe me? Check the M Street Park at 11pm on any Saturday night and watch all the 13-15 year olds smashing bottles and staggering around peeing on yuppie stoops. The natives got restless and came out vehemently opposed to snuff out the yuppie competition.
re: runing the neighborhood
I'm going to say that the murders, drug addicts and wilding teens are runing the neighborhood not a proposed burger joint on an already busy corner of South Boston.
It got approved, no patio though
Boston.com reports.
http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/south_boston/2...
I'm happy with the hours, but it would have been nice to at least have the patio set up in the daytime.