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Otherside Cafe could reappear on other side of the turnpike

The Otherside Cafe, which shut at the end of April, is negotiating a lease on space in the South End, its manager told the Boston Licensing Board this morning. But whether it re-opens as a vegetarian restaurant and beer bar remains an open question.

Daniel Lanigan told the board he hopes to have a lease in place within four to six weeks; he asked the board to give the Otherside up to six months to complete negotiations and then renovate the space into a new restaurant. Technically, the board does not allow holders of increasingly valuable liquor licenses to just sit on them, but in practical terms, it typically gives existing license holders time - in some cases two or more years - to reopen, move to a new location or find a buyer.

After the hearing, Lanigan declined to say exactly where in the South End the new location is, because of the lease negotiations. He added that exactly what the new restaurant would serve up would depend in part on talks with nearby residents on just what they'd like to see in the space.

The Otherside closed after 20 years on "the other side" of Newbury Street when its landlord declined to extend its lease.

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Comments

Why not Allston? Rent would be much cheaper I'm sure.

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That finally went vacant very recently. Lots of vacant restaurant space in the South End at the moment, and nobody really addressing the vegetarian segment specifically. Also, if that is indeed the location, it is probably easier to move a liquor license into a spot that has had one for years.

It does seem a better fit for the Allston demo, but they'd have more competition there, and maybe a tougher time relocating the license.

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Sorry they can't relocate within Back Bay. I'll go to South End for their burritos regardless. It was always packed on Newbury... fortunately their customer base only has to travel one neighborhood away which is preferable to Allston.

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Columbus Cafe is gone? I was there not more than a few weeks ago. I loved having a legit, low-key, neighborhood place. Bummer.

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I am hearing that the Stockyard has been sold and will reopen in October...

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Facebook says closed for renovations. Rumor has it West on Central bought it. Hope nobody has gift certificates? Old man Manning must be spinning the way his boys wrecked this joint.

http://www.facebook.com/stockyard.brighton

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Adam, it is gone sold off. Could you do a separate page so folks can participate? Employees got calls on Monday that it was over...

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Just a correction to the owner's last name: It's Lanigan, not Lanigam. He also owns Lord Hobo in Cambridge.
http://www.beerscribe.com/2009/03/31/cambridges-b-...

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Thanks.

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It would be great to have somewhere that you can get a decent beer and some vegetarian food (even if it was sometimes badly prepared). The ability to get decentish vegetarian in this city is hard.

I believe that the owner of Lord Hobo used to work at the Other Side for close to 10 years, and was the General Manager before the place closed and I speculate that this new Other Side will be more like Lord Hobo.

He wrote a really great posting on Beeradvocate about the Other Side when it was originally suppose to close. I can't find that posting (Beeradvocate changed something on their site and the link I had doesn't work and the search sucks). There's a copy of the posting to a "Talk" thread on Yelp:

http://www.yelp.com/topic/boston-the-other-side-is...

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