Peabody to get New England's first Sonic burger stand

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Submitted by adamg on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 11:14am.

In other big restaurant news..

Speaking of burgers, right in DTL (downtown Lynn) The Blue Ox is open and packed!! It's also a great bar/hangout. The clientele come from all over - this is not the sketchy biker bar of Lynn's past. A place called Turbine Wine Bar is opening real soon in DTL, too.

A lot of us who live here were distraught when previous businesses failed, but the overall morale has been way up as the business climate here doesn't seem to notice the nation's economic troubles. It looks like we're bouncing back, already. Maybe we just had nowhere to go but up. :)

Good for Peabody, too. I just won't be able to enjoy it unless they have a veggie option.

mediaseth | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 11:30am

Gulu Gulu

I left the area a little over a year ago and didn't realize that the Gulu Gulu Cafe in Lynn didn't make it. That's really sad; it was a neat little place. Glad to see the Salem one is still chugging along, though.

I moved to San Francisco and after seeing the quality and quantity of local dining/drinking/socializing options in our many suburban downtowns, I feel that the Boston area has a huge opportunity that needs to be seized upon. I think this is especially true in some of the more urban north shore cities--Lynn, Salem, and Beverly especially--where you have a blend of some of the right crowd for these things, the right types of (somewhat more entry-level) housing, and the bones of old-fashioned, pedestrian friendly urban downtowns.

One of the things standing in the way in Mass., unfortunately, is the caps on liquor licenses... which is a challenge we don't face out here. I believe in MA it's approximately one license per 1,000 residents, with some exceptions made for historicity (some of the older cities seem to get more). By comparison, here, a typical suburb is San Mateo: the city has 92,000 residents, a downtown area that boasts over 100 eateries of various shapes and sizes, and easily that many or more again throughout the rest of the town, including standard chain restaurant fare as well as local places.

Jason (not verified) | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 11:45am

this region is funny about alcohol

I agree with you that the liquor license caps are crazy, as are some of the other weird alcohol related laws. New England has an immature relationship with drinking, at best.

Gulu-Gulu Salem is doing better than chugging along. It's thriving. (disclosure: I DJ there)

Turbine Wine Bar is what's replacing the Lynn Gulu-Gulu. It'll be a quick lunch spot by weekday and a relaxed cafe at night, from what I understand. They're doing some reconfiguring of the space right now.

mediaseth | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 4:19pm

Do tell about the Blue Ox,

Do tell about the Blue Ox, it sounds funky and cool, any reviews?

ShadyMilkMan | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 11:47am

yeah

Look it up on yelp "The Blue Ox"

The url isn't showing up.. maybe I don't have that privilege.

mediaseth | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 12:03pm

Can we get a Chick-Fil-A downtown while we're at it?

Sonic and Chick-Fil-A are two of the national chains I actually enjoy, and it's about time the latter opened a location downtown. By "downtown" (lowercase 'd') I mean "the urban core of Boston" which encompasses a number of possible neighborhoods.

(So please, leave the usual pedantic arguments over what constitutes "Downtown" [capital 'D'] elsewhere) ;)

Arborway | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 11:45am

Chick-Fil-A is easily the best chicken sandwich I ever ate

however, given their level of religiosity, the secular folks around here would make their lives miserable. Too bad.

aging cynic | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 12:17pm

Chick-Fil-A

used to have a franchise of some kind at the Harvard Science Center cafeteria. I never heard of anyone objecting to it.

Ron Newman | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 12:22pm

No, it's not because of their religion

I'm not a secular person, though I'm a religious non-Christian, and I couldn't care less if a business has Christian owners. Most of the businesses I patronize have Christian owners. Most of the people in this country are Christian. I'm not concerned with what religion the owners of a restaurant are.

What I do have a problem with is that they give huge sums of money to hate organizations that exist to promote homophobia. That's offensive, and I don't care what excuse they're giving for thinking that hatred is acceptable. Christians especially should be offended that these groups twist the words of Christ to promote hate (not to mention leading many members of the public to equate the word "Christian" with these kind of backwards ideals.)

http://1smootshort.blogspot.com

eeka | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 12:26pm

It's called voting with your wallet

I wouldn't eat there, either, even if they had things I could eat. I wouldn't stand outside with a sign, but I'd tell my friends what sort of hate they promote.

mediaseth | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 12:43pm

Chick-fil-A lends its support to tea party protesters.

You would not eat there even if you got free tea?

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/15/chick-fil-a-te...

Anony Moose (not verified) | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 1:07pm

More than voting with your wallet

It means they would have to follow our state laws regarding married people and benefits - a company is not allowed to pick and choose which marriages it considers worthy of benefiting and which it does not.

SwirlyGrrl | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 4:53pm

they dont seem to have a problem

with the store they have (had) in the Burlington Mall.

anon-a-mouse | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 6:54pm

Peabody isn't Lynn

so I'm not sure why your link is labelled "Boom times in Lynn"

Ron Newman | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 12:21pm

It was reported in the Lynn Item

Peabody is adjacent to Lynn. Plus, lots of changes are taking place in Lynn, so it's kind of true, even if not really relevant to the subject of the article. :)

mediaseth | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 12:41pm

Also, yes

Sonic.
Boom times.

Our Man Gaffin has enjoyed pulling one on us like that.

Anyway, whenever I go to the Left Coast, the two burger joints I love to eat at the most are In-N-Out and Sonic. There's no way In-N-Out will ever expand west of the Rockies much less across the Mississippi, but Sonic's done some Eastern Seaboard expansion if memory serves so I'm quite happy to see them and say hi.

Now if only Steak & Shake will get the hint ("In sight, it must be right") then I can die a happy man. A happy man with arterial sclerosis, sure, but a happy man nonetheless.

Sad that 24-hour restaurants are mostly anathema here in the Land of the (Former) Blue Laws.

Spatch | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 2:59pm

i still like to believe...

that if i am a good enough kid, santa will give me an in-n-out burger joint in massachusetts for christmas.

bandit | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 3:40pm

Oh please! Pleeeeaaasssseeee!

Oh please! Oh please! Oh please! Oh please!

Burgerville is way too sweet for words ... but they don't even have the coverage that In-Out does.

SwirlyGrrl | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 4:58pm

Burgerville, USA

I have a container in my fridge labeled "SECRET SAUCE," as an homage to Burgerville's.

(I went vegetarian *after* I moved to New England.)

neilv | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 5:05pm

Burgerville's got veggie options

And don't forget the seasonally available Walla Walla Sweet Onion rings ...

SwirlyGrrl | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 6:17pm

Now I'm hungry for ...

A Five Guys burger and fries ...

adamg | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 5:10pm

Because I have the attention span of a gnat

I was obviously able to get it right in the headline, but then I saw it was from the Lynn Daily Item and my mind was unable to deal with the contradiction or something. Fixed. Now what were you saying?

adamg | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 3:11pm

Year-round?

Is the Sonic really going to be open year-round? Man, drive-in service will be quite a pain during winter. For that reason, I didn't think they'd ever try to bring one up here. But, if they can do it in New Jersey....

And, regarding Chick-fil-A, isn't there one at the Burlington Mall food court? Closed Sundays, of course.

Eighthman | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 1:58pm

Chick-Fil-A

Their Store Locator lists one at the Burlington Mall (easily reached by bus #350 from Alewife) and one at the North Shore Mall in Peabody (probably also reachable by some bus, but it would be a pain)

Ron Newman | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 2:04pm

I had been to the one in

I had been to the one in Peabody before. It is accessible by bus but I would not direct anyone to take the bus to any mall on the North Shore. The Liberty Tree and North Shore mall bus route is full of twists and turns and it takes upwards to a half hour to get to either way from the closest bus depot, then you have to worry about getting to the bus depot at either Salem or Lynn. Your better off walking... Also from what I just read about Chic fil a your better off just going to KFC...

ShadyMilkMan | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 2:15pm

Makes since since they've

Makes since since they've been heavily advertising in this market for about a year and a half now.

The wind before the storm if you will.

anon (not verified) | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 2:12pm

Sonic finally comes to New England

Wonderful. Now if they can just dump those stupid, annoying commercials. I would pay them to take those off the air.

anon (not verified) | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 2:25pm

I disagree! Everyone I know

I disagree!

Everyone I know has mentioned them at least once in the past 2 years, even though we have 0 locations even remotely close to us. Even while driving down the coast Ive never seen one, maybe I missed the NJ one...

I bet you that Sonic will have an initial burst for a few weeks while people visit to see what these commercials they have seen for the past 15 years are about.

ShadyMilkMan | Mon, 04/20/2009 - 4:02pm