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South End to get more rich Buttery goodness

The Zoning Board of Appeals yesterday approved a plan by South End Buttery on Shawmut Avenue to open a second outpost for takeout at 37 Clarendon St., near Appleton Street.

The Boston Licensing Board decides Thursday whether to grant a food-serving license to the new place. At a hearing this morning, representatives of the mayor's office and several city councilors spoke in support.

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there won't be any local residents up in arms over this, unlike the recent Tremont Street Dunkin' Donuts debacle, even though this area is more residential.

The South End yuppie crowd will flock to this place with lines out the door for $5 lattes and $4 muffins whereas Dunkin Donuts was deemed too declasse for them. When you have a top of the line, souped up triple wide Maclaren stroller, or when you are double-parking your black Range Rover, its better to be seen going into a place like this than a lowly Dunkin's.

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At either the ZBA or the licensing-board hearings.

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MAYBE b/c local freshly baked pastries from an independent bakery are delicious and corporate factory baked donuts are gross. If you prefer tons of Dunkin' D's in your neighborhood and no mom & pop bakeries, that's cool and great that you don't live in South End. I would love a South End Buttery type of place where I live. Unfortunately the D n' D chain is my only option.

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According to the menu, muffins are $2.50 and a large regular coffee is $2.25 (Large latte is $3.95). Not that much different to DD's prices.

I'd love a place like this in my neighborhood.

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before making ignorant comments. The proposed Dunkin was to be 3,000 sq. ft - 3 to 4 times the size of this proposal or any existing food place in the area. It was also going to be open 24 Hours (nothing else in the area is open 24 hours).

Had Dunkin accepted a size in scale with the neighborhood and kept the same hours of other businesses, it would have been approved.

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was never going to be open 24 hours, That was just a ruse devised by the chi chi neighbors who thought Dunkins too declasse for their exquisite South End tastes.

And also its a city, who are we to dictate the size of a privately owned business? That's what cities have sometimes.

If a 3,000 sq. ft. Dunkins is too large, do we know the size of the Buttery? Won't the old Buttery be about that size when it expands later this Spring? But I guess that's ok because its posh.

This was never about size, rather it was about division of the classes. Dunkin's brings in a more divere crowd than the Buttery. While South End folks claim they moved there for the diversity, they don't actually like to rub elbows with said diversity.

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it was the space that was the problem. I'm sure they would have rather had a smaller space, but location overrode that priority.

Getting anything in that location, that is going to stick, is going to be very hard with the current zoning and rents.

Dunks was going to try something different, but the NIMBYS came out. So, there an empty storefront sits.

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because it couldn't have anything to do with the fact that DD's coffee needs a pint of cream and sugar to be drinkable and they serve crap food.....

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More wailing from the folks for whom apparently one Dunkin Donuts per block is just not enough. More chocoberry-swizzlenut crunch for everybody!

As much as you'd like to make it into some kind of class war, the difference between the cost of breakfast at DD's and the Buttery is negligible. If you're that concerned about it, try staying home and making a pot of oatmeal and some French roast.

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...pretty much everything produced and sold at Dunkin Donuts is disgusting garbage, I don't blame them. DD's has really lowered the bar on what passes as baked goods, not to mention the gross coffee they serve.

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Tell us how you really feel! :)

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My opinion on their coffee is purely subjective. I used to drink it regularly, until I found a place that served coffee that tasted like what coffee should taste like (also, where a large "regular" doesn't contain a quarter cup of cream and eight tablespoons of sugar). I will say though, as one who worked in a bakery for six years (a bakery owned and operated by some of my family members), I know the difference quality baked goods and crap. Very few of Dunkin's baked "goods" are worthy of even the day old shelves at most supermarket bakeries.

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I can't believe the niche baby store survived there that long.

edit: Nevermind, it just moved up the street.

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One big difference between this and the DD's proposal was the DD's was a condo building whereas the Clarendon building is apartments.

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Loathe as I am to speak nice words about yuppie patronized businesses in the SE, the Buttery is surely an exception. It is not a rip-off joint, but a reasonably priced, neighborhood place that's locally owned, unlike DD's.

Also unlike DD's they care about the food they serve, unlike the sad excuse for a dough-nuttery that Dunkin's has become.

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To be fair, isn't Dunkin a "local" corporation, and most store owners "local" franchisees anyway?

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the Carlyle Group, an investment group in DC that is infamous for their neo-con based investments. Mitt Romney's buddies at Bain also own a piece. Dunkin still has their home offices in Canton, though.

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Certainly I've never heard anything good about the Carlyle Group- or Bain, for that matter.

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Also, I thought Dunkins was owned by French corporation many years back... or maybe I'm on crack.

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***Pretense Alert***

I would vote against it simply for the stupid fake artisan name. One would assume with a name like "Buttery" that they make butter there.

Just as I can't buy any kind of feed or not to many supplies at "City Feed and Supply" I suspect that I won't be able to buy a couple pounds of hand churned butter from local cows at "The Buttery".

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Who walked into Durgin Park for the first time and didn't find a Park there. I mean--no pleasant pathways, no lagoon. What tomfoolery!

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I should imagine that the very proper gentleman I once met on the Common, who needed money because his Bechstein was in the shop, might mistake it for the room where the booze is kept, and hope to wheedle the key off the housekeeper. He would surely be disappointed to find an adjective in place of the noun.

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The relevant questions should be:
1) what is the zoning
2) is it up to code
3) does the proposed use conform
4) should it be granted a variance if not

The type of business is pretty much irrelevant and shouldn't be a matter of discussion. If a shop owner wants to sink money into a Rat Treats and Vermin Food store, who cares - yes, it will go under, no, it shouldn't be up to a neighborhood to decide what goes into a space beyond zoning and whether they want to shop there.

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...or any takeout restaurant of >2500 sq. ft. So by your criterion #1 the DD was a non-starter. The developer was attempting to get a variance to bypass this zoning law, and the neighborhood was against that.

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But seems this is a problem with the place, not specifically DD's. It's too big and almost anything planned that isn't office space runs afoul of the zoning. A sit down restaurant would need a variance also.

Maybe a real estate office? Just what the neighborhood needs! Better yet a methadone clinic could go in there and the neighborhood would have little say since it's zoned for that.

Here were running into the problem where the zoning code is being used to micromanage 1/2 block by 1/2 block. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's not great for building a vibrant mixed use residential community; as it's the epitome of having to jump through hoops to find a place to open your business. And that's not even counting the number of licensing boards (and inevitable BS from NIMBYS) you'll have to put up with.

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Do you live there? If not, why do you care? Live and let live. Sick of the whiny busybodies who are so OUTRAGED by every single issue they disagree with in someone else's neighborhood.

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Looks to me like that's what the zoning code is trying to encourage. Get two businesses instead of one.

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I agree, Ron. The Tremont space looks like it could be easily divided, I don't know why this approach hasn't been proposed. It has two entry ways separated by the resident entry. It's only joined by a pass through in the back. Maybe there's a problem with only having access to the basement from one unit.

Btw, if you read through the many online articles where the D&D opposition is quoted you'll see that some of them are against any type of food service going into the building. They think the block has too many now.

And for those who think it matters only the the people living in the building, you're wrong. Empty storefronts effect the whole neighborhood. There are far too many of them in the area at the moment.

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655-659 Tremont has two retail condos. He wanted to merge them back into one for the restaurant.

He apparently can't get someone to take just one side or he'd probably do that in a second.

Price might be an issue. Oh, and a murder taking place about 200 feet from it.

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