Healthy Fast Food Restaurant Eyes Downtown Spots

California-based Lyfe Kitchen could soon be opening a franchise (or a few) in Boston.

A California-based company offering healthier fast food options could soon be coming to Boston. Lyfe Kitchen is looking for space in the city’s Downtown Crossing, Seaport District and Faneuil Hall areas in an effort to bring their quick-and-healthy restaurant concept from the West Coast to the East, the Boston Business Journal reports. The company currently has two locations in Culver City and Palo Alto, CA and is looking to expand to 250 restaurants nationwide, according to the BBJ. That could include up to 10 Lyfe Kitchens in the Boston area. Lyfe Kitchen’s menu items are all under 600 calories each, and the company promises “quality food using locally and sustainably sourced ingredients whenever possible,” according to its website, …

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New Hayes Square Restaurant Will Feature Wood-Fired Oven, Craft Beer

The yet-to-be-named business will be located at 7-9 Moulton St. in Charlestown.

[UPDATE Wednesday, 9:30 a.m. To correct address] A new restaurant may be opening this fall in Hayes Square. Business partners John Paine and Michael Cooney announced at Tuesday night’s Charlestown Neighborhood Council meeting that they are looking to open the business at 5-7 Moulton St., next to McCarthy Bros. Liquors. Rich McCarthy introduced the pair at the meeting and said he owned both the liquor store and the vacant building next to it, which formerly housed Tuttles Cleaners. McCarthy will be leasing the space to the new restaraunteurs. With about 65 seats, the new restaurant will offer American cuisine, craft beer and wine, with food cooked in a wood-fired oven, Paine said. He called the location “not expensive and not cheap” and …

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Fenway Park To Host 'Boston Bites Back' Fundraiser

Nearly 100 chefs will be cooking up a special benefit at Fenway Park on May 15 to benefit The One Fund.

The Fenway neighborhood will play host to a large-scale fundraising event for the One Fund next week, known as "Boston Bites Back." Nearly 100 of Boston's top chefs will be coming together to present a special culinary tasting event at Fenway Park on May 15 to raise $1 million for The One Fund.  The event is being spearheaded by celebrity chefs Ken Oringer and Ming Tsai, the Boston Red Sox, Governor Deval Patrick, Mayor Tom Menino and ARAMARK. The idea is to bring Bostonians together to eat, drink and demonstrate Boston’s unrelenting spirit, while raising money for the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing, according to organizers. “BBB is an opportunity for the city to join as one and acknowledge our strength as a community,” said …

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Charlestown Max & Dylans to Become Papagayo

The City Square business closed on Sunday and will reopen in May as a Mexican restaurant and tequila bar.

The Max and Dylans in Charlestown’s City Square is set to become the city’s second Papagayo Mexican Restaurant and Tequila Bar. The restaurant, located at 1 Chelsea St., closed on Sunday, April 21 and is now undergoing renovations, with plans to reopen on May 1 with a new name, style and menu, according to an announcement on papagayoboston.com. Both Max and Dylans and Papagayo are owned and operated by the Legendary Restaurant Group, along with four other restaurants—including the new Burger Dive in Somerville, which opened last November. With the closure of the City Square Max and Dylans, the company now has two remaining Max and Dylans—in Downtown Boston and Billerica. The Charlestown location will be Legendary Restaurant Group’s second …

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Patch Chats with Paolo's Trattoria

The Italian bistro on Main Street serves dinner seven days per week beginning at 5 p.m.

Whether you're looking for a family-friendly restaurant where you can dine with the kids or a date night setting with a romantic feel, Paolo's Trattoria in Charlestown is your spot. Located at 251 Main St., the Italian bistro is owned and operated by Charlestown resident Adam Hawk and Charlestown native Damian Donovan, now of Back Bay. The two took over the restaurant from the previous owner, kept the name and updated some other aspects, striving to offer a neighborhood bistro where everyone feels welcome. Charlestown Patch sat down recently with Donovan to talk about how he and Hawk came to own the bistro and what they hope to provide there.  How did you get started with Paolo’s? I worked on the executive level for a company called Lyons …

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More Than 2,500 Bartenders in Boston. Beer Me.

The food service and accommodations industry makes up a serious chunk of Boston's economy.

How much do we like our hotels, restaurants and bars in Boston? Enough that the accommodation and food service industry employs nearly 50,000 people within The Hub proper. According to data from the Boston Redevelopment Authority, hotels, bars and restaurants make up the city’s sixth-largest sector, with nearly as many workers as Boston’s legendary educational services industry. The biggest chunk of those workers handle our food—9,592 bring it to our tables, 8,580 are classified as “combined food preparation and serving workers” (such as fast food workers), and another 3,225 are designated as cooks. Another 1,958 are classified as “food preparation workers,” and 3,016 serve us our coffee. Amid all those numbers, a blessed 2,631 serve us …

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Group Continues Push for Meals Tax Holiday. Good for Charlestown?

Despite the setback last legislative session, a restaurant alliance will try again to get the holiday.

Would you be more likely to go out to eat in Charlestown or Boston-proper if the state suspended its meals tax? The Restaurant and Business Alliance thinks so, and is gearing up to try again to get it passed in the State House. Unlike the sales tax holiday, which is offered one weekend out of most summers, the meals tax holiday would benefit workers in Massachusetts since the amount restaurant workers make is usually tied to how many customers come in, according to Vincent A.J. Errichetti, the alliance's spokesman. Both the sales tax and meals tax are 6.25 percent in Massachusetts.  "They understand that not only would it help waiters, waitresses and bartenders, but it would help an industry that is really hurting. And it would stay in the…

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Warren Tavern Voted Best Grad Party Venue

Navy Yard Bistro finishes second, Olives third.

This week’s Reader’s Choice poll told us two things: 1) Charlestown is far more interested in hair salons than graduation parties, and 2) The Warren Tavern continues to win most restaurant-themed “Best Of” contests in town. With just 40 votes cast across 14 candidates, The Warren Tavern captured the most with 9. Readers in the past have complimented the restaurant’s food, service and history, but let’s turn our attention to the runners up. Another perennial poll leader, The Navy Yard Bistro and Wine Bar, came in second, but the third place finisher might be something of a surprise: Olives. Just about a month after reopening, the long-shuttered restaurant whose owner has not always been loved by the community has worked its way back into …

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Ten Best Places to Eat Dinner in Greater Boston

Patch readers from around the Boston area chose their favorite dinner spots, and here are the results.

This week we asked Patch readers from around Greater Boston an important question: Where's the best place to eat dinner in your community? After five days of voting, here are the results: South End Union Bar & Grille, 1357 Washington St. Back Bay Parish Café and Bar, 361 Boylston St. Beacon Hill 75 Chestnut, 75 Chestnut St. Somerville Highland Kitchen, 150 Highland Ave. Charlestown Navy Yard Bistro and Wine Bar, 1 6th St # 199 Medford Pizzeria Regina, 44 Station Landing Melrose Turner's Seafood Grill & Market, 506 Main St. Malden All Seasons Table Restaurant, 64 Pleasant St. Stoneham Gaetano's, 271 Main St. Wakefield Caffe Italia, 21 Water St.

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Building Blocks

Would You Want A Restaurant As A Neighbor?

An uproar occurred in the South End this past week over plans to put two new restaurants in the neighborhood. NIMBYism? Maybe. But, maybe there's also something good happening here.

Some South End residents are against two new restaurants opening on Washington Street. To me, their reaction is a microcosm of what’s happening elsewhere in the city -- on Main Street in Charlestown, Centre Streets in Jamaica Plain and West Roxbury, Boylston Street in Back Bay, and Charles Street in Beacon Hill. People want an active role and a bigger say in what’s happening in their neighborhoods, and this means that sometimes people are against things. As South End Patch reported, opposition led developers of the Hite Radio and TV site to withdraw their plans -- completely -- while heated arguments at a neighborhood association meeting left a proposal by the owner of Stella hanging by a thread. This behavior that has become the norm in …

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