By Grant Welker
Craft Food Halls will open its 10th Boston area location later this month at Studio Allston Hotel, joining others in Dorchester, Lexington, Marlborough, Waltham and Wellesley.
The latest Craft Food Halls will open March 21, with nearly 8,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor space. It will include events, live music and events, along with what Craft Food Halls says is the first sous vide food hall in the country, which uses a lower-temperature, slow-cooking process.
It’ll also have features more familiar to those who’ve visited other Craft Food Halls locations, including a wall of beer, wine and cocktail taps that lets guests serve themselves.
Studio Allston Hotel, at 1234 Soldiers Field Road, opened at a former Days Hotel in 2018. The hotel used to have its own on-site restaurant, Casa Caña, that closed in 2021.
In other retail news:
- Two months after closing, parent entities of sibling Belmont businesses Craft Beer Cellar and Trinktisch have filed for bankruptcy. Craft Beer Initiative LLC, the parent company of both defunct businesses, reported just over $1 million in financial liabilities and $52,000 in assets. Its largest reported creditors include its landlord, the U.S. Small Business Administration and food service and distribution companies based in the Boston area and elsewhere. A related entity, Craft Beer Cellar Group LLC, also filed for bankruptcy, claiming $494,000 in liabilities and just $500 in assets. Craft Beer Cellar and Trinktisch first said last August they were seeking a buyer, and announced in November they would close at the end of 2023.
- The Mall at Rockingham Park in Salem, New Hampshire, will soon add an Anthropologie and FP Movement, an activewear branch of the retailer Free People. Both will be the first such locations in New Hampshire — a milestone increasingly taking place in Salem, between Rockingham Park and the adjacent Tuscan Village. Anthropologie is slated to open this spring and FP Movement this fall, while Tuscan Village has Capital Grille, Whole Foods Market, West Elm and Friendly Toast among those in development.
- Taffer’s Tavern, from Jon Taffer, a hospitality entrepreneur and personality from the TV show “Bar Rescue,” has closed its Watertown location. The bar was open for two and a half years at Arsenal Yards, which has a number of other names on the way, including ButterBird, a fast-casual restaurant from chef Jason Santos, a J. Crew Factory store, and the steakhouse Medium Rare.
- The mattress brand Naturepedic has opened its first-ever standalone store at 252 Newbury St. between Fairfield and Gloucester streets. The 1,100-square-foot store is part of the company’s plan to grow its store count from 25 to 40 by the end of 2024. The company also has a small retail space on Washington Street in Wellesley.
- Elsewhere on Newbury Street, the previously-reported upcoming opening of the fragrance store Olfactory NYC is nearly here. The company, which is opening its first permanent location outside New York City or Washington, D.C., will open March 14 at 133 Newbury St. between Clarendon and Dartmouth streets.
- Vivi’s Tapas Bar, a sibling to Revere restaurants Fine Line and Dryft, is planning a spring opening on Revere Beach. The location, at 21 Revere Beach Blvd., is the former Cut21 steakhouse space.
- East Boston pie shop Seabiscuit is closing for good — and doing so on Pi Day, March 14. “It’s been a fun, wacky run, but it must come to an end,” the restaurant said on its Instagram page.
- Salem has a new restaurant at the longtime former Major Magleashe’s Pub at 268 Washington St. The Babe, a sandwich shop and bar, had a soft opening in February.
- Center & Stone, a residential development on Hancock Street in Quincy Center, is planning the opening of a restaurant this fall, with more details to come. The first residents moved into Center & Stone’s first phase of 66 units in January, with a second phase with 135 units opening this fall.