Diner revs up for downtown
Also, Pigalle grows up
By Donna Goodison / Turning the Tables | Friday, March 6, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Business & Markets
A 1960s-era diner largely inspired by San Francisco’s landmark Fog City Diner is planned for Boston’s Downtown Crossing.
The 225-seat Continental Diner is slated to open a year from now, decked out with a piece of an old rail car and automotive motifs from the mid-’60s.
William Ashmore, director of operations for Continental Concepts, declined to identify the location, but sources say it will be on the ground floor of a Suffolk University-owned building. The Boston restaurant group owns Ivy Restaurant on Temple Place in the same neighborhood and will open Stoddard’s Fine Food & Ale across the street next month.
The Continental Diner will be a “traditional over-the-top classic American diner,” according to Ashmore. He and his partners made a few visits to the Fog City Diner and researched the popular tourist attraction online. Ashmore liked that it was an elegant place, with a rail car kitchen and traditional soda fountains. “It has everything that a diner should, at heart, minus the grease,” he said.
Continental Concepts is consulting with American diner historian Richard J.S. Gutman to put the authentic finishing touches on the restaurant. Gutman, the author of “American Diner: Then & Now,” is curator of the diner museum at Johnson & Wales University’s Culinary Arts Museum.
The Boston diner also will have traditional soda fountains and an exposed kitchen serving all three meals from 7 a.m. to midnight.
A 1964 Lincoln Continental convertible will be used as its marketing vehicle. The diner’s booths will resemble the back seat of the Lincoln, and its concave ceiling will be sprayed with copper enamel, the same color as the car.
Menu items will include steak and eggs, huevos rancheros, chicken-fried steak, waffles, burgers and salads. Bread and a rotating lineup of cupcakes will be baked in-house. Meals with a drink will run $11 for breakfast, $13 for lunch and $25 for dinner.
Continental Concepts is able to plan a new venture amid a dicey economy, because it’s showing positive numbers at Ivy, Ashmore said. Ivy serves Italian-inspired small plates and prices all of its wine at $26 a bottle.
“We don’t seem to be affected, because we’re value-oriented,” Ashmore said. More changes are in store for Boston chef Marc Orfaly.
He and co-owner and general manager Kerri Foley have put Pigalle, their award-winning French bistro in the Theatre District, up for sale.
The 54-seat restaurant has outgrown its customer base, and Orfaly and Foley plan to search for a bigger space to accommodate larger parties and private dining, a spokeswoman for the couple said.
According to the Boston Restaurant Group’s listing for Pigalle, it has annual sales of $1.3 million.
Its owners are looking for a new location in the Financial District or Back Bay with enough room for 100 to 120 customers, according to broker Charlie Perkins.
“Pigalle is a starter restaurant,” he said. “(First-time owners) all come into a 40- or 50-seater because that’s what they can afford. Then they build a following and go off and do something bigger.”
Orfaly also owns Marco Cucina Romana in the North End. He recently closed his third restaurant, Restaurant L in Newbury Street’s LouisBoston clothing store, after just two months.
The three Z Square restaurants in Cambridge and Boston closed this year, and now the owners have filed two Chapter 7 bankruptcy cases to liquidate the business.
Filed Feb. 20, both bankruptcy petitions list debt of $1 million to $10 million. The restaurants’ attorney could not be reached.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1156564
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