The Busy Bee Restaurant on the north side of Beacon Street near its intersection with Carlton Street is Brookline's oldest existing restaurant.* It opened in 1955 and was taken over by the current owners a dozen years later.
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| Advertisement announcing the grand opening of Busy Bee. Brookline Citizen, April 14, 1955, p7. |
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| Busy Bee Restaurant, 1046 Beacon Street, today (from Busy Bee website) |
The commercial building (1040-1054 Beacon) housing Busy Bee marked its 100th anniversary last year. Busy Bee's location in the middle of the block of storefronts was the site of a variety of businesses -- including one featuring miniature bowling! -- before the first of a series of short-lived restaurants opened there in 1949.
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| This article and advertisement for miniature bowling at 1046 Beacon Street ran in the Brookline Citizen on February 11 and February 18, 1938. (Click for larger view) |
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| Advertisements for restaurants that preceded Busy Bee at 1046 Beacon Street: Danny's (1949); Margo's (1950); and Fitzpatrick's (1952) (Click for larger view) |
But while Busy Bee is the oldest existing restaurant, there is one Brookline storefront that has been a restaurant location -- though not the same restaurant -- for even longer than has 1046 Beacon Street. In fact, this location will mark 100 years of continuous operation as one restaurant or another in 2023.
Can you guess where it is? (Hint: You may not think of this address as being in Brookline. See the comments below for some guesses, including the correct one.)
* - Brookline directories did not list businesses after 1944. None of the restaurants listed in the 1944 directory are still around. It is possible that one of today's restaurants started between 1944 and the opening of Busy Bee in 1955, but I cannot think of one. I'd be happy to be corrected if someone knows of one I've overlooked.
The old Jack & Marions storefront in Coolidge Corner?
ReplyDeleteNot quite. That building was constructed in 1928 and didn't have its first restaurant -- the Cafe de Paris -- until 1933.
DeleteCoolidge Theater?
ReplyDeleteNo. The building began in 1906 as a church with four retail storefronts on the Harvard Street side. It has one restaurant (Upper Crust Pizza) now, but does not have any long, continuous history of having a restaurant there.
DeleteT Anthony’s?
ReplyDeleteT. Anthony's is correct. The storefront, which was added to the front of an existing apartment building in 1922, was occupied by the Hawthorne Lunch restaurant from 1923 to 1933. Later restaurants include a branch of the Walnut Lunch chain and the Babcock Luncheonette.
DeleteT. Anthony's took over the space in 1964. The current owners bought it in 1976.
Shan-a-Punjab, formerly Rubin’s.
ReplyDeleteGood guess, but that building is a relatively new one, built in 1968. It's first occupant was a bank. Rubin's, which had been in two other locations further down Harvard Street, moved there in 1979.
DeleteThanks for this great article, Ken. I wonder when the New Paris Bakery opened: my mother recalled it as being in its current location during WWII
ReplyDeleteNew Paris Bakery started in 1919 on Boylston Street in Boston and moved to its current location in Brookline in 1927 or 1928. That makes it older than Busy Bee, but it's not really a restaurant.
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