Brookline's Oldest Restaurant (Or Is It?)

Three years ago, I wrote a blog post about Brookline's oldest restaurant, the Busy Bee, which opened on Beacon Street just east of Carlton Street in April 1955.

Ad announcing the grand opening of Busy Bee. Brookline Citizen, April 14, 1955, p7.

Busy Bee has now closed, as reported in Brookline News. So which restaurant gets to wear the crown as Brookline's oldest?

Well, it depends.

By one measure, Martin's Coffee, which replaced Muldoon's Luncheonette at 35 Harvard Street in Brookline Village in November 1955, gets boasting rights. 

Ad in Brookline Citizen, November 24, 1955

But wait. The Martin's website says "Local Fresh Food Since 1918."

And a mural on the inside of the restaurant also says 1918.

Could it be that Muldoon's, the luncheonette that, according to that 1955 ad, was replaced by Martin's, was a restaurant in that space as far back as 1918?

No. Muldoon's opened at 35 Harvard Street in 1948, moving from the nearby building at the corner of Harvard and Linden Street where it had started in 1946, not 1918. 

Brookline Citizen, December 2, 1948. (Click image for larger view)

In fact, there was no retail space at all at 35 Harvard Street in 1918. The three-story building was constructed as an apartment building in the 1890s and the first floor wasn't converted to retail space until 1926. It was then occupied by a series of drugstores -- no restaurants -- until after World War II.

So where does that 1918 date come from? Nobody at Martin's seems to know. (Every time I've asked, I've been told the owner is in his native Albania and is unavailable for comment.)

Still, though Martin's dates to 1955, not 1918, it is -- with the closing of Busy Bee -- now Brookline's oldest restaurant.

Sort of.

As I noted in that 2022 blog post, there is one Brookline storefront that has been a restaurant  -- but not the same restaurant -- longer than Martin's. It's the space at 1016 Commonwealth Avenue at the corner of Babcock Street, now occupied by T. Anthony's.

That storefront, which -- like the Martin's space -- was added to the front of an existing apartment building in the 1920s, 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. T. Anthony's took over the space in 1964. 

Adding to the confusion, the T. Anthony's website says "Established in 1976," not 1964! (Turns out that when the current owner took over the then-12-year-old restaurant.)

The Brookline News story on the closing of Busy Bee noted that the Christakis family, which operated the restaurant and still owns the building, is negotiating with a prospective new restaurant tenant. "We’re looking for somebody to keep it the way it is, keep it similar,” Chris Christakis told the paper. A future tenant, he added, might not even change the name.

If that turns out to be the case, if the restaurant that opened in April 1955 comes back, with a new owner in the same location, but with the same name and kept "the way it is," will Busy Bee reclaim the title of Brookline's oldest restaurant.

As always, it depends on how you look at it.