There’s more of an infrastructure to support it now. I think by Boston expanding, attracting more jobs in the Financial District and in the pharmaceutical sector, it definitely enables us to grow in the food and beverage industry. How has the clientele changed over the years? There’s definitely more to do for adults than there used to be. But there’s definitely a lot more to do now than there ever was: elevated dining experiences, whether it’s a supper club or more options. It used to be really catered just toward college students, international students. How would you describe Boston’s nightlife, then and now? I don’t think I would ever do anything else. It keeps you sharp, it keeps you on your toes, and it keeps the restaurant fresh. It’s a constant quality check: staying on top of every single part of every single department. Consistency is really the biggest thing you just never let up. There’s nothing better than getting a great compliment and seeing staff happy and seeing the kitchen happy. What keeps you in the business? Because that sounds hard. They take out their bad day on the server because, you know, you have to smile. It could be an unhappy guest, somebody who was just unhappy with their day who comes in and takes it out on the staff: where they were seated, how the food came out, the timing of the food. Just from reopening Newbury Street, just one short week, you know. How does that happen? Is it on Yelp? In person? Let’s just get back to bashing the kitchen and bashing the servers and criticizing everything, you know? It’s like COVID never happened, nobody lost two years of their lives. That seems like it’s gone way out the window. The only thing that changed, really, is when we came out of COVID, people were over-tipping servers and being nice to servers and remembering what the industry had gone through. Right now, it almost feels as if it never existed. People were out, even if they had their masks on. How do you think COVID affected the Boston restaurant industry? As somebody who’s been in this business for a very long time, how was it transformed?Īs soon as we were able to reopen back in June 2020, I believe, the consumer confidence was there right away. A lot of people moved in as singles and maybe got married and had families and children. Now, all you see are really young families and a lot of strollers - a really beautiful community. A lot of single people were moving in a lot of families were moving out. It went through a cycle where you saw your first condos coming around. How has the neighborhood changed? Is it more gentrified? What’s the biggest difference these days? I grew up washing dishes and waiting tables and things like that. There were late nights sleeping in the kitchen while he catered the events. My father used to cater a lot of church events for a lot of Lebanese churches. I have a lot of great memories there just meeting every single person in every single building. It was a very close community it was definitely a great place to grow up. That particular area was Lebanese immigrants. That’s where we pretty much lived, because we lived upstairs anyway. And, you know, all day prepping, and then dinner service. Growing up, my father, six days a week, he was the chef. And so when he came here, he opened Cedar at the current Coppa location on Shawmut Avenue. My father had always been in the restaurant business in Lebanon. My mother and father and sister came over from Lebanon, maybe two years before I was born. What are your memories of Boston in that era? Your parents owned Cedars in the South End. For dinner, we’re really concentrating on a more of a Mediterranean-inspired menu. We brought over Luis Figueroa from Committee, who’s the chef de cuisine there. We’re really differentiating our lunch and dinner menu. It’s not going to be anything close to Cafeteria or Cafeteria 2.0 or anything like that. We definitely have to reinvent ourselves. I think the Back Bay is definitely ready for that shot in the arm. We’ve been very well-received since announcing that we were reopening. We’re definitely seeing a change in that now, with Ken Oringer coming to Newbury Street and Contessa opening at the Newbury. Right around this time, the Seaport really started gaining steam, maybe in 2014 or 2-15 We definitely started to see the Back Bay losing a little bit of its appeal to people, a little bit less foot traffic and less dining traffic. It was opened as Cafeteria in 2007 and had a great run.
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