The Charles River Speedway: Nearing the Finish Line at a Dynamic Open-Air Marketplace
Photos by Adam DeTour
The most memorable cultural experiences have a way of temporarily transporting you to somewhere else. By transforming a rundown landmark into an eclectic open-air venue showcasing creative local makers, The Charles River Speedway is prepared to be such a place. It’s set to open this summer in Brighton with a variety of tenants centered on a courtyard for outdoor seating, including Notch Brewing and new culinary concepts from diverse local business owners.
The Speedway will variably evoke the atmosphere of a European beer garden, a Japanese sake bar, or a cross-cultural bodega/wine bar in a vibrant urban neighborhood—but Bostonians may also feel transported through time. At the intersection of Western Avenue and Soldiers Field Road, the place repurposes a complex of historic buildings that have had myriad uses—from stables for a long-gone horseracing track to a police station complete with jail cells—since the main structure went up in 1899 as administrative offices for the Charles River Reservation park system.
Even if your idea of a getaway right now is simply a relaxed afternoon of family-friendly snacks, some self-care shopping and maybe a set of live music outdoors, The Speedway is a refuge for socially distanced entertainment. It’s also a welcome opportunity for independent entrepreneurs coming out of a COVID-challenged year.
Seven local brands will open this summer at The Speedway, curated by the placemakers at Graffito, a boutique local leasing company; and overseen by nonprofit developers the Architectural Heritage Foundation (AHF). The vendor agreements are mainly short-term leases, ranging from one to three years, meant to be flexible for business owners who are still growing their brands.
“It's phenomenal to see what everyone’s done this last year,” Markos Doyle, general manager of The Speedway, says about the vendor selection process he assisted with earlier this year. “It’s a great collection of locally based makers that will turn this into a dynamic open-air space where you can come in and take baby steps back into normalcy.”
Notch is a 10-year-established brewery headquartered in Salem, which makes exclusively session brews (read: low alcohol content). Inspired by traditional beer cultures like those in Germany and the Czech Republic, Notch has a designated beer garden attached to the main courtyard of The Speedway. Inside a former horse stable that anchors the complex, Notch will have a spacious taproom, bedecked in reclaimed wood, and a brewhouse capable of producing 1,000 barrels of beer annually.
Diagonally across the courtyard, the beer company will also debut a takeout spot dishing up bratwurst plates with German potato salad and Salem’s own Maitland Mountain Farm sauerkraut; Eastern Standard Provisions Co. pretzels; popcorn with weekly-changing spice blends; and more beer-friendly food. Dubbed Notch Provisions, the culinary concept is one of six small retail bays taking over another row of one-time horse stalls along Western Avenue.
Tipping Cow Ice Cream is also among the so-called “Shops at the Stables,” which range in size from just 170 to 256 square feet. David Lindsey and his wife, Gerly Adrien—a Somerville-born, first-generation Haitian American who is currently running for mayor of Everett—acquired the Somerville-based, nut-free creamery in 2018. Tipping Cow makes ice cream in more than 100 rotating flavors—such as Triple Chocolate, Fig & Goat Cheese, Peach Cobbler and Vegan Cookies and Cream—often inspired by chef Lindsay’s Southern and Midwestern background. Visitors to the Brighton scoop shop can order cups, cones, and flights; plus sundaes, shakes, and pints to-go.
Chef Avi Shemtov is behind Hummus v’Hummus, a new “hummuseria” concept that combines ideas from his food truck The Chubby Chickpea and his two Sharon restaurants, Simcha and A La Esh BBQ. Get the signature creamy vegan dip served with fresh pita or vegetables, topped with your choice among daily topping options like braised lamb with crispy chickpeas and kale; or Moroccan- spiced carrots with local honey and sesame seeds.
The Koji Club, a bar where folks can explore Japan’s national drink, is in the works for another small bay. Sake sommelier Alyssa Mikiko DiPasquale launched The Koji Club during the pandemic as a virtual monthly meetup, and she envisions the brick-and-mortar as “a nightly sake party.” One of a few female advanced sake professionals worldwide and a Southborough native, DiPasquale was communications director for Cushman Concepts, including the iconic O Ya and Hojoko restaurants, for more than a decade.
Rounding out The Shops at the Stables are House of Art and Craft, a scented candle and aromatherapy shop by local maker Steysy Clark; and Bellwether Salon, a one-chair hair boutique by veteran stylist Melinda Brandt.
Directly across the main courtyard from the stable shops is a slightly larger space where Melissa Stefanini, founder of Buenas, a Latin American–inspired food brand, is opening a “grocery bar” concept called Super Bien (Editor’s note: The name of this concept has changed since presstime. In the print edition of this issue Stefanini’s new project was called Medialuna). Stefanini, who was born in Miami to Argentinian immigrants, will feature the nontraditional empanadas, sauces and snacks that Buenas is known for at its Bow Market food stall, packaged for retail sale—and she’s also planning a dine-in counter where she can create new dishes using Buenas products and pour South American wines. Hospitality pros Phillip Rolfe, a longtime manager of Parla North End, and Grace Ghazey Rolfe, an award-winning bartender who is currently shaking things up at Ivory Pearl, are Stefanini’s partners at Super Bien.
The Speedway offers “a place where everything we do fits,” Stefanini says. The sub-500-square-foot space she’s turning into Super Bien is manageable for a small business like hers; traditional development opportunities she has surveyed are typically double that size or larger, she says. But the fit goes beyond the physical.
“What places like The Speedway offer is a built-in community of people who have your back,” Stefanini says. “That was proven to me at Bow Market: We all work together to make it good. For me as a business owner, that is the main draw.”
Brandt, a visual-artist-turned-hair-stylist, echoes the sentiment. “I’m psyched to have the opportunity to do something a little different” from the usual salon setups, she says: “to be independent in a community of other artists and vendors, and in a neighborhood I have lots of history with.”
A “lower courtyard,” which fronts onto Soldiers Field Road, is surrounded by a rentable, 4,000-square-foot events space, as well as a two-story building—the former parks police headquarters—which the developers eventually hope to turn into a full-scale restaurant and a basement cocktail bar.
AHF is also moving its offices from Old City Hall to The Speedway. (As of press time, room remains for additional nonprofit and/or creative office tenants; get in touch with the operators for more information.) The Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation owns the Boston landmark, which is also on the National Register of Historic Places. AHF was granted a 60-year operating lease under the Commonwealth’s Historic Curatorship Program.
“We often call ourselves ‘the developer of last resort,’” says Kara Anderson, AHF’s senior project manager and director of preservation. By that, she means the projects they develop, such as the under-construction Worcester Auditorium, demand perseverance and imagination to bring historic places back into community use. Following years of feasibility studies and neighborhood outreach that began in the early 2000s, the state designated AHF the Speedway developer way back in 2013. So it’s been a long road to the courtyard, even before the pandemic stalled things just after the project broke ground.
Driven by a mission to preserve historic places, “We like to see our vision, and the community's vision, be carried out,” Anderson says. “That's what we're trying to do here. It has to [financially] sustain itself in the future, but we’re not seeking the same types of returns that conventional developers might.”
The not-for-profit process was appealing for many of the vendors, too: Graffito laid out the leasing terms and rent expectations, which are relatively affordable at around $1,000 per month, in their initial request for proposals, Shemtov says. That kind of transparency is not common practice for commercial real estate.
Jenna Chillington, Markos Doyle, Sean McDonnell: Charles River Speedway & Architectural Heritage Foundation
The operators “presented themselves to me, and have proved it along the way, that they’re truly motivated by activating these spaces,” Shemtov says. “They're not looking at me [to see], ‘How can we eat off your plate?’ They’re, like, ‘How does your plate fit on our table?’ I think my plate fits on their table, and I think their table is where I want to sit.”
Part of that “cool” factor of the property, Shemtov says, is that it’s somewhat hidden in plain sight. A shingled wall and heavy wooden gates shield the courtyard from Western Ave. When you enter, “It’s a little like pulling back the curtain on the Wizard of Oz,” says Kevin Martin, Notch Brewing’s general manager. “It opens up to this massive beer garden, with a stage and multiple places to grab a bite to eat.”
Formerly dilapidated buildings all painted a 1970s-institutional shade of dark brown, AHF updated the complex with adequate insulation and utilities, then refinished every structure with historically accurate Eastern White Cedar shingles. Contractors repaired original windows wherever possible and replaced other portals with vintage-looking modern fittings. Every change and update must follow the national Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Historic Rehabilitation, and also be approved by the Boston Landmarks Commission. It’s been a tedious process, Anderson says, but AHF has had unyielding support from Brighton’s local legislators and residents, as well as from DCF and other stakeholders.
“We always thought it was just worth fighting for,” Anderson says about finishing the race. She’s thrilled to finally welcome the public back to The Speedway this summer. “We see it as a connection to Allston-Brighton history and Greater Boston regional history that will anchor all the changes that are happening around us.”
