Beechwood Hotel Banks On Niche Style | Covino will put his stamp on new restaurant
An artist rendering of the proposed reastaurant (expected to be completed by next summer).
The Beechwood Hotel wants to bring something rare to the city’s dining scene: A steakhouse it’s developing with the help of the Niche Hospitality Group.
Niche runs the popular Block 5 bistro on Green Street, Bocado tapas and wine bar on Winter Street and the southwestern-themed Mezcal on Shrewsbury Street. Niche, which is run by young dynamo Michael Covino, has been acting as a consultant in the development of the Beechwood’s new restaurant and will manage it once it opens.
The restaurant doesn’t have a name yet, and got its liquor license less than two weeks ago.
Dish It Up
The Beechwood is at the corner of Belmont Street (Route 9) and Plantation Street and easily accessed from Worcester’s “restaurant row” on Shrewsbury Street, which is home to Niche’s Mezcal and the city’s most well-known steakhouse, the 111 Chop House. The 111 Chop House is owned by the Worcester Restaurant Group, which also owns Via Italian Table on Shrewsbury Street and the Sole Proprietor on Highland Street.
The 50-60 people who work at the new 4,600-square-foot restaurant will be Beechwood employees, explained Mark Waxler, the hotel’s manager. The restaurant, which will include a private dining room, will have a complete bar, table seating for about 260 people inside and room for another 54 on an 1,100-square-foot outdoor patio.
Building a new restaurant frees up much of the downstairs portion of the Beechwood and Waxler said the entire project should be complete sometime in the middle of next summer. According to its city building permit, the Beechwood will spend at least $5.6 million on the project.
With the new restaurant at ground level just to the right of the hotel’s existing entrance, Waxler said the current restaurant downstairs at the Beechwood would be used as a banquet room, which in turn allows the hotel to divide its large ballroom into “junior” ball rooms on occasions when parties of 100 or fewer people plan to use them.
Waxler said the increased flexibility would help the hotel book more consistently.
The project also gives the hotel a bit of a facelift. The new restaurant will take some of the hotel’s existing parking, but Waxler said the hotel would extend its lot almost to Route 9. Landscaping around the new restaurant will include a wide variety of plants and trees as well as fountain that can burn a flame during the winter months.
Waxler said the renovations would also include the installation of a large outdoor movie screen. On certain nights, the restaurant will show “date movies,” he said.
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