Framingham,Ma station

[Rick A]

A beautiful stone station in Framingham,Ma. It's now a restaurant and a new covered stop has been built about 500 feet away.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framingham_station

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/40/52/83 ... 09f8d3.jpg

http://thisisframingham.com/images/station2.jpg

https://www.hippostcard.com/listing/sou ... d/10710336

https://www.ebay.com/itm/South-Framingh ... 2701158394

https://www.hippostcard.com/listing/sou ... rd/7520722

https://www.greatamericanstations.com/s ... am-ma-fra/

http://www.railroadforums.com/forum/ind ... ion.14382/

[Rick A]

More

[johnpbarlow]

This restaurant closed in 2018 after 3.5 years of operation and the building is available for lease:

https://framinghamsource.com/index.php/ ... for-lease/

[BandA]

As most people know, parking is a problem there as is heavy traffic on these old secondary roads (RT 135 & RT 126 & Union Ave), and the busy crossing and rotaries. I ahh-sume the train station doesn't have any short-term parking for the restaurant or restaurant employees. So good population density but high pain level by car. Compare to the Steaming Tender Restaurant in the Palmer Station which (apparently) has plenty of parking & is (apparently) easy to get to, albeit lower population density.

Newton Center Station on the Highland Branch also had repeated failures of restaurant/coffee shops. Parking is a nightmare there and traffic is not great.

[edbear]

The station has adequate free parking, some street parking and public parking in a city lot across Waverly St. (Rte 135) behind a business block. There have been three or four restaurants in there since it was refurbished over past 20 plus years, but they probably misjudged the market.

[BandA]

The station is privately owned?

[Rbts Stn]

Newton Center Station on the Highland Branch also had repeated failures of restaurant/coffee shops. Parking is a nightmare there and traffic is not great.

Not surprisingly, one (or is it now 2?) iterations of those restaurants were the same one shown in Framingham. So successful in the original location but hard to duplicate in the suburbs

[edbear]

The Framingham 1883 Richardson designed station was acquired by the MBTA with the early 1970s purchase of Boston commuter trackage from the Penn Central. The agency was closed about 1977 and building closed. The Town of Framingham acquired the structure from the MBTA and advertised it for sale and sold it. First buyer was Lew Horton who ran a sporting goods store right across the street (he even sold GUNS!). Restaurant opened under the name of Horton's. Next was Ebeneezer's. Next was a Brazilian outfit that ran into trouble for having live entertainment without having a license for it. Most recent was Deluxe Depot Diner. A friend of mine went looking for breakfast there and they had an opening time that missed all the plumbers, electricians, carpenters, hospital workers, prison guards etc. going to work. Those folks generally earn well, eat big and tip. The operators of all those restaurants could not market themselves to that crowd, instead headed for the dinner crowd.

[edbear]

The current owner is Historic Property Development Co. LLC, with owner's address in Watertown, MA. If you call it up on Framingham property records, you get the building on the corner down by the Route 126-Concord Street Xing. Until Framingham acquired the property, that structure, believed to have been a baggage or express building, was completely surrounded by a much larger building which was vacated and taken down. The current use, I believe is a bank branch or ATM. Previous to this it was the taxi office.

[edbear]

MetroWest Daily News, Oct. 12, 2019 has an article on the Framingham Richardson station. A 5-year lease has been signed and the tenant is a high-end Brazilian restaurant, rodizio style. Opening date has not been set. I don't want to sound negative, but I wonder how long this will last. A Brazlian outfit operated in there for a while before Deluxe Depot Diner. And there have been other operators too in the past 25 years or so.