129
The Friendly's restaurant at 129 East Main St. has closed, leaving the familiar chain with about two dozen spots in Massachusetts. The Wilbraham-based chain once had more than a dozen locations in the region, most of which have closed over the last decade-plus. A 2012 bankruptcy filing prompted the closing of restaurants in Tatnuck Square in Worcester, in White City Shopping Plaza in Shrewsbury and on Route 9 in Westborough. The Webster closing leaves Central Massachusetts with Friendly's restaurants in Auburn, Gardner, Leominster and Marlborough, according to the company's website.
433
The License Commission gave the OK for a Vietnamese restaurant to open in the Park Avenue building that once hosted One Eyed Jack's Tiki Bar Grill. Phoever ‒ the name is a play on the popular Vietnamese noodle soup dish pho – will open at 433 Park Ave. During a brief appearance before the License Commission, owner Nguyet Pham said the new restaurant will be a "noodle shop." One Eyed Jack's was infamously closed by the city at the start of this year because the building did not have a sprinkler system.
$6,960
After setting up surveillance cameras on a Shrewsbury spot that had become a dumping ground for people looking to unload construction debris, environmental authorities have fined a Worcester landscaping company for illegal solid waste dumping. Cameras captured two instances of concrete debris being discarded from a truck owned by R. Nunes Landscaping of Worcester, driven by a man wearing a company shirt. DEP fined the company $6,960, with the company removing the debris soon after it was informed the dumping had been caught on camera, according to the agency. The company agreed to the fine and other conditions, notably having workers clean up the area, DEP said.
22
A motion to dismiss 22 counterclaims made by tenants of the Mill Street apartment building that partially collapsed in the summer of 2022 was denied in Central Housing Court. A motion to consolidate the 22 counterclaim cases is in the works. On July 15, 2022, an early-morning roofing job at the 32-unit Pond View Apartment Homes at 267 Mill St., owned by Franklin-based Fren Management Co. Inc., led to construction material falling through the roof, weakening the building, collapsing some of the front upper floor porches and forcing the evacuation of residents.
180
A zoning proposal that could have brought a thoroughbred horse racing facility to Gardner is off the board. The City Council voted unanimously to approve the official withdrawal of Councilor Dana Heath’s proposal to change the zoning on a parcel of land off of Route 140 from residential to commercial, which would have allowed the use of approximately 60 acres of a 180-acre site for a proposed racing facility. Members of Baystate Racing LLC, the group sponsoring the facility, were part of an effort to bring a horse breeding, retirement and racing facility to Hardwick. That pitch, which focused on Great Meadowbrook Farm, was rejected by voters in January.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Central Mass. by the Numbers