Scelfo's Seafood Restaurant Waypoint Is Moving Forward

A few months after a "parade" of neighbors brought up noise concerns in May when Alden & Harlow's Michael Scelfo initially attempted to get approval for Waypoint, a seafood restaurant he's planning for 1030 Massachusetts Ave., work is finally underway. After two more August meetings, the licensing board finally approved a full liquor license for Waypoint, which is permitted to operate between the hours of 4 p.m. and 1 a.m. on weekdays and 10:30 a.m. and 1 a.m. on weekends (there will be brunch.) The restaurant will seat around 145.

The earlier August meeting included some support from people in the neighborhood, but a few vocal neighbors doubled down on their noise concerns, partly thanks to poor experiences with the building at 1030 Massachusetts Ave. in the past. While the Waypoint team had already commissioned an analysis of the space and their plans from an acoustic consultant, the neighbors wanted a second opinion from someone of their own choosing, and they were insistent that the two shouldn't communicate with each other until the neighbors' engineer got up to speed. Ultimately, between the first August meeting and the second, the two men came to the same conclusion — that abutters need not worry about sound from the restaurant. Not all neighbors were satisfied; one speaker at the second August meeting also brought up concerns of the noise caused by people leaving the restaurant, for example. But the board voted to approve Waypoint, which will have a bit of a Cambridge rarity — some garage parking.

It's been a long road just to get the project off the ground, but a couple of quiet social media accounts have popped up — Waypoint is now on Twitter and Instagram with the slogan "swim good." On Scelfo's own Instagram account earlier this month, he noted that the first design meeting is "in the books...this is gonna be fun." (He also apologized to his PR rep, promising not to post anything else, so don't expect too many details to leak out leading to this opening.)

first @waypointharvard design meeting in the books... this is gonna be fun...sorry @allheartpr, no more I promise ;)

A photo posted by Michael Scelfo (@mscelfo) on Sep 9, 2015 at 11:57am PDT