Maybe Don’t Say That Coronavirus Is ‘a Bunch of BS’ When Inspectors Come Knocking

Welcome back to AM Intel, a round-up of mini news bites to kick off the day.

“No Government Is Going to Tell Me How to Run My Business”

The state Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission suspended the liquor license of Weymouth bar KC’s Pub and Grill following a number of alleged coronavirus-related violations. Inspectors visiting in mid-August reportedly found several unmasked employees, customers drinking without eating, and customers seated at the bar — all against current state rules — not to mention an owner who wasn’t afraid to share his thoughts on coronavirus with said inspectors, such as that the pandemic is a “bunch of bullshit.”

“No government is going to tell me how to run my business,” owner Nick Akoury also reportedly told inspectors.

Akoury was able to get his license reinstated by convincing the commission that he would abide by the rules and by submitting, and getting approved, a detailed COVID-19 reopening plan to the Massachusetts Department of Labor Standards. The suspension was lifted on September 11, and the bar quickly reopened its doors.

Pie Time

Joe Cassinelli’s Alpine Restaurant Group (Posto, Rosebud, Painted Burro, and more) has launched an online bakery, Elm Street Sweets, with pickup currently available at Rosebud in Somerville’s Davis Square and local delivery and nationwide shipping in the works. Executive pastry chef Tali Pinnolis is baking up pies — for which Rosebud already has a following — as well as cookies and cakes in various flavors.

Cassinelli had already been working on a wholesale plan for Rosebud’s pies pre-COVID, he told Boston.com, but when the pandemic began, launching Elm Street Sweets became a good way to keep more pastry department employees in jobs.

The current menu includes peanut butter fudge pie, gluten-free chocolate mousse pie, confetti cake, lemon pistachio white chocolate cookies, and more.

In Other News...

• Gov. Charlie Baker announced last week that he plans to sign an executive order extending the outdoor dining season — he didn’t specify until when — and allowing arcades to reopen this week. This comes on the heels of a lawsuit brought by Bit Bar in Salem, accusing Baker of violating its First and Fourteenth Amendment rights by preventing arcades from reopening until phase four of the state’s reopening plan (when there’s a vaccine or effective treatment) while casinos were allowed to reopen earlier.
• For the Globe, Devra First writes that the huge wave of restaurant closures over spring and summer 2020 is “just the tip of the iceberg,” with PPP money running out and optimal outdoor dining weather ending soon.
• Waltham’s Il Capriccio, an Italian restaurant that closed this spring after nearly 40 years, could reopen in a new spot (704 Main St., Waltham, at the Merc apartment building) this November with Glenville Stops’ Mike Chapman in the kitchen and the previous front-of-house staff remaining onboard.
• Charlestown’s Moroccan restaurant and hookah bar Tangierino — which temporarily revamped itself into tapas bar Madera 83 from late 2017 to late 2018 — has a new identity again: Street Bistro Charlestown, serving “bistro-style comfort food with a flair.” The restaurant will have a sibling smoking lounge and cigar shop in the basement and space next door, Boston Cigar Club.
• Local food blogger Richard Auffrey, aka the Passionate Foodie, explores the history of Boston’s long-defunct Syrian restaurant Sahara, whose signage is still very visible on Shawmut Avenue in Boston’s South End even though the restaurant closed around 50 years ago.

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