Perhaps the most asked question we’ve received over the past year, since Asaro Bakery & Cafe’s “Coming Soon” signs appeared at 32 Church St., was “How soon is soon?” After a reader gave us a heads up that the signs are now down, we swung by to take photos, revealing a whole lot of nothing behind the windows.

We first reported on Asaro in February of 2022, and temporary signage was installed not longer after in space occupied by Lyn Evans before it moved to 87 Central St. Asaro would have been a welcome addition to Church Square, home to a slate of retailers selling clothes, bikes, and more.

But converting the retail space into a restaurant would prove to be a challenge, with word that getting a grease trap installed was a big obstacle in meeting the town’s food codes and bylaws.

There were signs of hope as recently as December, when we checked out the plans submitted to the Health Department and heard Asaro’s lawyer had been in contact with the department. What’s more, a firm called Matz Collaborative Architects touted its vision for what Asaro might look like. This included outdoor seating along the side and rear of the building, and Matz dared to hashtag it #comingsoon in its Instagram post.

While we were not able to reach the team behind the planned bakery and cafe, we checked in regularly with the town about the plans. When we last inquired a month ago, we were told “Crickets from Asaro, again.” We hoped the insects wouldn’t be on the menu, though understand they are highly nutritious.

People looked forward to a new bakery option, though fortunately Wellesley’s not starving for treats. We’ve still got offerings from Tatte, Quebrada, Wellesley Bakery, Truly’s, Starbucks, the supermarkets, Jejes, and more.

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Jejes Coffeehouse set to open March 8

Jejes Coffeehouse & Roastery is set to open its shop at 259 Washington St. on Wednesday, March 8 with a full men of coffee, tea, and baked goods.

For the opening, Jejes will have coffee (Espresso, Americano, Latte, Mocha, etc), tea, and baked goods (cookies, muffins, madeleines, and scones). Also, they will offer some specialty coffee menus (pour-over and Dutch brew).

“Our espresso menu uses 100% organic, fair trade coffee beans freshly roasted at our shop (you will actually see our small roastery nested in the back). Tea is also organic. Also, we will sell bags of coffee,” says owner Duse Lee.

You can find Jejes on Facebook, and soon its website will be live.

Jejes has received a Kosher certification from the KVH to make its offerings accessible to kosher/halal consumers. “So, we kindly ask our customers not to bring outside food and drinks into our shop,” Lee says.

Jejes will have 4 seats inside, plus more outside later as the weather warms. They will mainly operate on a take-out model.

Opening hours are Monday to Saturday, 8 AM to 2 PM.

After receiving the Select Board’s approval for a common victualler license in early 2022, Jejes Coffeehouse had planned to open by fall 2022. But issues with a contractor delayed things.

Oath Pizza aims to debut April 1

The Oath Pizza shop in Linden Square is looking to open on April Fools’ Day according to its job postings for people to run the operation.

Keeping up with Linden Square

Linden Square is planning lots of ways to coax everybody out of hibernation to celebrate spring. New fashion is arriving in the stores, restaurants are featuring new, seasonal items, and we’re all feeling lucky that we got through another New England winter with no major snowstorm…yet! Check out all the doings here.

The new owners of Wellesley’s Coconut Thai Cafe, the wife-and-husband team of Nui Phitpiboonlerd and John Mongkontavy, have dreamed of running their own restaurant for years. Both have worked at a number of other eating establishments since moving from Thailand to the United States in the 1990s, and while they’ve never owned those businesses, they’ve done nearly everything but. They were confident they could run a restaurant if the opportunity presented itself.

Any such plans were put on hold during the pandemic when Phitpiboonlerd returned to Thailand for more than a year to help her family. But the couple continued to talk of possibilities all the while.

Their first big step toward owning a restaurant brought them to Salem, N.H., where they went in on a partnership and refurbished the place. But before long, they realized it wasn’t the right fit, especially given the long commute to and from their Natick residence. Fortuitously, Phitpiboonlerd learned that the longtime owner of Coconut Thai Cafe, where she once worked, was looking to retire and sell the Wellesley Hills restaurant at 257 Washington St.

“I was so surprised when I asked and he said ‘yes,'” she said. “He’d been keeping quiet about his plans.”

The couple, who met in 2006 while working at Natick Center’s Dah-Mee restaurant (Nui a waitress, John a chef), refreshed the interior of Coconut Thai during a brief restaurant closure earlier this year as the business changed hands. They did most of the work themselves or with friends, removing or painting over wallpaper, replacing lights and fans, and adding floral arrangements and friendly wall decor. The makeover includes the bathroom, which Mongkontavy insisted I check out (it didn’t disappoint!).

“This space is just the right size, just what we wanted,” Mongkontavy said of the 12-seat restaurant, which does a brisk take-out business, too. “With a bigger place, finding help is really hard.”

The new owners will redo the exterior as well, but they’re going to catch their breath first.

They have revamped the menu though, slashing the number of items from about 100 to more like 30. Among the new attractions is a hot stone pot that includes a mix of a meat (usually beef), rice, egg, and vegetables, and that sizzles as you eat it. “It’s the kind of thing you’d otherwise need to go into Boston to find,” said Mongkontavy, who coincidentally used to work at Brown Sugar Cafe on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, a Thai restaurant I’d visited a few days before I met him at Coconut Thai.

Such connections within the restaurant community helped Coconut Thai’s owners get to where they are now, and will no doubt keep popping up.

Phitpiboonlerd said she was delighted when Coconut Thai’s first customer turned out to be a patron she knew from Dah-Mee.

Coconut Thai Cafe (257 Washington St., Wellesley)

781-235-8255

Take-out & dine-in (delivery coming soon)

More: Where to eat in Wellesley

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Loyal Companion closing

Loyal Companion, the pet shop-plus that opened at 276 Washington St. in Wellesley in late 2019, is closing its Wellesley store this month—along with all its other stores.

Everything must go, according to the window signs.

Loyal Companino doesn’t make its news clear from its social media or main website. But in a statement, parent company Independent Pet Partners says it is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and will seek to use any resources to rally around its Chuck & Don’s and Kriser’s brands.

Charles River Chamber launches Love Local Campaign to boost restaurants & community

 The Charles River Regional Chamber has launched a campaign this month designed to support the restaurant community in Newton, Needham, Watertown and Wellesley, while also helping those in need.

The Love Local: Supporting Our Restaurants & Our Community campaign is designed to encourage dining locally at a time when restaurants continue to struggle in a challenging economy. In addition, about 30 area chamber member restaurants—including Fiorella’s and The Local in Wellesley—are organizing a clothing drive to give back while visiting their favorite restaurants. All collections will benefit Circle of Hope, a nonprofit that provides homeless children, women and men in Boston, Cambridge and Metrowest with clothing and necessities via 25 local shelters and health clinics.

Truly’s this Friday officially opens at its new space next door at 39 Grove St., where it’s expanding beyond its dozens of flavors of frozen yogurt and ice cream with baked goods and Peet’s coffee. So ignore those single digit temperatures, and prove your true love for cold treats—or warm ones.

We dropped by an open house on Thursday night where attendees enjoyed free goodies and shared well wishes with the Marcus family, which owns and operates Truly’s. In addition to serving Peet’s, much to the delight of those who miss the coffee shop that closed in 2021, Truly’s is partnering with Revival Cafe & Kitchen and Flourhouse Bakery for its baked goods.

The new Truly’s space isn’t all that much bigger than the longtime space at 35 Grove St., Steve Marcus says, but it’s configured to give patrons more room to queue up and for more employees to operate behind the counters (often those employees are local students). The former main Truly’s space will now be used by the business as a commissary.

Truly’s, which has been in town since 1989, is on the Select Board agenda next week in hopes of securing approval to open earlier to serve coffee and baked goods.

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PopUpBagels plans pop-up sale… might it stay?

(Update: 8am on 2/3):  PopUpBagels worked things out with the Wellesley Health Dept. and its sale is back on, via its website, at noon on Friday, 2/3.

(Update: 12pm on 2/2): A Redding, Conn., bagel maker dubbed PopUpBagels was planning to do a 1-day pop-up at Capt. Marden’s on Linden St., in Wellesley on Saturday, Feb. 11, but now say it’s pre-ordering slated for Feb. 2 has been postponed until further notice as it sorts things out with the town. A town official indicated that once some permitting paperwork is taken care of, the sale could take place without much delay.

Look for updates on the PopUpBagels Instagram account and website.

Their standard pricing appears to be $38 for a dozen bagels and 2 schmears based on sales in other communities. So yeah, at least twice that of say, a Bruegger’s (Bruegger’s bailed from Wellesley in 2020, leaving a bagel hole in town.)

PopUpBagels Founder Adam Goldberg says “We chose Wellesley because they chose us.  Several of your residents have had our bagels while passing through Connecticut and have repeatedly reached out to us to come set up there for a day or more.”

The business planned to bake its bagels on site at Capt. Marden’s… and could be enticed to set up shop in town on a more permanent basis.

“Yes, we are seriously considering Wellesley as a permanent location for us.  But please understand that we are not your every day bagel shop.  We do not make sandwiches or salads or sell single bagels.  All of our bagels are made fresh to order and sold only by the dozen paired with weekly creative schmears…” Goldberg says.

PopUpBagels has some well-known investors, and has grabbed the attention of The New York Times and others.

State settles with Wellesley auto dealer’s parent over deceptive & discriminatory pricing

From the Office of the Attorney General:

Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell announced that her office has reached a $350,000 settlement with Hometown Auto Framingham, Inc. to resolve allegations that the company engaged in the unfair, deceptive and discriminatory pricing of “add-on” products sold to Black and Hispanic consumers.  

The assurance of discontinuance, filed in Suffolk Superior Court, alleges that Hometown Auto, which operates two car dealerships located in Wellesley [editor’s note: Wellesley Mazda on Rte. 9] and Danvers, charged Black and Hispanic consumers higher prices for “add-on” products in comparison to white consumers. “Add-on” products are extra goods or services sold to a consumer who purchases or leases a car; these include products like guaranteed asset protection (GAP) products, paint protection products, tire and wheel protection products and remote starters.  

“Consumers need to know that their race or ethnicity will have absolutely no effect on the type of service they receive from Massachusetts auto dealerships or the prices they will be charged,” said AG Campbell. “My office is committed to protecting consumers from predatory and discriminatory practices that stand in the way of upward mobility, and we will continue our advocacy to ensure all consumers are being charged for services equally and fairly.”  

Read entire press release.

Alta Strada is back to cooking up Italian classics

Alta Strada in Wellesley Square has welcomed back customers after a brief closure for kitchen and dining room upgrades.

For more on over 50 Wellesley restaurants, check out our Where to Eat page.

Or maybe shake things up a bit and discover Where to Eat in Natick.

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Oath Pizza aims for winter opening in Linden Square

Oath Pizza, which by will be located in the former Roosters Men’s Grooming Center  spot at 180 Linden St. (Roosters is just around the corner, still in Linden Square,  doesn’t have a set opening date. But it is now aiming to open in either February or March, Oath VP David Jamieson told the Wellesley Select Board at its Nov. 7 meeting, during which it approved a common victualler license for the restaurant.

The eatery, which boasts of its “100% feel-good pizza,” got its start in Nantucket, and its closest location to here is Chestnut Hill.

Oath touts pizza crust that is grilled, seared in avocado oil, and topped with fresh veggies and organic proteins from the likes of Applegate, Beyond Meat, and Banza.

Oath will offer dine-in eating as well as delivery via assorted services and apps.

Fancy new signs in Linden Square

We happened by as new signs were being installed in Linden Square this week, including at The Linden Store and Citgo stretch.

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Extraordinary Women Advancing Healthcare Award goes to Wellesley resident

Wellesley resident Dr. Robyn Riseberg is among this year’s 10 winners of the Extraordinary Women Advancing Healthcare Award from The Women’s Edge, a nonprofit devoted to advanced women leaders.

Riseberg founded Boston Community Pediatrics, a non-profit pediatric private practice with an equity focus, in 2020. It has served more than 1,200 patients.

4G Clinical cracks Deloitte Technology Fast 500 list

4G Clinical, a Wellesley-based life sciences firm whose software improves the clinical trials process, is touting its inclusion at #159 of the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 list of fastest growing tech firms in North America. 4G Clinical grew more than 900% from 2018 to 2021.

Companies included must have base-year operating revenues of at least $50,000, and current-year operating revenues of at least $5 million. They must be in business for at least 4 years.

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Latest on Asaro Bakery & Cafe

If Asaro Bakery gets as many customers as we get emails from people asking about when it is opening…the planned Church Street business is going to make a killing.

But first it needs to submit new architectural and engineering plans to convert the retail space into restaurant space, which includes all the necessary plumbing, etc. to meet food codes and town bylaws.

We first reported on Asaro last February, and temporary signage was installed earlier this year at at 32 Church St., in space occupied by Lyn Evans before it moved to 87 Central St.

This isn’t the first time a bakery has stretched the meaning of “coming soon” in Wellesley. We first reported in July 2018 that White’s Bakery was coming to Playhouse Square in Wellesley Hills, signs went up at the end of 2018, and they finally opened in April 2019. But White’s closed temporarily in March of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and never reopened. Its sign remains at the vacant space more than 2 years later.

Here’s hoping Asaro can get its plans approved and have a much longer run than White’s did.

Joel Bagnal Goldsmiths & Jewelers closing upon owner’s retirement

Congrats to Jill Sudman, owner of Wellesley Square business Joel Bagnal Goldsmiths & Jewelers (101 Central St), who has announced that the business is being closed upon her retirement.

The business opened its doors 44 years ago. Joel Bagnal himself opened a shop in St. Augustine, Fla., in 2010.

Items will of course be marked down as the business is liquidated.