Buttery Expansions Moving Forward

The South End Buttery, a corner coffee shop and restaurant with a strong neighborhood following, is moving forward with expansion plans including new locations on Clarendon Street and next door on Shawmut Avenue.

As Patch in August, Buttery owner Richard Gordon has signed a lease at 37 Clarendon Street and will be opening a second branch of his famed café there this fall. The new location will sell baked goods and sandwiches for take-out along with coffees and teas. It will also house a small market with Buttery retail products available for purchase.

But the café’s expansion doesn’t stop there.

The Buttery will also be taking over the now-vacant retail space next door to its Shawmut Avenue location, opening up valuable kitchen space for its culinary operations. Former tenant Hudson has relocated around the corner to Union Park Street.

Gordon explained the move to an audience at last week’s Eight Streets Neighborhood Meeting, seeking support for his application to change the use of the space from retail to food service. The pocket-sized storefront has housed food-based establishments before, including a burrito joint and catering company, Gordon said.

“The [plan] is to put our bakery over there,” he said. “We’ll be able to produce more and more of a variety of things out of a bigger space.”

Currently, bakery and restaurant workers share one workspace, forcing the equivalent of an overnight shift to get the muffins and scones ready for morning. With the new configuration, baking and cooking could occur simultaneously, Gordon said.

Both new locations will serve food and drink to go, with no tables for sit-down customers. The original location will remain the same, aside from a few tweaks to the layout to avoid traffic jams at busy hours.

“We’ve learned a lot over the last five years,” Gordon acknowledged. “There’s a couple spots where you kind of get stuck if you’re a customer. We’ll be creating a better flow.” 

Neighbors above the new location on Shawmut have responded enthusiastically to the project, he added, as have members of the Union Park and Ellis Neighborhood Association. Last week, Eight Streets members lent their support to Gordon’s application and wished him well with his expansion.