Financial Troubles Shutter The 102-Year-Old No Name Restaurant
Just before 2019 ended, another century-old Boston dining landmark switched off the kitchen lights for good.
The 102-year-old No Name Restaurant permanently shut down Monday amid years of financial troubles. The restaurant owes Boston more than $700K in back taxes and hundreds of thousand of dollars to seafood companies and the Massachusetts Port Authority, the Boston Globe reports. City records show city property taxes hadn’t been paid for the restaurant at Boston’s Fish Pier since 2013.
“It has been an honor to be part of your celebrations and your everyday lives for so many years,” a message posted to the restaurant's Facebook page Monday read. “We will miss you all.”
The restaurant also filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Employees were given 24 hours’ notice of their termination on Sunday night at a management meeting. Representatives with the No Name Restaurant didn’t respond to Bisnow’s request for comment.
Greek immigrant Nick Contos debuted the No Name in 1917 as an affordable seafood stand for fishermen and other workers at the waterfront docks. Contos’ unwillingness to give his establishment a name stuck, and it became popular with tourists looking for New England clam chowder and lobster.
The restaurant stuck around as its surrounding neighborhood transformed from parking lots and fish piers to one with office towers and luxury condo developments. Its closure adds to a growing list of Boston’s most storied dining rooms that have shuttered.
L’Espalier closed on New Year’s Eve heading into 2019. The 192-year-old Durgin-Park closed the following month. Doyle’s Café, a 137-year-old Jamaica Plain bar known for attracting politicians and patrons on the nearby Sam Adams brewery tour, closed in October.
