The Tavern Restaurant Has Its Parking Approval. Its Lease Is Still in Executive Session.

At the September 30 Zoning Board of Appeals hearing on the Josiah Smith Tavern, Chair Stephen Larocque said he favored the parking variance. Then he asked about graduation: would street parking become a problem during big Town Green events? Board member Laura Mintz answered that parking might get competitive on those days, but nobody had another solution. "Without sufficient parking, this is a doomed situation," she said, according to the Weston Observer. The board approved the variance unanimously.

In August we called that hearing the decision point for the Town Green's restaurant. It went the restaurant's way. Apart from a sign review still to come, it was the last major approval for The Woods argued on the public record. What still stands between the tavern and a building permit is a lease amendment and an escrow agreement. The Select Board is handling those in executive session, and the calendar is running against both sides.

What the September 30 vote actually settled

The ZBA approved two things for BU West LLC, the business behind The Woods. The first was a parking variance. The second was a special permit for the proposed use, which formally allows a restaurant in the building. The parking math comes from Weston's bylaw, which requires 77 spaces for a restaurant with a capacity of 175 people:

The application, as posted by the Friends of Josiah Smith Tavern, asked to use "the ample, existing, underutilized on-street parking spaces along Boston Post Road and the Weston Town Green." Luke Legere, counsel for BU West, told the board there was simply no room to build more parking. He traced the problem to the property's shape and location, "all of which really stems from the fact they were established and constructed back in 1757."

Support came from the people who use the town center most. Rev. Jeffrey Barz-Snell of First Parish Church in Weston and Rev. Scott Euvrard of St. Julia Parish both wrote letters in favor. Town Manager Leon Gaumond told the board, "As a town employee who happens to be in town center for pretty much 40 hours a week, I can assure you that the number of available spots in town center is plentiful."

The hearing also gave the clearest public picture yet of the restaurant itself. Brian Piccini, the Weston restaurateur behind The Woods, said it will serve lunch from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and dinner from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, with later hours on Friday and Saturday and brunch from 10 a.m. on Sundays. One small item will go back to the ZBA, a proposed wooden blade sign.

From public permits to a private negotiating table

The Woods' path has run through a long series of public reviews. In May, the Planning Board and Historic New England, which holds a preservation easement on the property, granted approvals. That came after months of back-and-forth over the design of the tavern's rear windows. The easement goes back to 1983, when SPNEA, now Historic New England, gave the tavern to the town subject to preservation restrictions. According to the Friends of Josiah Smith Tavern, the project has also cleared the Historic Commission and the Permanent Building Committee, and the September 30 vote added the ZBA to that list.

The Select Board itself publicly backed the restaurant in June. It voted to endorse the variance before the ZBA had even scheduled a hearing. Chair John McDonald explained the town's interest to the Weston Observer: "The restaurant needs to have more seats to make it economically viable, and that's also a benefit for the town because the restaurant is going to cover most of the operating costs of the building." That same month the board gave The Woods a July 6 deadline to produce construction documents, proof of financial security, cost estimates, a business plan and a permitting memo. Piccini delivered early, and at a July 14 update board members called his presentation satisfactory, the Observer reported.

The final pieces are an amendment to the sublease and a construction escrow agreement, both between the town and the operator. The Select Board's September 9 agenda listed the tavern for executive session under G.L. c. 30A, §21(a)(6), to consider real property matters at 358 Boston Post Road. Under that agenda item, the chair was to declare whether discussing the matter in open session could harm the town's negotiating position. The tavern had also appeared on the board's August 10 executive session agenda. On September 29, the board voted 5–0 to go into executive session and came back to open session at 7:37 p.m., according to the posted minutes. The October 20 agenda set another executive session on 358 Boston Post Road for 6:01 p.m., one minute after the meeting opened.

The board hasn't released its terms, which is consistent with keeping a negotiation in executive session. The Friends, an advocacy group that supports the project, have published their side. In an October 17 post, they said the board issued a "final proposal" on October 8 that had to be signed by October 15, with enforcement action up to and including termination if it wasn't. The Friends said the operator found the agreement unworkable as written and responded with which terms it could accept and how it proposed to move forward. In the same post, the Friends acknowledged that the board "has a legitimate responsibility to protect the Town's historic building."

Why the timing terms matter as much as the money

Some of the disputed terms are about money. Piccini has offered a $1 million construction escrow to protect the town. According to the Friends, the October 8 draft required that escrow to be funded before the lease amendment and escrow agreement were final. Other terms are about timing.

According to the Friends, the original business terms allowed 180 days of construction after the building permit is issued, followed by nine months of free rent meant to start around opening day. The town isn't paying any tenant improvement allowance toward the build-out. That makes the rent relief the main help the operator gets in its first months. The Friends say the October 8 draft starts those nine months when the agreement is signed instead. By their account, that would use up most of the relief during permitting and construction, before the dining room serves anyone.

A restaurant's thinnest months are its first ones, when it is still building a regular crowd and staff are still learning the room. Nine rent-free months that line up with that stretch are worth far more to an operator than nine months used up while contractors work.

The opening target has moved twice this year

The weather is a second clock. The goal is to get construction started before winter. Here is how the target opening has shifted, by public account:

1. May 28, 2026: Piccini told the Weston Observer his team was still planning a fall 2026 grand opening, even with parking and signage permits outstanding.
2. September 4, 2026: After the July documents passed review, the Observer reported that Piccini's updated timeline aimed for a March 2027 opening.
3. October 2026: After the variance, Friends president Jay Valenta told the Observer the goal of opening this spring still stood. The Friends' October 17 post asks for The Woods to open "in spring 2027."

Valenta also put a condition on that date when he spoke to the Observer:

"We're still on track, with the significant caveat that the window is closing here to get construction starting this fall."

The Friends say the operator has finished construction documents, picked a contractor and set a construction budget, and is ready to apply for a building permit. That permit has to be submitted and approved before work can start.

A longer wait than this year alone

Longtime residents know this delay is the latest chapter of a long story. The Observer reports that a restaurant was proposed for the tavern back in 2009, when restoration funds were voted down. The current reuse plan dates to 2016, and Piccini's bid was accepted in 2023. In between, residents at the 2019 Town Meeting voted to use Community Preservation Act funds for a major restoration, according to the Friends' history of the building. McDonald's June comment is the reason all of this matters to the town's budget. A working restaurant would cover most of the building's operating costs.

Since the negotiation itself is confidential, a few things will show progress publicly. One is an open-session vote on the sublease amendment, which would appear in the Select Board's posted minutes on the town's agenda center. Another is a building permit filing for 358 Boston Post Road. The third is The Woods' return to the ZBA for its blade sign. The tavern is on a busy civic calendar this fall. Several large projects are headed to residents at the November 23 Special Town Meeting.

Projects in historic buildings like the tavern turn on things that never appear in a listing photo: preservation easements, parking bylaws, and the lease terms that decide whether a business can make it through its first year. If you'd like to talk about what a Town Green restaurant could mean for your block, or about any older Weston property, Miller & Co. Team is glad to help. Request a free home valuation or connect with the Miller & Co. team.