The Real Reporter - July 23, 2009

Cummings Serving Up High-End Restaurant
The Real Reporter

WOBURN—Despite sticking to his prescribed 10 weeks of vacation annually, and even with sojourns to Iceland and Israel on the dais, it can be a challenge characterizing William S. Cummings' routine as retirement, a step he announced five years ago in handing over his Cummings Properties to an internal team led by President and CEO Dennis A. Clarke. Now, the line seems even more blurred.

Already kept busy with the charitable foundation that bears his name, Cummings is going full throttle designing a high-end, 270-seat eatery that will open this January at TradeCenter 128, the hulking office development fronting Route 128 on the Burlington/Woburn border. “We are building a destination restaurant,” pledges Cummings, who has engaged renowned restaurant designer Peter Niemitz and tabbed Marc Berkowitz as general manager. Catering primarily to the dinner crowd, but also serving lunch, the Beacon Grille will feature American cuisine such as steaks and seafood, plus specialty entrees and side dishes.

The 600,000-sf TradeCenter 128 was conceived as having a sit-down restaurant, Cummings explains, but the dour economy kept prospective chains from pursuing the site. With a liquor license in danger of being taken away, officials of the enterprising Woburn-based firm “determined that if we were going to open a restaurant, we would have to do it ourselves,” recounts Cummings. Doing it themselves is an approach that serves the real estate firm well, with its in-house architectural, construction and leasing expertise overseeing a commercial portfolio in excess of 10 million sf.

The difficult economy does not concern Cummings, who anticipates the thousands of TradeCenter 128 employees will generate traffic, as will a solid demographic living in the immediate area, diners who should appreciate plentiful parking and a top-level offering for the suburbs. “This area needs a good restaurant like this,” he says.

Cummings has a long association with the food industry, making his mark in the juice business before turning to commercial real estate. The industry icon even operated a restaurant at 21 Cummings Park in Woburn early in his real estate career. Called The Grill, “we had people lined out the door every night,” says Cummings, explaining he was becoming too consumed by the operation to continue.

“It was a lot of fun,” he recalls. That experience has been re-energized by the Beacon Grille preparations, Cummings acknowledges. “My wife (Joyce) tells me that if I was a little younger, this would be my mid-life crisis,” he laughs. Unlike the original Cummings Grill, however, “this is for real this time,” he says in detailing the precise attention being paid in crafting the new restaurant.