Boston pizza and ice cream eatery to open 2nd location in historic Marlborough building
Photo | Eric Casey
Tony Lawrence, owner of Boston-based pizzeria and ice cream ship Picco, is working to open a second location in Marlborough.
Picco, a restaurant based in Boston’s South End serving pizza and ice cream, is set to open a second location in the historic Peoples Savings Bank building in Downtown Marlborough.
Tony Lawrence, owner of Picco and a Marlborough resident for the past 12 years, is working with his wife Amanda Rositano to turn the 99-year-old bank building into a restaurant space. An entity managed by Lawrence purchased the 5,746-square-foot building in August for $1.65 million, according to City of Marlborough property records.
Lawrence is looking to open the business around April, featuring pizza made with cold-ferment sourdough, ice cream, and dairy-free sherbet, among other items like salads and tacos.
“Everything is made in house, everything from scratch,” Lawrence said.
The space will feature a bar, which surrounds the entrance to the bank’s vault. A departure from the more typical retail storefront utilized by the original Picco location in Boston, Lawrence said he was pulled in by the building’s unique historical architecture, including its vaulted ceiling, marble floor, and intricate interior design.
“There’s quite the grandeur. You're walking in, and you're like, ‘Holy cow, this is beautiful,’” Lawrence said. “You don't really see much like this anymore. With this space, one of our struggles is to make it feel less elegant than it is, because we're a casual restaurant going into a fancy space, and we don't want it to feel stuffy. We want it to feel chill and calm, and that'll come in the form of our service.”
After being a Peoples Savings Bank location, the bank was later converted to a Santander Bank branch before it closed in 2023, part of a wider closing of three Central Massachusetts Santander locations and 16 across the state.
The building is part of the Marlborough Center Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1998. Lawrence is looking to utilize Historic Preservation Tax Incentives to help fund the revitalization of the space. The space also falls in a federal Economic Opportunity Zone, allowing access to additional tax incentives.
Lawrence said he’s been helped by the Marlborough Economic Development Corp. and the City of Marlborough in general.
“Everyone’s been extremely supportive,” he said.
Eric Casey is the managing editor at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the manufacturing and real estate industries.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments