Niche Hospitality Group

Two successful restaurants launched at 166 Shrewsbury St. Now, the space is devoid of any human life, and it will remain that way until the government sells the building.

By all accounts, Worcester city officials appear to want to give the Pawtucket Red Sox a big chunk of money to lure them to the Canal District.

Last year, people took 433 million fewer trips to restaurants than in the prior year. That 2-percent decline led to an estimated $3.2 billion in lost sales.

On the eve of the Worcester Railers' first regular season game, the city's newest sports bar themed after the team will open.

The effort by Worcester officials to convince the Red Sox' Triple-A affiliate to move from Rhode Island to Worcester was joined by 98 key Central Massachusetts business leaders.

Neil Rogers, the executive chef of Niche Hospitality Group, has left to be the kitchen operations manager of the Worcester Regional Food Hub, a commercial kitchen facility for food startups.

New spaces along the edges of the center's towers are envisioned as restaurants and other retail uses that will enliven a development with 642,000 square feet of space – almost 30 percent of which is vacant.

Niche Hospitality Group will open two restaurants and a cafe in 2017, and they're all hockey related.

Owners of the Sole Propietor decided not to move the popular Highland Street restaurant after about a year of considering a new Mercantile Center location.

For the first time since 2007, the Niche Hospitality restaurant group will not have a presence on Shrewsbury Street, having sold the location to a new restauranteur.