Last January, a junction box at a commercial building on Beacon Street shorted out. The surge went into the fire alarm panel, and the fire that followed stayed in the basement of the Painted Burro. Even so, it damaged the electrical system for the whole building. That is how a Brookline Fire Department deputy chief described the investigator's findings to Brookline.News.
Nine months later, the corner of Beacon Street and Winthrop Road is still dark. A short walk east, the Golden Temple's arched dining rooms at 1651 Beacon Street have been empty since the restaurant closed in June after 66 years. Together they make up a long run of unlit glass in one of Brookline's busiest dining districts.
Each dark storefront is waiting on a specific obstacle, and none of them is a shortage of people who want to run a business there. At the fire corner, the obstacle is electrical. At the Golden Temple, it is a family case in Norfolk Superior Court, along with a December 31 bank deadline on loans tied to the owners' Brookline properties.
The stretch, address by address
| Address | Business | Status | As of |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1627 Beacon St | Capricho Colombian Steakhouse | Operating; took part in Restaurant Week Boston | August 2026 |
| 1651 Beacon St | Former Golden Temple | Closed in June; future of the space unresolved | October 18, 2026 |
| 1665 Beacon St | Painted Burro | Closed since the January fire | June 4, 2026 |
| 1669 Beacon St | Vinodivino | Closed since the January fire; license change application filed | 2026 |
| 1700 Beacon St | Barcelona Wine Bar | Operating; October menus posted | October 2026 |
Both ends of the stretch are open. Capricho Colombian Steakhouse at 1627 Beacon was on the Brookline list for Restaurant Week Boston, August 1 through 15, 2026. Barcelona Wine Bar at 1700 Beacon has posted menus dated mid-October 2026, along with current hours and reservations. The gap is in the middle, and the reasons behind it are different for each address.
The fire corner is waiting on wires
At 1665 and 1669 Beacon, the obstacle is the building's electrical service. According to Brookline.News's June 4 report, the strip had no power at all until late May. That was when Eversource restored temporary electricity after the town's chief electrical inspector finished a temporary-service inspection in mid-April. Restoring full power still required an electrical engineer to work out the next steps. The same report described both businesses as a long way from reopening.
Insurance has slowed things down as well. Vinodivino owner David Ucci told the outlet that the insurers for each business and for the property owner were working together to assess the damage, but that the process takes time.
The two businesses face very different amounts of work. Ucci said that once the building's systems are fixed and brought up to code, the wine shop needs only a few days of cleaning and a fresh coat of paint. "If there were [full] power there, I'd be open tomorrow," he told Brookline.News. Vinodivino has been on that corner for 16 years, and Ucci said he can't imagine running the business without that store. The Painted Burro needs far more repair. Its owner called the fire a "total loss" for the restaurant, which had opened as Burro Bar in 2017 and held a grand reopening as the Painted Burro only two years before the fire.
As of June, both owners said they planned to reopen, and neither had a target date. For now, the businesses' own websites list their other locations. The Painted Burro's location directory shows Harvard Square, Somerville and Waltham. Vinodivino's locations page shows Beacon Hill, Kenmore Square, Marion, Needham and Newton. Neither has announced that the Brookline location is permanently closed.
A license application suggests Vinodivino plans to come back bigger
One public record points to Vinodivino's plans. A Brookline Select Board licensing hearing agenda lists an application from MDM WINE3 LLC, doing business as Vinodivino, to change its 1669 Beacon Street license from a wine and malt package store to an all-kinds package store. A shop that expected to stay closed would have little reason to apply for a broader license than the one it held before the fire.
The Painted Burro shows up in the licensing records too. An earlier licensing agenda lists it among several businesses that did not submit a common victualler renewal by the 2026 deadline. That agenda item covers a missed renewal. It is not a closure notice, and the owner's most recent public statement, in June, was that he intends to reopen.
The Golden Temple space is held up in court
The building at 1651 Beacon is not waiting on wiring. It is waiting on four sibling owners to agree. According to a Brookline.News report published October 18, the siblings signed a term sheet in April that called for closing the restaurant, selling all nine family properties and sending their claims against one another to private arbitration. The restaurant closed, but the final settlement agreement that would start the sales was never signed.
In early October, two of the siblings asked the court to enforce the deal. A lawyer for the other two responded that his clients support arbitration but object to a quick sale of the properties. On October 8, a judge denied the motion, declined to rule on a request to force arbitration, and wrote that "it appears the parties are moving towards arbitration."
This case reaches beyond one restaurant. The nine properties include a cluster of buildings in Washington Square and several in and near Coolidge Corner, among them 299 Harvard Street and 441 Harvard Street. Court filings show the family defaulted on five loans tied to those properties. A forbearance agreement gives them until December 31 to repay the loans before the bank resumes foreclosure. The filings don't say whether 1651 Beacon is one of the five.
People want to run businesses here
A sworn affidavit in the case says two groups have been interested in leasing the former Golden Temple space as a restaurant. Both wanted to buy its equipment, its furniture and its liquor license. The space is one of the largest restaurant rooms in Brookline, and its bar area, the E Room, turned into a DJ-driven dance floor after dinner on weekends, as Brookline.News recounted when the restaurant closed. Two operators lining up for a room like that is what demand looks like. Whether either lease has gone through is still unclear.
Customers have stayed in the square, too. After the fire, Eric Lord, general manager of Bar Vlaha, told Brookline.News that the restaurant was getting many more walk-in brunch guests. He pointed to The Abbey as the new place for a snack and a beer. "Previously, you could go next door," he said. The brunch crowd moved down the block and kept coming.
That matches how local business advocates described this summer's string of Brookline closures. In an August 4 Brookline.News piece, Greg Reibman of the Charles River Regional Chamber, which added Brookline to its footprint in April, said that "every business has a different reason for why they might close." The same piece noted that Golden Temple closed amid a family ownership dispute. Rising costs and commercial rents are real pressures across town, but they aren't what is keeping these Washington Square storefronts closed.
Dates to watch between now and the new year
Several public deadlines and records will show which way each address is going:
- December 31. The forbearance agreement on the five defaulted loans runs out. After that, the bank can resume foreclosure on whichever properties are still unpaid.
- The arbitration in the Taw family case. In the October 8 order, the judge wrote that the parties appear to be moving toward arbitration. The property sales described in the April term sheet depend on how that turns out.
- Select Board licensing agendas. Any new restaurant at 1651 Beacon that wants the existing liquor license, and any reopening at 1665 or 1669, will need licensing action that appears on the town's licensing hearing agendas.
- Full power at 1665–1669 Beacon. Vinodivino's owner has said the shop needs only days of work once the building's systems are restored, so permanent electrical service is the first sign to look for on that corner.
Until then, Barcelona Wine Bar, Capricho, Bar Vlaha and The Abbey are the places in Washington Square still serving.
If you own near Beacon Street and Winthrop Road and want to understand how changes like these could affect your plans, I'm glad to talk it through. Sheri Flagler has followed Brookline's commercial districts for about 25 years, including more than 15 on the Brookline Preservation Commission. Let's Connect.
