"She's experiencing heavy delays," is how What Now Boston summarized it after checking in with restaurateur Sa Nguyen this year, and it's a concise update on downtown Natick's restaurant news.
If you've been following Natick Center's dining scene even loosely since last fall, you know the names. Nhậu. San Sushi Bar. Bún + Bao. Tsuru. Epilogue Books & Wine. Five concepts, three addresses, all clustered within a five-minute walk of Natick Common, all covered as a single wave of momentum for downtown Natick. What's harder to track is which of these are serving food right now and which are still working through the gap between "the town approved our license" and "we unlocked the front door."
What the April Vote Means for Nhậu
On April 29, the Natick Select Board voted unanimously to approve an all-alcohol on-premises license for Nhậu LLC. That's a real milestone, but it isn't the finish line. A liquor license means the restaurant cleared one specific regulatory hurdle. It says nothing about whether the walk-in cooler has arrived, whether the kitchen hood passed inspection, or whether the staff has been hired and trained.
That distinction matters more for Nhậu than for almost any other opening downtown, because Nhậu isn't a single restaurant. It's one-third of a three-concept build-out that restaurateur Sa Nguyen is running inside The Block, the retail and restaurant development at 1 South Main Street owned by developer Stuart Rothman. Nguyen, who has run Soall Viet Kitchen in Marblehead since 2012 and also operates Soall Café in Beverly, is building Nhậu as a roughly 50-seat Vietnamese shared-plates restaurant with a full bar, San Sushi Bar as a smaller neighborhood sushi counter, and Bún + Bao as a takeout-only Asian street food operation. The three aren't just neighbors. Bún + Bao is designed with a pass-through window connecting directly to San Sushi Bar's kitchen, an operational link that means none of the three can really open in isolation. When Rothman first described the plan to the Natick Report back in 2025, he called it a project he and Nguyen were aiming to complete "by spring of 2026."
Spring came and went. As of this writing, Nhậu's own website still greets visitors with "Opening Soon" and an email sign-up for launch updates rather than a reservation link or a menu.
"She's experiencing heavy delays," Nguyen told What Now Boston, promising more information once details were finalized.
That's not a criticism of the concept or the operator. Coordinating three connected kitchens, a shared pass-through, and three separate sets of buildout permits inside one commercial space is a harder logistical problem than opening a single storefront, and it's the kind of thing that runs long even when everyone involved is doing everything right.
Forty-Five East Central Street Is Running a Cleaner Timeline
A five-minute walk away, at 45 East Central Street across from St. Patrick Catholic Church, Tsuru is dealing with a simpler version of the same process. Owner Jack Sy, a Johnson & Wales graduate, is opening a single, standalone Japanese restaurant, with 68 seats inside and 31 on a patio. The name means "crane" in Japanese, chosen for its association with good fortune and longevity. Sy has described plans for weekend live music and, for the grand opening, a full tuna cutting demonstration.
Tsuru was announced in April targeting a late-summer soft opening, and MetroWest Daily News reporting in April had both Tsuru and Epilogue Books & Wine pointed at September openings. One restaurant, one kitchen, one buildout. That's a meaningfully shorter list of moving parts than what Nguyen is coordinating a few blocks over, and it shows in how much closer to its original target Tsuru has stayed.
Twenty-One Summer Street Sits Between the Two
Epilogue Books & Wine occupies the middle ground. Owner Mai Hoang is building what she's described as a "third place," an independent bookstore by day that becomes a 25-seat wine bar by night, serving sandwiches, tinned fish, and charcuterie inside roughly 2,300 square feet at 21 Summer Street, directly across from TCAN, the town's live entertainment venue. Hoang's team appeared before the Select Board on June 10 to secure four separate approvals: a wine and malt beverage license, which the board approved that day, plus a common victualers license and both live and non-live entertainment permits, which were still pending votes as of that meeting.
That process involves more steps than a restaurant seeking only a liquor license. David Lavalley, TCAN's executive director emeritus, spoke at that June hearing and encouraged Epilogue's team to build a genuine partnership with the venue across the street rather than simply operate next door to it, which suggests the town sees this stretch of Summer Street as connected infrastructure rather than isolated storefronts.
Here's how the four projects compare on complexity and announced targets:
| Storefront | Address | Announced Target | What Made It Faster or Slower |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blue Square Pizza | The Block, 1 South Main St | April 2026 | Standalone takeout counter, single kitchen, third location for an already-running brand |
| Tsuru | 45 East Central St | Late summer / September 2026 | Standalone buildout, one owner, one kitchen |
| Epilogue Books & Wine | 21 Summer St | September 2026 | Single space, but four separate town licenses required |
| Nhậu / San Sushi Bar / Bún + Bao | The Block, 1 South Main St | Spring 2026, since delayed | Three connected concepts sharing a kitchen pass-through, one operator managing all three at once |
Restaurant opening targets are one part of downtown's timeline; Main Street's proposed redesign is on a much longer horizon.
Main Street Itself Isn't Moving Yet
If you've also heard that Main Street is about to get torn up for a bike lane project, the question has moved into an initial design phase. After a public forum in April where one resident called dedicated bike lanes "a fool's errand" and business owners like Paper Fiesta's Paula Dunbar argued that "the number one complaint here in Natick Center is about parking," the Select Board voted unanimously on September 9 to recommend advancing a "hybrid" design concept, one that adds dedicated bicycle infrastructure while preserving close to the current parking count, into an initial design phase.
That vote accepts roughly half a million dollars in state grant money for design work. It is not a construction start. The project isn't expected to reach construction until sometime in the 2030s, according to reporting on the vote from the Natick Report. Select Board member Cody Jacobs, who favored the hybrid option, called it a compromise that captures "the vast majority of the things proposed" that residents on both sides of the debate actually wanted. The design itself would result in a net increase of two parking spaces under current plans, according to town officials, even as it adds bike infrastructure, a detail that runs against the assumption that any bike lane automatically costs the corridor parking.
Longtime business owner Michael Mabardy, who has operated in Natick Center for 58 years, raised concerns at the April forum about rents running roughly $4,000 a month before taxes, utilities, and insurance, and what any drop in foot traffic could mean for shops already carrying that overhead. Natick Center Associates executive director Heather Rockwood acknowledged that tension directly, saying she agreed losing parking spots would hurt in the short term but that safer walkways and better traffic flow would help in the end. Whatever side of that argument you land on, the corridor outside Nhậu's still-dark windows and Tsuru's patio isn't changing physically anytime soon. The sidewalks, curb cuts, and parking spots you're navigating this month are the ones you'll be navigating for the next several years.
What This Looks Like If You're Walking Main Street This Week
While the restaurant buildouts catch up to their own headlines, the rest of downtown's fall calendar is running on its usual, unaffected schedule. All Around Natick, the open studio weekend where more than 100 local artists open their workspaces to visitors, returns October 17 and 18 across town. TCAN keeps its own performance calendar moving regardless of what opens or doesn't open across the street. None of that is contingent on a shared kitchen pass-through clearing inspection.
So if you're planning a night out downtown this week, the current picture is this. Tsuru and Epilogue were both working toward September, so it's worth calling ahead or checking their sites before you drive over expecting a table. The Block's three-restaurant cluster is still building out behind an "Opening Soon" landing page, and there's no announced date to hold anyone to yet. Main Street under your feet isn't changing form for years no matter what the renderings look like. Downtown Natick's restaurant wave is real. It's just arriving on four different clocks, not one.
Curious how the rest of Natick's fall is shaping up beyond the restaurant scene? Ashley Fuller keeps a close eye on what's actually happening in Natick Center, one storefront at a time. Let's Connect if you want more Natick Center updates before you make plans.
