Velvet Vine Café is set to open in mid-January at 166 Great Road in the space recently occupied by the Holy Grail restaurant. Construction is nearly done; final inspections are underway and the hiring of the kitchen staff is nearly complete. As a café they will be serving breakfast and lunch daily with coffee, lattes, and an assortment of drinks from the full bar.
In a few months, co-owners Crystal Blais and Sarah Fitzmaurice plan on opening a speakeasy in another section of the restaurant featuring cocktails and tapas, and where patrons will enter via a “separate surprise entrance.” Velvet Vine Cafe will have a capacity of fifty-nine with bar seating, high tops, low tops, and couches. Website: velvetvinecafe.com.
Luna’s owners, Adan and Julian Bracamontes, hope to open their new restaurant in January. They are located at 20 Nagog Park, former home of As Good As It Gets and, before that, Bickford’s. The Bracamontes have been in the restaurant business for years and their parents are still involved in their own ventures in Marblehead and Northboro. Rather than the typical Tex-Mex fare that most Americans are used to, the brothers seek to create an authentic Mexican atmosphere at Luna with a wide selection of native foods.
There will be seating for eighty-five at comfortable upholstered benches and fifteen more at the new bar. The space is decorated with paintings by Mexican artists and hand-crafted metal and glass creations. The plates and glassware are handmade and even the furniture, as well as an exquisite hand hammered copper bar counter cover, are made in Mexico. Luna’s will be open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week. The company’s website is, like the restaurant, under construction.
Acton Cycles will open in January at the Acton Woods Plaza at the corner of Routes 27 and 2A/119. The store will sell e-bikes, road, hybrid, mountain, and kids’ bikes by Scott, Cannondale, Shimano, Fuji, and Batch and others. They offer repairs, tune-ups, and fittings and boast that most repairs will be done within 24 hours, with free pickup and delivery. Acton Cycle also sells shoes, helmets, tools, and other accessories and will rent road and hybrid bikes. Find them at 340 Great Road, Suite 3A (former home of The Happy Chocolatier),or at www.actoncycles.com. Hours M-F 10-6, weekends 9-5.
The Pro-Tech service station at the corner of Rts. 27 and 2A/119 will re-open their gas pumps in January after a three-month period of construction. Almost everything is new, including gasoline pumps (with modern video screens), a remodeled store area, completely redone bathrooms (with motion activated lights and faucets), concrete slabs over new gasoline piping, light poles, several bright yellow bollards in front of the store, and a new, taller flagpole. Diesel fuel will be available for the first time.
Pro-Tech also has a station at the corner of Routes 27 and 111 in Acton and another in Waltham.
Manager Mostafa El-Hakim oversees the remodeling and is very proud of the new eagle weathervane atop the building. The massive hydrangeas, now in storage at the side of the station, will be re-planted to their former positions at the edge of the pavement on either side of the white flagpole. Pro-Tech is known for its showy hydrangeas, and displays them at their other Acton station and around the CVS property on Rt. 111 that Pro-Tech also owns.
Jeff Brown is business beat reporter for the Acton Exchange.