businesses

Country Pizza will be changing hands later this month after the business owner and landlord couldn’t agree on rental terms going forward.

Country Pizza is in the same building as Lincoln Petroleum on Lincoln Road. Cindy Murphy (granddaughter of Doherty’s founder Matthew Doherty) and her husband Dennis sold the property and the gas station/car repair business in 2023 to 161 Lincoln LLC headed by John Frangieh, who runs Lincoln Petroleum. According to Harry Kyros, owner of Country Pizza for 29 years, Frangieh recently told him that his rent was going up by $1,000 a month, but still on the previous month-to-month basis rather than a multi-year lease.

Kyros said on Feb. 7 that he told Frangieh, “I’ll pay the thousand, but I want a lease.” But Frangieh declined to offer him a lease and told him needed to be out of the building by Feb. 26, leaving him with two options: moving his ovens and other equipment into storage while seeking another location, or selling the business, Kyros said. Frangieh has offered to buy it, but for “pennies on the dollar,” he added. “It’s going to cost me thousands of dollars just to get [the equipment] out of here. His intentions are to squeeze me out.”

Reached on Feb. 9, Lincoln Petroleum assistant manager Paul Traniello said that 161 Lincoln LLC was purchasing the business from Kyros and that the plan was to keep it open.

“The business is not busy and it’s not that profitable, and it’s not our fault,” Traniello said. “Expenses have gone up, so we have to go up on the rent.”

The business will stay open during a transition period while “a few changes” are made, such as the ability to accept credit cards and perhaps some menu tweaks, according to Traniello. “We’re going to make it more profitable… [but the changes] are not going to be drastic,” he said. Referring to the move away from Kyros as business owner, “that’s the only difference,” he added.

“I’d sell it to him if he gave me something close to the asking price, but he’s trying to steal it. He’s holding the cards because he owns the building,” said Kyros, adding that he is almost 60 but had planned to run Country Pizza for several more years. “I’m going to start [a new business] now… or get a job?” he said skeptically. “I feel like crying.”

Reactions on LincolnTalk over the weekend ranged form disappointment to outrage, with at least one resident advocating a boycott of Lincoln Petroleum and others suggesting a GoFundMe fundraising campaign.

“The Lincoln people are so nice… the support from them is unbelievable. People been coming in and calling me, coming in, wanting to know if it’s true,” Kyros said. As for the idea of raising money to somehow aid in negotiations or storage and moving expenses, “I’ll talk to him and see. Something’s better than nothing.”

If Country Pizza closes, it will be the third business in Lincoln that has recently made such an announcement. Bank of America said in November that it would be leaving the Mall at Lincoln Station as of March 2026, and Weston Nurseries said last month that it had closed its Route 117 location as well.

Weston Nurseries, formerly Stonegate Gardens. (Photo courtesy Weston Nurseries)

Weston Nurseries has announced it will be closing the former Stonegate Gardens on South Great Road it took over in 2023 on a two-year lease.

Bruce MacDowell and his late wife Lynne Bower-MacDowell ran Stonegate Gardens for nearly 25 years, succeeding McKnight’s Nursery. Bower-MacDowell died in March 2023 and Bruce eventually asked Weston Nurseries to assume operation of the business. That company leased the property in January 2024 with an option to terminate in 2026, according to Weston Nurseries president Peter Mezitt.

The timing wasn’t ideal since the usual timeframe for ordering the next year’s plants had already passed.  “We’re very close to Bruce and Lynne,” Mezitt said. “For us to make a decision like that wasn’t easy at all, but we felt obligated to keep it open… we realized what an asset it is to the local area and we hope it can still be a garden center in the future.”

Part of the issue was that Stonegate Gardens and Weston Nurseries had different business models. Stonegate offered home visits for plantings and plant care while Weston Nurseries, (which has locations in Hopkinton, Chelmsford, Hingham, and Middleborough), did not, “and it’s important for our brand to be consistent throughout our company,” Mezitt said. “When we went into it at the last minute, we knew it didn’t fit our model… and the revenue wasn’t where it needed to be

The closure is not a reflection on the staff, who have been offered jobs in other locations, he emphasized.

Stonegate Gardens occupies one of four adjacent lots owned by MacDowell. He lives in the home on the parcel directly abutting the Weston town line.

Weston Nurseries was founded in 1923 and is in its fourth generation of Mezitt family ownership.

The Bank of America branch at the Mall at Lincoln Station.

Editor’s note: this story was updated on November 10, 2025.

Lincoln’s Bank of America customers received emails on Friday that the town’s branch would close in March 2026.

The email didn’t say why the move was being made but said those who have a safe deposit box at this location will receive a separate letter with instructions about how to close the box and collect your personal belongings. Jennings Rainey, Vice President/Consumer Banking Market Leader for the Middlesex Market, referred questions to the bank’s corporate media office, which did not return an email from the Lincoln Squirrel on Friday.

Geoff McGean, executive director of the Rural land Foundation, the mall’s owner, said Bank of America had an option to renew their lease starting in April 2026 and notified the RLF that they would decline it.

“BoA has been a valued tenant at Lincoln Station for 25 years,” McGean said. “The decision to leave was made exclusively by BoA and was a surprise to RLF. The employees at the bank have cited a lack of activity as being the reason for the closure but that is all we have been told at this time.” The RLF is actively in discussions with other potential banks to replace [Bank of America],” he added.

“I think we as a community need to look broadly at the state of retail/banks in particular and ask ourselves to really lean in and support this town in all ways possible,” said Andrew Stevenson, RLF’s board chair. “It is more important than ever that we show all local companies support and shop at them to make sure they see a viable future in Lincoln, whether they be stores at Lincoln Station or any local vendor.”

Voters approved zoning changes in December 2023 that, among other things, would allow the mall to be redeveloped as a two-story building with housing on the second floor, a project that will inconvenience the current commercial tenants in the short term. The RLF has been in discussions for some time with Civico about ideas whereby the company would redevelop the mall while adding a second and third floor for multifamily housing as stipulated in the Housing Choice Act. However, neither Civico nor any other developer have made “additional progress on drawing up proposals for redeveloping the mall,” McGean said.

A branch of the Cambridge Trust Co., which was located across Lincoln Road from the Bank of America, closed its doors in 2016.

A sketch of the expanded Tack Room patio and doorways.

The Planning Board gave a thumbs-up this week to a plan to increase the size of the dining patio at the Tack Room restaurant and a more convenient access door.

The Rural Land Foundation (which owns the property) and the owner of the Tack Room, Mike Culpo, found that they needed to replace the 10-year-old seasonal awning over the patio. As part of the improvement, they will increase the patio size from 810 square feet to about 1,060 square feet, or about four feet wider along the Lincoln Road side and five feet wider along the post office side.

The enclosure will have an exit to the green space along Lincoln Road and a new clear, accordion-style doorway from the restaurant interior to make it easier for customers and servers to access the patio.

“It will still be a seasonal patio, but will be much more spacious with roughly 20 tables. Four of those tables will be high-top tables located near a few outdoor TVs we will install,” Culpo told the Lincoln Squirrel, adding that he hopes to have the work complete by late summer.

Editor’s note: for more information, see “Old Town Hall Exchange is back in business” (Lincoln Squirrel, Feb. 21, 2023).

By Stacy Osur

Lincoln’s Old Town Hall Exchange will reopen this coming Wednesday after our annual summer break. Yes, our candy will be restocked and can’t wait to see our shortest customers back in the shop.

This Lincoln institution that was founded in 1963, supports both consignors and the lovely old building that it is housed in, Lincoln’s Old Town Hall. The building was rescued in 1962 from being taken away (yes, away!) by Henry Ford through a gallant group of neighbors that banded together and raised the funds to purchase the building and land from Sumner Smith (who had previously offered it to the town, but was rebuffed). The U.S. Post Office remains a tenant at will and we hope they remain as long as they wish.

Please volunteer with us, make a donation and visit soon! We’re open Tuesday through Friday from noon–4 p.m. through September (hours to be expanded later).

“My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their letters to the editor or views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.

By Maureen Belt

Jodi Gorman in the Happy Jars kitchen. (Photo by Maureen Belt)

After nearly 25 years of putting her registered dietitian and nutritionist credentials to work for others — most recently at a nursing home — Lincoln resident Jodi Gorman sprung out on her own. In 2020, she opened Happy Jars, a delivery service for healthy and flavorful small-batch homemade soups and salads.

Gorman’s business plan involved sourcing the finest and freshest ingredients, tweaking family recipes, creating new ones, and ladling or layering the finished creations into tall clear jars to be delivered to customers (though they now can be picked up at the Codman Farm store as well).

Startups require jumping through lots of hoops. There was acquiring a catering license, registering as an LLC, and strict health codes to follow that govern everything from purchasing ingredients to sterilizing cooking tools and logging temperatures. Gorman needed to rent an industrial kitchen to comply with those codes, so she he called around and eventually found a fit at St. Matthew’s United Methodist Church in Acton. The venue even offered bonus storage space.

Gorman culled recipes passed down in her family as well as other tried-and-true favorites she’s created over the years. Using as many local and organic ingredients as the season would allow, she began tweaking them for commercial success. Her husband Evan and their two school-aged daughters, Sage and Isa, served as testers, offering feedback like “extra cilantro” and “more parsley.” Neighbor and confidant Sabra Alden chimed in with ideas for bumping up protein and other nutrients.

Once the testers’ high standards were met, Gorman relied on her extensive dietary background and completed the tedious work of precisely itemizing not just ingredients but also the nutritional values and calorie count of every soup and salad. Then there needed to be a website where customers could order and pay for the specials of the week. Another Lincolnite, and graphic artist Linda Cordner, designed the site and maintains it.

Of course, as Gorman was busy doing all this in late 2019, having no idea a global pandemic was brewing.

Fresh salads made and sold by Happy Jars. (Photo by Jodi Gorman)

“We were totally prepared and ready to go the day before everything shut down,” she said at the end of a long day of cooking batches of lentil soup. One added hitch: Mason jars were scarce during the height of the pandemic — problematic for a company called Happy Jars. Opening day moved from March 2020 to July. As it turned out, the timing worked out well for a gourmet home delivery business to enter the market.

“Most people were working from home,” Gorman noted, while many others were avoiding restaurants and limiting trips to grocery stores. It’s a good business to be in. According to the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, food delivery has become a global market worth more than $150 billion since 2017. The bulk of that increase came during the pandemic, the report stated, adding the market can expect an 8 percent growth going forward. As for Happy Jars, it has yet to yield much profit, but repeat customers and word-of-mouth referrals are leading to an encouraging bottom line.

Alden is the kind of friend who walked dogs with Gorman in the predawn hours while Gorman debated risking a career with full benefits for the uncertainty of owning her own business. “She talked a lot about doing this for so long — for years,” said Alden, who was elbow-deep in a sudsy pot in the sink.

Besides being a supportive listener and go-to pot scrubber, Alden talks to farmers about produce availability. She picks chicken off bones, sanitizes jars and counters, sweeps floors and inspects lettuce leaves individually. “We triple wash it,” she said, “and the romaine — literally we wash every leaf.”

Each week Gorman makes two soups and salads from her growing recipe collection. Customers log into her website by Sunday night to place their orders from a menu that includes all sorts of soup and salads with memorable names like Uplifting Udon, California Dreaming, Why Not Waldorf, and Sunshine on a Cloudy Day. She can usually accommodate vegan and gluten-free customers as well as special requests. One person asked for no salt in the turkey chili and brown rice soup, so Gorman simply separated that portion from the batch and omitted the salt.

She sources local ingredients whenever possible. For example, she makes croutons from bread purchased at Nashoba Brook Bakery, a slow-rise artisan bakery in West Concord.

“A lot of kids eat my food, and their parents just have peace of mind,” Gorman said. To accommodate children, Happy Jars offers 16-ounce containers that fit neatly into lunch boxes. With the emphasis on protein and nutritious contents, most of her soups and salads are complete meals.

Small soup batches are prepared every Monday and packed on Tuesday after properly cooling and setting. Salads can’t be made that far ahead. “The red cabbage gets brown overnight, Gorman said.” Another Lincoln friend, Terry Kay, helps with Tuesday deliveries in Lincoln and surrounding communities. Delivery fees are based on the size of the order. Heating instructions are included, and contents are good for one week from the day they were prepared. Customers may also pick up their orders — a trend that’s growing since she had to raise delivery rates. And now they’re available to buy in the Codman Farm store as well.

Nearly three years into being an entrepreneur, Gorman is still having fun and looking forward. “I love that I am my own boss and that I make my own hours, and that really goes well with motherhood,” she said. “I knew I wanted to do something else and I was ready. I love to cook, and I really love to feed people, and I love to feed people really good food.”

You can follow Happy Jars on Instagram here.

Kate Dahmen shows off some of the wares on offer at the Old Town Hall Exchange.

The Covid-19 pandemic closed the Old Town Hall Exchange’s doors for almost two years — but the shop is back.

“I’ve always loved this place and wanted to see if I could help reopen it,” said Lincoln resident and artist Kate Dahmen. She reached out to Stacy Osur, who manages the building for the nonprofit Lincoln Old Town Hall Corporation, and reopened the store on an intermittent basis during the holiday season.

On the main floor, visitors can browse through the pre-pandemic stock of gifts, cards, toys, baby clothing, and books as well as new penny candy — a favorite of Lincoln kids for decades. The basement is fuller than ever with antiques (“a lot of stuff came in during the pandemic,” Dahmen said). The Exchange does consignment sales, returning 70% of the proceeds to crafters and antique owners while the remainder goes to building maintenance and shop operations.

“We’ll slowly bring in new stuff as space allows,” she said. “We’d love to bring in more unique things and create wall space for original art. This is a place where you can buy something you couldn’t find on Amazon or a major store, but we’ll always have cards and penny candy no matter what.”

The hours of operations are still not set in stone since Dahmen is in the process of finding volunteers to help for two hours a week apiece, so she advised calling ahead (781-259-9876). She hopes to be open Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m.–4 p.m. and Saturday from noon–4 p.m. when staffing allows. Anyone interested in volunteering may email her at kate.dahmen@gmail.com. “It’s a really happy place to spend time and it’s a great way to meet people,” she said. 

The Old Town Hall is now in its third location. It was built in 1848 close to the current location of Bemis Hall “for all Political, Temperance, Antislavery & Peace Meetings and Lecturers for Lyceum, and Singing Schools, for Picnics, Fairs and Sabbath School celebrations and for all Literary & Scientific Lecturers,” according to the building’s website. It was moved down the hill closer to the First Parish Church in 1884 and then to its current location in 1918. At various times it housed Lincoln’s first high school and the public library. Later tenants included a general store and gas station, a law office, and a small publisher.

Coldwell Banker occupied some of the upstairs office space until leaving in October 2022. The space is being renovated for new tenants, but Osur said she didn’t know what the space will be used for and when. “The whole thing is still up in the air,” she said.