food & drink

Border Cafe in Cambridge's Harvard Square Won't Reopen After 2019 Fire

The restaurant's Burlington and Saugus locations remain open for business

NBC10 Boston

[This story first appeared on Boston Restaurant Talk.]

A bit more than a year ago, one of the most popular restaurants in Cambridge's Harvard Square was hit by a fire and has remain closed ever since. Now we are hearing that it is gone for good.

According to an article from Cambridge Day, Border Cafe on Church Street will not be reopening, with a general manager at the Burlington location of the small chain of Tex-Mex restaurants saying that "We decided not [to] reopen that location" and that the decision was reportedly made "at the end of the year." The manager--who Cambridge Day says had previously been a manager at the Harvard Square restaurant--describes the closing as "amicable" while not getting into further details. An update from Cambridge Day this morning further confirms this, saying that Denise Jillson of the Harvard Square Business Association heard about its permanent closure late last week.

The Cambridge location of Border Cafe, which first opened in 1987, suffered damaged in a two-alarm blaze in December of 2019, with the fire starting inside the kitchen's exhaust system. The Burlington location remains open for business, as does the outlet in Saugus.

[Earlier Article]
Two-Alarm Fire Hits Border Cafe in Cambridge's Harvard Square

by Marc Hurwitz

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[A related post from our sister site (Boston's Hidden Restaurants): List of Restaurant Closings and Openings in the Boston Area]


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