LYNN — Revolution is finally coming and it’s bringing pizzas, pints and a bunch of brew.
The city has been anticipating the opening of Revolution Pie & Pint since late last year and the wait will soon be over. The restaurant, expected to open the first week of August, will be a two-in-one venue, with Brew on the Grid coffee shop located at the front of the building. Grid Hospitality Group have brought on Lynn’s own Jamie Figueroa as the general manager.
“He’s a special character,” said Jim Hodgdon, director of operations for the group. “The first time I talked to him I felt like we could sit down and talk for hours.”
After an unsuccessful race for Lynn City Council in last November’s election, Figueroa wasn’t sure what he was going to do next. When he saw that a new restaurant was looking for employees, he took his prior food managerial experience and applied.
“I’m just so excited, not only for our company but for the community, especially since we’re coming in at primetime when Lynn really is on everyone’s map,” he said. “We’ve been perfecting a product that the community and all the commonwealth is going to love.”
Hodgdon and Steve Carter, vice president of operations for the group, run Craft Table & Bar in East Boston and Worcester as well as Brew Beer Garden, Brew on the Grid, and Stix in Worcester. After they saw Figueroa’s application and noticed how involved he was within the community, Hodgdon and Carter called him right up. Then they put signs all over their building’s windows at 23 Central Sq. hoping to hire more with his enthusiasm.
“I’m very excited about the culinary talent there is here in Lynn,” said Carter. “We want to be the place to go in this neighborhood, especially with our price point (being) competitive yet still affordable.”
Revolution Pie & Pint, which got its name from its revolving oven that cooks its pizzas at 850 degrees in under two minutes, will open Monday through Sunday for lunch and dinner. The restaurant will offer 10 handcrafted pizzas, a pizza of the day, and three dessert pizzas, such as crème brûlée, strawberry romanoff and s’mores. Sandwiches and salads are also on the menu to give guests an array of options to choose from. The bar, open seven days a week starting at 3 p.m., offers a variety of 20 beers on tap.
“If you can think of a pizza flavor, we can make it,” said Carter. “We want to make sure Lynn and Revolution hit a homerun right off the bat.”
Brew on the Grid is ready to go with its full staff and near complete menu. Downtown’s newest community coffee shop will have cappuccinos, espresso, and various cold brew and nitro brew flavors on their menu. For breakfast, there will be your usual bagels, muffins, and pastries, but most notably they are bringing avocado toast and homemade Belgian waffles, fan favorites from the Worcester location.
The back end of the building, where pizza will be served, has been busy with tasting options and fine tuning the menu for the last three weeks. Before their hopeful opening in August, they need to set up their point of sales operating system and finish hiring staff. Once everything is finalized and the hybrid restaurant is open, it will also offer 30 minute delivery service through FoodSquire, a Grub-Hub style restaurant delivery service that will pilot in Lynn.
Lynn’s newest establishment will be a friendly competitor to the local pizza shops, such as Enzo’s Pizzeria, Caruso’s, and George’s, and to the other community coffee shop, Land of a Thousand Hills. With the downtown area becoming more popular since the Beyond Walls debut, the new guys in town are hoping to be another option for dinner before a local event or show at the Lynn Auditorium.
“My biggest hope is the community accepts it and loves it and we become a destination for all downtown events,” said Figueroa. “It’s taken us so much time because we want to execute it perfectly since we have high hopes for them.”
