METHUEN — Just two weeks after a 19-year-old drunk driver drove into their Salem Street restaurant in Lynnfield, School Street Foods is still open for business and going strong at their second location on Merrimack Street in Methuen.
Inside, the aroma of bread rolls baking in the oven wafts through the air as co-owner and chef Javier Baez bakes his newest culinary creation — a delicious, everything-bagel-seasoned bread roll for a cheesesteak sandwich he hopes will one day be declared the best in the state. It’s here, behind the counter, that he explains how the restaurant is staying afloat.
As of now, Baez is unsure whether they’ll reopen the restaurant in Lynnfield.
“We don’t know yet,” Baez said. “We do want to open up a second location, we just don’t know if it’s gonna be [in] that building or if we’re gonna have to go to another building.”
It was just a day after their grand opening in Methuen on June 6 that Baez said he got the call early that morning that the crash had occurred in Lynnfield. At first, he wasn’t expecting the damage to be as significant as it was.
“I’m like, it can’t be that bad. Probably broke a window, broke the door,” he admits. “But the way that [the driver] crashed, he ended up causing a ridiculous amount of damage.”
Baez said that the smell of burnt rubber was “overwhelming” and that there is still structural damage to the building itself, and that the crash also “took out the electricity and water.”
“I lost a lot of hours for my staff,” he further explained when asked about the impact the crash had on the business. “We lost a bunch of food. We were in a hole.”
And yet, even during tough times, both Baez and their staff have kept a positive outlook as they’ve moved forward. “We sat for a day or two, and then we were just all singing and dancing back here,” Baez said. “You can knock down a building, but you can’t knock down a vibe.”
It’s this perspective that has been the driving force behind the restaurant’s continued success and Baez’s personal journey. While living in Lynn, Baez began selling pastelitos out of his house in 2019. After briefly attending the Cordon Bleu culinary school and working in different food establishments and restaurants, Baez was working in a commissary kitchen in Salem when he met Gina Goodwin, who was a customer at the time and is now co-owner of School Street Foods.
“She reached out to me and said, ‘Hey, you should open up a shop,’ and I said, ‘I’m sleeping on the air mattress, I can’t open up a shop,’” Baez explained how they started School Street Foods. “She’s like, ‘My mom just passed away, she left me some money. If you want to do it, I believe you know what you’re doing.’”
Together, they teamed up to launch School Street Foods in November of 2024. The name of the restaurant is inspired by the street Baez grew up on in Eggleston Square in Roxbury. “That’s where I learned all my life lessons,” said Baez, who later shared his inspirational journey battling addiction and being in recovery.
And yet, even during tough times, Baez’s passion is evident the moment he talks about his craft. “If I’m going to tell a story with my food, I think it’s right that I pay homage to where it all started,” Baez said.
From birria empanadas to burgers, fries, and breakfast that’s served all day, School Street Foods has continued to offer a dining experience rooted in culture, community, and Latin, American, and Caribbean signature dishes packed with bold flavors.
“I always tell people when they walk into School Street, they’re not just customers, they’re family,” Baez said. “I’m feeding them the same way that I would feed my daughter or my sister, with the same love and with the same passion.”
