As One Door Closes Another Door Opens

The sad news this weekend was that The Littlest Bar had finally been forced to close it's doors at the current location. After months and months of wait and see it appears the Abbey Group has finally begun the push for action to construct condo's on top of what was once the Littlest footprint. We've been heading every now and again since we heard about the initial threats of closure. Owner Paddy Grace told us in March that he was scoping out a new spot to open up a bar. It probably won't be the Littlest – but he'll bring the Irish charm (and he's already got street cred if you ask us). Paddy will retain his liquor license and hopes to transfer it to a new location on Devonshire. Both of the major papers are reporting on the loss of the littlest and the hopeful move. Perhaps there's something to be said when you can walk into the bar by yourself and it's already crowded. Grace hopes that a new establishment might be open by the end of the year.

The Littlest Bar may have just closed its doors – but across town in Jamaica Plain El Oriental de Cuba has re-opened. The store was victim to a firebombing in 2005. Storefront fires in JP have become an increasing problem in recent months, the El Oriental fire of July 2005 is often cited as the first in the string of arsons. After a long reconstruction process the owner of El Oriental, Nobel Garcia, has moved back into the Hyde Square location and is cooking up favorites once again. The store has gotten a façade facelift thanks to grants from the city's Main Streets program – community members and the Garcia family pulled together to support the restaurant's reconstruction and additional loans were also taken out. The inside of the store looks much more polished than it did just before the fire. Boston native Angela Rowlings who is a staff photographer for the Boston Herald has a number of prints up on the walls of the renovated business of Nobel Garcia's native Cuba. They're striking prints from Rowling's several visits to Cuba – and we'll go out on a limb and suggest they're better than the news photos she's assigned when writing for the local tab. Menus have been distributed to a number of Jamaica Plain residents in their mailboxes and we're certain that word of mouth will quickly spread the news that El Oriental has risen like a phoenix (the bird – not the weekly).

Pictures of door closers. Apparently these devices can also be used to keep doors open as well.