The Newton Centre Guide Everyone Wrote in July Just Got Overtaken by September

Walk up Union Street in Newton Centre this week and you will pass a restaurant that, according to at least four different guides published earlier this year, still does not exist. Those posts have Lockheart "expected to move into" the old train depot at 70 Union Street, sitting somewhere between a permit filing and a hopeful groundbreaking. That was true in June. It was still mostly true in August. It is not true anymore.

The station building beside the Newton Centre Green Line stop sat dark for close to four years after Deluxe Town Diner closed there. As of this month, Boston.com and a Boston restaurant roundup both list Lockheart's Newton Centre location among the city's newest openings, with a full menu: lobster guacamole, Texas dry rub wings, a taco lineup that runs from carnitas to tuna poke, bowls, salads, veggie enchiladas, and margaritas on a seasonal patio. The gap between what the neighborhood blogs still say and what is actually happening on Union Street is the story worth telling, because it lands two things at once: a four-year vacancy finally ending, and its ending arriving just before the Green hosts its busiest weekend of the fall.

Four Years Behind a Chain-Link Gate

The building at 70 Union Street is a 19th-century former railroad station, small enough that its current buildout plans describe 86 seats inside and a seasonal patio rather than anything sprawling. A company managed by Anthony Killough, called 70 Union LLC, bought the station for roughly two million dollars in September 2025. From there the work was slow in the way old buildings make renovation slow: a demolition permit in January 2024, a restaurant fit-out running around $1.2 million by that March, and a fire-protection system acceptance test in June 2026, which is usually one of the last inspections before a kitchen can legally operate.

Mark Hicklin, a partner in the original Wellesley Lockheart, is the proposed manager of record for the Newton Centre location. That Wellesley restaurant opened on Central Street in 2022 and built its following on a Southwestern menu and a habit of hosting trivia nights, open mics, and live music, which gives Newton Centre residents a rough preview of what a Thursday night at 70 Union might eventually feel like once the new spot settles in.

What Actually Happens Between a Vote and a Doorbell

The part most guides skipped is the gap between the city saying yes and the restaurant actually opening its doors, and it is worth walking through because it explains why so many earlier posts got the timing wrong.

That mid-August stall is the detail the earlier posts could not have known about, because it happened after they published. A Newton news outlet reported that even after the city approved the license, the state's roster of active Newton licenses showed nothing issued for Union Depot LLC. The applicants' attorney told the outlet the restaurant was waiting on state approval and expected to open within a matter of days once it came through, with a caveat of a few weeks if it did not. That is roughly what happened. A city vote is not the same as a legal green light, and in a small building with a liquor license attached to it, the second approval can take longer than the first.

Two Blocks Over, It Already Happened

Formosa Bun & Dumpling Factory went through a version of the same delay a year earlier, and its resolution is a useful comparison for anyone wondering how long these things actually take. The Taiwanese street food shop moved into the former Jake's Falafel Corner space at 740A Beacon Street, and it ran a soft launch doing takeout orders in early December while it waited for building permits to clear. The full grand opening did not happen until March 28, 2026, with a ribbon cutting attended by Mayor Marc Laredo and the Director General of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office of Boston.

What moved the process along was not just paperwork. Retiring City Councilor Rick Lipof had been talking with owner Kristina Pan about the permitting delays and started making calls to speed things up. Economic Development Director Lauren Berman is credited with helping get the shop over the finish line during a change in the mayor's office. Pan's menu draws on xiaochi, the small street food dishes common in Taiwanese night markets, including pan-fried bao and grilled Taiwanese sausage, and the shop has been open and running for almost six months now while Lockheart was still working through its own version of the same process a few doors down.

The Weekend the Green Was Always Building Toward

None of this timing is an accident if you think about what the Green does every October. The city's Harvest Fair returns to Newton Centre Green and the Langley Road parking lot on Saturday, October 17 and Sunday, October 18, 2026. Saturday runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with kiddie rides and food trucks only. Sunday is the full version, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., with a carnival, live music, more than 100 crafters and vendors, a GreenEXPO, and free pumpkin decorating courtesy of Wegmans Chestnut Hill while supplies last.

That is the single weekend of the year when the Green pulls the most foot traffic from every direction, and it is arriving with a restaurant open on one corner of it for the first time in four years and a Taiwanese counter running steady for six months on another. The summer concert series at the Bowl wrapped up in early August, which means the Green's fall identity is not about music on the lawn anymore. It is about who is eating what within walking distance of the crafters' tables.

Building an October Saturday Around the Green

If you already live within walking distance of Newton Centre, the practical question is less about any single opening and more about what a fall Saturday can now look like without a car. A few pieces fit together:

• Morning: the Saturday farmers' market at Newton North High School, 352 Lowell Avenue, runs through October 31.
• Midday: Formosa Bun & Dumpling Factory at 740A Beacon Street for xiaochi or a bowl of beef noodle soup before the fair crowds build.
• Fair weekend, October 17 to 18: the Harvest Fair itself on the Green and the Langley Road lot.
• Evening: Lockheart at 70 Union Street, with a kitchen expected to run until at least 10 p.m. and a patio that closes by 10, seating up to 86 inside.

None of those four stops existed together a year ago. Two of them did not exist at all. The station building was dark, the falafel shop next to it had already closed, and the Green's fall weekend ran on crafters and carnival rides alone. What changed is not one restaurant opening. It is that two long vacancies on the same short stretch of streets both cleared in the same twelve months, right as the neighborhood's biggest fall date was already locked into the calendar.

If watching a village center fill back in like this has you thinking about what it means for property values, timing, or your own next move in Newton, that is exactly the kind of question Taylor Yates spends time on with clients across Newton and the rest of Metro West. Request a complimentary concierge consultation to talk through what a changing village center means for your own plans.