Business boomed last year in Boston’s South End
Worcester Square, in the South End. The neighborhood continues to be gentrified.
—Photo by Henry Zbyszynski
Business was booming for the South End in 2023, as more than a dozen small businesses set up shop in the neighborhood. That trend looks like it will continue into 2024.
According to Randi Lathrop, who sits on the board of the South End Business Alliance, 16 businesses opened in the South End last year. They include five cafes and restaurants, two retail shops, two wine stores, and two personal trainers. A physical therapist, design company, skin care facility, and herbal medicine shop rounded out the list.
Four new businesses have opened their doors. They are Bluemoon Smoke Shop, Tepeyac Cocina Mexicana, ST33LE, a men’s clothing store, and Simmetria MedSpa, a spa focused on medical aesthetics.
Lathrop also added that nine more businesses already have plans to open in the next few months, including four restaurants, two retailers, a bookstore and a convenience store.
Some of these businesses are the first of their kind in Boston. Sky Candle Co., at 53 Dartmouth Street, that sells candles, all of which are vegan, non-toxic, and made on-site, along with diffusers and room sprays. Unique to Sky Candle is its candle bar, said Greg Dekermenjian, the shop’s owner. The candle bar has been the “highlight” of the store, he added.\
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Editor’s note: Robert Whitcomb, New England Diary’s editor, is chairman of The Boston Guardian.
Tree fundamentals
“Cathedral of the Forest (acrylic on wood), by Rose Olson, in her show “Rose Olson: New Works,’’ through Oct. 31 at Kingston Gallery, Boston. She has studios in Boston’s South End and in Beverly, on Massachusetts’s North Shore.
Braddock Park, in the South End
— Photo by Payton Chung
Veterans Memorial Bridge, looking toward Beverly from Salem
Fog in SoWa
“Luceombra’’ (Ink & gouache on cotton paper) by Sabrina Garrasi, at Lanoue Gallery, Boston. Hit this link.
In SoWa in happier, pre-pandemic days
Lanoue Gallery is in The SoWa Art & Design District (South of Washington Street) in Boston’s South End. It’s a community of artist studios, contemporary-art galleries, boutiques, design showrooms and restaurants in what was once an area of neglected warehouses. It features the SoWa Open Market, the SoWa Vintage Market and a now-fashionable residential neighborhood.