After 35 Years, Northworks Bar and Grille Forced to CLOSE

Thursday, January 29, 2015
Patrick Sargent, GoLocal Worcester Contributor

After 35 years of great success, Northworks Bar and Grille is being forced to shut down due to a breakdown in lease negotiations with the property landlord, Northworks Properties.

“We had some extra parking (across the street) that WPI just took over to use for their new building, which is understandable,” said Joe Marrone, owner of Northworks. “But the situation became we were given no allocation during the day for our customers and it was becoming a real problem and effecting sales dramatically.”

Marrone, who opened Northworks when he was 29-years-old said, “We tried to, in a nice way, renegotiate our lease to reflect that. And he (the landlord) had no interest. And I said, ‘We have to do that, or we can’t survive.’ And before you know it, we got an eviction notice two weeks ago.”

Northworks was located at 106 Grove Street. Marrone tried to negotiate with Northworks Properties up until last week. The issue is the parking lot across the street used to belong to Northworks Properties, but it is now in the hands of WPI. This fall, WPI could no longer allow Northworks customers to park in that lot due to the new graduate building on Grove Street. They need the extra parking spaces for the school’s use.

“They (WPI) had been very good to us. And they always let us use that lot,” said Marrone. “It’s completely understandable. There’s nothing we can do about it. No matter how hard we try to get something done, I guess the landlord just doesn’t want us in the building.”

Marrone said, “We’ve been here for 35 years. We have two other employees who have been here for 35 years. We probably have 12 or 15 employees that have been here for more than 20 years. And another 15 or 20 that have been here for over 10. It’s a really family environment. Everyone’s really enjoyed working here.”

“Hopefully we can start looking for some other location. It’s not going to be easy, but we are certainly going to give it everything we have," said Marrone.