Most of the storefronts changing hands on Charles Street this fall are going to people who already live on Beacon Hill or already run a business within a few blocks of it. A Beacon Hill resident is opening a pizza shop in the former Figs space. The South Boston bagel bakery where that pizza started is opening its own shop farther up the street. The restaurateur behind Harvard Gardens and Scampo is taking over the long-closed Beacon Hill Pub. Of the private openings now scheduled on the street, only one comes from a brand with no prior tie to the neighborhood.
As of the second week of October 2026, none of these had been confirmed open. Here is where each one stands, based on the most recent dated reporting.
| Address | Previously | Coming | Who is behind it | Latest stated target |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 42 Charles St. | Figs | Scrappie's | Andrew Blau, Beacon Hill | October 2026 |
| 144 Charles St. | n/a | Brick Street Bagels | Brick Street Bagels team | "Fall '26" |
| 147 or 149 Charles St. | Beacon Hill Pub | Harry Hare's | Patrick Lyons | November 2026 |
| 31–33 Charles St. | Benefit Cosmetics Boutique & Browbar | Maison Sisley | Sisley Paris | Mid-November 2026 |
| 280 Charles St. | Closed-off parkland | Charlesbank and the Smith Family Pavilion | Esplanade Association | By end of 2026 |
A pizza shop that grew out of a bagel kitchen
The thread that ties the first two rows together starts in South Boston. According to the Boston Globe, Andrew Blau, 29, lives on Beacon Hill. He left a corporate job at Boston Beer Company to help run Brick Street Bagels, and Scrappie's began as a spinoff of that bakery. The Globe reports that the pop-up will become a standalone restaurant in the old Figs space at 42 Charles St. "come October," with easier ordering, and that Blau has a year-long lease.
GoBoston calls the pop-up notoriously difficult to get into. Scrappie's turns surplus bread from Boston restaurants into pizza dough. GoBoston traces the idea to a Copenhagen company that turned discarded bread into pasta flour, which Blau learned about while working on sustainability at Boston Beer Company. GoBoston also reports that some of the rescued bread has already come from restaurants on Charles Street. Once the shop opens, part of the dough will be baked a few doors from where its bread was first served. Figs had been part of chef Todd English's group of Boston restaurants, so the address now goes from a well-known name of an earlier era to a much smaller operation built on leftovers.
Until the storefront opens, the pop-up keeps running. The Scrappie's website lists Wednesday and Thursday pop-ups and a short menu:
- Classic
- Spicy Pepp
- Chili Crisp 'Nduja
- Bianco
- Agrodolce
- Tomato
Its ordering page posted a pizza drop for October 8, released on October 6. In other words, the pop-up was still selling the same week the move to Charles Street was being reported.
The bakery behind it is coming too. In June, NBC Boston reported that Brick Street Bagels plans a Beacon Hill shop at 144 Charles St. with seating and early hours meant for staff at nearby Massachusetts General Hospital, under the banner "Opening Fall '26." No firm date has been announced since. The Brick Street website still lists only its Tremont Street and West Broadway shops.
That puts two openings from the same small team on one street within the same season, one near Beacon Street and one near the hospital end.
A restaurateur from the Hill takes the pub nobody expected to reopen
The pub at the Charles Circle end follows the same pattern, with a much longer history behind it. Universal Hub reported in July that Patrick Lyons of Beacon Hill had asked the Boston Licensing Board to take over the closed Beacon Hill Pub and turn it into a calmer restaurant modeled on an English alehouse. A later update on the same story says the license transfer was approved. Lyons has run Boston restaurants for 45 years, including Harvard Gardens and Scampo at the Liberty Hotel, both within a short walk of the site. He plans to call it Harry Hare's, after his late father-in-law, who loved English alehouses.
At the hearing, Lyons described what he has in mind:
"It will have an English feeling and vibe and energy," with some Indian influences, and "We have a history of saying what we do and doing what we say."
Universal Hub also reported that a representative of the Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Affairs told the board that residents at a neighborhood meeting were at first alarmed that the pub might reopen, and calmed down once they heard Lyons's plans. The building had been bought in 2018 during a run of purchases of Boston bars, and the pub closed during the pandemic. In the 1970s, the same storefront was Father's 3.
Eater Boston's fall preview lists Harry Hare's for November, with fish and chips, chicken pot pie, roasts, chicken tikka masala and tandoori-fired naan on the expected menu. The address differs between the two outlets. Universal Hub gives the old pub as 149 Charles St., and Eater lists Harry Hare's at 147.
Taken together, that is three openings this fall from operators who already work within about half a mile of the street, and one who lives on it.
The one arrival from outside
Maison Sisley stands apart from the rest of the street's pipeline. Sisley Paris told What Now Boston that it is aiming for mid-November 2026 to open its first permanent Massachusetts "Maison Sisley" at 31–33 Charles St. The final date had not been set. The 892-square-foot boutique and spa is planned to include a private treatment room, beauty consultations, Hair Rituel styling, and makeup applications on request.
The schedule has already moved once. In February, the Beacon Hill Times reported a June target and noted that the space had been the Benefit Cosmetics Boutique & Browbar. A national beauty brand is replacing another one in the same storefront. Unlike the restaurant spaces, this address is changing tenants, not changing what it is used for.
Just off the Hill, 9 Park Street Place is also changing hands. Boston Restaurant Talk reported on October 8 that Fumo, whose menu includes pizza and pasta, is seeking the former Nine space, pending a liquor-license transfer. Nine closed in June.
At the foot of the street, a 25-year partnership nears its opening
The largest project on the list is also the one most deeply rooted locally, though the operator is a nonprofit, not a restaurant group. At 280 Charles St., across from the Hill on the Esplanade, the Esplanade Association and the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation broke ground on May 13, 2025, on the Smith Family Pavilion at Charlesbank. The association describes the site as a two-acre part of the park that has been "largely closed off to the public since the 1990s." It says the ceremony marked nearly 25 years of public-private partnership. The association is funding the project and will manage Charlesbank for decades. It values the gift at more than $20 million.
Planned amenities include year-round public bathrooms, a café with indoor and outdoor seating, a roof deck, and what the association calls "the first universally accessible second-story view in the Esplanade's history." Its latest construction update reports that the contractor, Lee Kennedy Co., has framed individual rooms, completed the deck and topped the roof.
Boston.com reported in July that the café will be run by Max Ultimate Food, serving breakfast, lunch, coffee and smoothies, and that the project was expected to open by the end of 2026. The association's project page still describes the campus as "Opening in 2026" and does not give a specific date.
The bigger projects run on a slower clock
The storefront openings will arrive within weeks of each other. The two largest building projects at the Cambridge Street end are on much longer schedules. At 155–159 Charles St., the CVS site, the proposed five-story mixed-use building with ground-floor retail mostly facing Cambridge Street had its February design application denied without prejudice so it could be revised. A May 2026 design update records that most of the proposal had been approved, subject to a future mock-up, with more work requested on the cornice, soffit, signage and lighting. No construction start has been reported.
Along Cambridge Street, Mass General's Ragon Building is a multi-year clinical project. The hospital posts two-week construction look-aheads of scheduled work and possible road or sidewalk restrictions. The current one covers October 5 through 18 and was updated October 2.
Closer to the Common, the City will hold a community meeting on October 27 about the Mayor's Walk path improvements and the Parkman Bandstand. The project is still in design, and the City lists its completion date as undetermined.
That leaves a clear sequence for the rest of 2026. October is the stated target for Scrappie's at 42 Charles. Brick Street's "Fall '26" shop at 144 Charles has no date yet. November is the target for both Harry Hare's and Maison Sisley. Charlesbank is expected by year's end, and the CVS site and the Ragon Building will take longer.
When a familiar storefront changes hands, homeowners often wonder what the next tenant will mean for their own block. Kathleen Murphy Group follows these Beacon Hill changes closely and is glad to talk through what is opening near your street and how it fits into your plans. Contact Us.
