"...The restaurant will be closed for all of July and most of August. We will be putting in the bar--a beautiful old deco-inspired bar rescued from an old stand up bar in Canton, called Girly Hoffman's. We bought the bar from Denise Whiting of Cafe Hon--she told us she wanted it to have a good home, and it was the first item we bought when we secured the lease on the space in Hampden. It's been in storage ever since!  So, we are working on a liquor license, which we are anticipating will be finalized early October.

We are also opening up the space and redesigning it with the help of our designer, Myrna Poirier. She is trying to help us design space that reflects our mission of working with local farms and using as much organic as possible, so we are trying to lighten it up and create more cohesion (not hard to do, as there was very little before!) and emphasize the natural and organic nature of Galen's food. We are very excited about the cork floor that is going to be installed in the newly opened space. (The other half of the space was basically walled off by a temporary wall, so now we will have twice the amount of space.)

We are also trying to rectify many of the glaring problems we've had with the space over this first six months. So, we're installing new acoustic ceiling tiles and using some fabric treatments to help with the noise issue. We are also hoping that the new cork floor will absorb some of the noise, as the dining room gets extremely loud when full. We are working on getting the air conditioners working effectively and in simply making the space prettier, understated, comfortable and elegant--an appropriate showcase for Galen's food.

We are trying to let everyone know that the deli is open during all the renovations and that we are also doing catering out of the kitchen and deli over the next few months. ..."