Will Bezos be a blessing for Beachmont?
In the architect’s rendering, Suffolk Downs has been replaced by a sprawl of buildings. Perhaps it’s a mix of high-end housing, shops and restaurants.
Or it could be Amazon’s outsized corporate stamp on the local horizon.
Either way, it’s impossible to pinpoint Luigi’s fabled pizza emporium on Winthrop Ave. in this reimagined view of the Beachmont corner of Revere.
Frank Pioppi stood behind the counter in Luigi’s yesterday and looked across the street at the empty barns and horse stables of Suffolk Downs.
“Right now,” Pioppi sighed, “there’s a lot of land over there that’s not earning anything and it’s affecting all of the businesses around here. Our business has dropped off by about 36 percent.”
Frank’s waitress, Laura Tibbetts, called up a memory of jockeys coming to Luigi’s and “seeing “how their little feet used to dangle off the stools.”
“It’s all about income in and income out, my friend,” Frank said. “If you can earn, you can spend. You have the prospect of 50,000 new jobs showing up across the street, where there’s been little or nothing for the last five years.”
The question is, can Luigi’s, the beloved eatery Frank and his wife, Candace, have operated for 36 years, co-exist across Winthrop Ave. from a corporate behemoth? Assuming Amazon, or some bigtime developer, replaces those empty barns.
Frank Pioppi wants very much to believe it can. But if not?
“Well,” he said with a slight smile, “everything has a number on it. If you sell good food, give customers good service, you can do well almost anywhere. But if they’ve got a different vision, well, like I said everything has a number. We’ll see.”
Just across the street from Luigi’s, Andy Orphanos was manning the counter inside Beachmont Roast Beef. For the most part he echoed Frank Pioppi’s thoughts about the disappearance of the past, but he was a bit more wary of what the future holds.
“I’ve already had offers and made it clear that I’m not selling,” Andy said. “This place is my future and my family’s future. I have plans for what I’d like to do here.”
At the moment, those plans Andy has for Beachmont Roast Beef do not appear to coincide with what the new landlords next door have in mind.
“I think they want this building gone so they can open up a straight path from the (Beachmont) station. I’ve already made it clear to them that this place is not for sale unless they hit my number.”
If Amazon does show up across the street from Luigi’s and Beachmont Roast Beef, I’d like to think Jeff Bezos would be cool enough to want these two vintage pieces of the neighborhood close by.