Forum Restaurant Will Pick Up Where it Left Off

Rendering provided

Nancy Griffin has mixed emotions about going back to the Forum restaurant on Boylston Street, which reopens for the first time on August 15, four months to the day following the Boston Marathon bombings.

Met by both excitement and nervousness, Griffin, events manager for the Joe Andruzzi Foundation, said the official reopening of the Boylston Street restaurant will put members of both the eatery’s staff and workers from the organization, right back where they were when the blasts went off on April 15. “We are really just picking up where we left off,” she said, adding that the second explosion detonated on Marathon Monday happened directly outside of Forum. The Andruzzi Foundation, which has a marathon team of 21 runners, was hosting a party at Forum at the time, but luckily, no one inside the building was seriously injured.

Since then, Forum has been shuttered, with large, black boards covering the front of the building’s entrance as the owners worked tirelessly to revamp the inside so they could start fresh following the attack. “They went through as a business what others went through—they are recovering, and we want to be there for their first steps,” said Griffin.

While Forum has been posting updates since April, giving people a sneak-peek of their new look, tonight will be the first night they serve up food from a new menu and welcome back patrons.

“We are very proud to announce that after four long months of reconstruction since the Boston Marathon attack, Forum Bar & Restaurant will host a reopening celebration…to finish what we started during that April morning. We will be open to the public… with a new look, new chef, new menu and stronger than ever. We are eternally thankful to the city of Boston for the overwhelming outpour of support, words of encouragement, loving messages, and all of those who stood by us as we tackled this very complex and traumatic part of our lives,” the restaurant’s owners said in a statement.

The August 15 event will be exclusive to the Andruzzi Foundation, and marathon supporters there that day, almost recreating the atmosphere that was happening the day of the attack, before the restaurant reopens to the general public on Friday. Forum is the last business in the area to reopen since the Boylston Street explosions rocked the community.

Griffin said since the attack, a tight bond has formed between the Andruzzi Foundation and the owners and staff of the restaurant. “It has been supporting each other mutually through what was a difficult time,” she said. When runners and residents organized a last-mile race to the finish line in remembrance of those hurt and killed in the bombings, athletes on the foundation’s team were met by Forum’s staff at the finish line, a moment that secured the bond formed on April 15.

Actions like those are what makes Griffin and the other six staff members at the Andruzzi Foundation excited about picking up where they left off exactly four months ago. “The emotional side of it, seeing all those people again and turning the corner and putting it all behind me, is important. I don’t really know what emotion to attach to it,” said Griffin.