"Anthony’s Pier 4 will close for good in August; Waterfront icon overtaken by time and the power of the new" by Mark Shanahan | Globe Staff, July 06, 2013
Anthony’s Pier 4, once one of the busiest restaurants in the country and a local institution for a half-century, will close its doors, a vestige of a bygone Boston giving way to the new....
In an interview this week, Anthony’s owners, the sons of late founder Anthony Athanas, confirmed that the business famous for hosting generations of Brahmins, Beacon Hill powerbrokers, old-school celebrities, and ordinary families will be shuttered in August. Business isn’t what it used to be. Just a few dozen people wandered in for lunch on a recent weekday, sparsely populating a dining room that seats 500. Meanwhile, the neighborhood, a wasteland of rotting piers and dirt lots when Anthony’s opened in 1963, is teeming with development, including sleek office towers and several hot new restaurants.
The family of Anthony Athanas says their father always figured the site would be developed, and the time has come. Like Jimmy’s Harborside, which closed in 2006 after 75 years serving plain cuts of fish, the glory years of Anthony’s Pier 4 hark to another era, one that seems less and less relevant to many of today’s diners....
Legal Sea Foods CEO Roger Berkowitz, whose nearby Legal Harborside is one of a slew of hot waterfront restaurants crowding out Pier 4, takes no pleasure in seeing Anthony’s close....
--more--"
