Two Eateries To Open as One Exits

Two new restaurants will open and one recent arrival will close in the latest shuffling of Harvard Square establishments.

On May 27, Hoffa’s Swiss Alps—a Swiss restaurant—will open in the two-story building at 114 Mount Auburn St. vacated by Chili’s last May.

In June, Phatt Boys—serving “seafood, BBQ and chops”—will take the place of the Rock Bottom Brewery which closed two years ago at 50 Church St.

Another barbecue joint, Brother Jimmy’s, will close its Winthrop Street quarters this week after just over a year in the Square.

Robin Lapidus, executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association, said that the moves were not necessarily signs of a resurgence or a fall in Square business.

“I really feel like with Harvard Square it’s simplistic to go for a trend,” she said.

New businesses in the Square tend to open in the spring—last year, 10 new businesses opened in the area between April and June.

None of the owners of the new establishments is a novice to the Square restaurant scene.

Scott Hartford and Fred Rash, who own Phatt Boys, used to work for Brew Moon Enterprises, the chain that preceded Rock Bottom in the same Harvard Square location the team is now taking over.

The father of Eric Imhof, the co-owner of Hoffa’s Swiss Alps, owned the Swiss Alps restaurant that occupied the 114 Mount Auburn St. building before Chili’s opened there in 1986.

“Older people who went to Swiss Alps 30 years ago are coming back to congratulate us,” Imhof said Monday outside the restaurant.

When Chili’s unexpectedly closed last year, the chain said that the Mount Auburn Street location did not fit the company’s strategy of setting up shop in “free-standing buildings in parking lots.”

Imhof has kept the basic layout of the 268-seat Chili’s restaurant, but Hoffa’s Swiss Alps will have two bars, a fish tank, and a dance floor. Imhof said the restaurant will hire a DJ on Friday and Saturday nights.

Phatt Boys will also keep Rock Bottom’s design. But Hartford said that the 304-seat restaurant will be brightened up to make it look like a “Southern barbecue seafood shack.”

Hartford said that he thought Phatt Boys, which already has one restaurant in Stoughton, would thrive in the Square.

“It doesn’t seem that there are a lot of alternatives there,” he said. “[There’s] no middle of the road restaurant that offers many exciting things.”

He said that Rock Bottom had faltered because of a difficult transition after Brew Moon became Rock Bottom in 2001, and was not necessarily the result of a lack of business.

But David Tetraer, co-owner of Brother Jimmy’s, said that there was not enough business to keep his Winthrop Street restaurant afloat.

“The particular location in Cambridge is a very expensive location,” said Tetraer, who also runs four restaurants in New York City.

Hoffa’s Swiss Alps will offer a selection of “European-American” food such as fondue, bratwurst, and schnitzel, along with more traditional fare.

Phatt Boys will have a full range of New England seafood and southern barbecue and chops. Stoughton added that the restaurant might also brew beer on site by the end of the year.

A new late-night diner, run by the owners of Felipe’s Taqueria, was slated to open in the Garage in April, but no report on the progress of the diner’s construction was available last night.

—Amos Barshad contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer Joseph M. Tartakoff can be reached at tartakof@fas.harvard.edu.