The Old Hawthorne Has a Lease Until June 2028 and a Full Fall Calendar

On the evening of September 5, the former Hawthorne-by-the-Sea had a red carpet and a velvet rope out front. The setting sun lit the water behind the building as guests arrived for the opening night of the Swampscott Center for the Performing Arts. Inside, the Flamingo Lounge served $15 featured cocktails and wines and spritzes from $11 to $14. Past the lounge, the bar in The Dory gave way to a darker blue dining room with a large carpeted stage, where Fats Arnold and His Midnight Hot Dogs played from 8:30 to 11:30 p.m. Partway through the set the sound system started feeding back, and several local sound engineers in the room stepped in to fix it.

That small rescue suits the building, which has been open for a month on borrowed time. Town Meeting approved a lease of up to 30 months last December, running through June 2028, so that the building would not sit empty while the town works out a long-range plan. Since then the address has started doing what four years of town meetings, surveys and committee sessions kept asking for. Residents at the Hawthorne Re-Use Advisory Committee's community meetings said they wanted "a place to go." This fall, under a temporary lease, they have one.

Three Tenants, One Long Day

The building now has three operators working on different clocks, so it is in use from early morning until late at night. Three restaurants would not be enough to carry that kind of claim. A full day of use is.

1. 6 a.m., Maria's Gourmet Cafe at 149 Humphrey St. Owner Maria Torres started Maria's Gourmet as a market in Marblehead, where for nearly a decade it has been known for grab-and-go chicken pot pie, soups, quiches and pasta salads. The blueberry muffin is the best seller. Torres's own favorite is banana chocolate chip. The cafe is open Monday through Saturday from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.
2. 5 p.m., the doors open and Renzo's Pizza fires up at 153 Humphrey St. In September, Patch listed the center's doors as opening at 5 p.m. every day except Monday. Renzo's serves 16-inch New York-style thin-crust pies Tuesday through Sunday from 5 p.m. until close.
3. 7 or 8 p.m., the stage. Most of the fall bookings start at one of those two hours. The full calendar is below.

Maria's has been open for about a month, and Torres describes the crowd this way: "Every single day, we've seen new faces. Now we have regular people coming in. They found a new place to come and do work or have lunch with friends. We have mothers come in with their kids, grandmothers come in with their grandchildren."

Renzo's came to the building by a different route. Owner Mike Gajewski and his son Brendan, whom he calls "the pizza guy," had worked at Renzo's Pizza in Revere before opening their own shop under the same name in Salem. They later moved to Essex Street, across from the high school. When they had to move again, Gajewski says the choice was to find a new home for the ovens, store them or sell them. Then Johnny Ray offered space inside the center. "I used to come here for dinner and a drink," Gajewski told the Swampscott Tides. "Now we're able to make pizza in this place. People can come here for pizza and a view." He hopes to expand the menu and hours as the space settles in.

What's On Stage Through Early November

The center is Ray's fourth local business on the North Shore. Its fall bookings lean toward nights you can plan around. The posters on the center's website list these dates:

Bookings at a venue this new can change, so check swampscottcfpa.com before you go. The site says the center is open Tuesday through Sunday.

The center already has one community night behind it. Swamp-Stock, a Woodstock-inspired benefit for the Marblehead Counseling Center, ran on Thursday, October 1. Lois Lane and the Daily Planets, Glass Harbor, B-Side Hustle, The MERJ and Funbucket each played an hourly slot from 6 p.m. on, and admission was $60.

Some of what was announced in August has not shown up on the calendar yet. That preview said the center was working on future programming with the North Shore Children's Theatre and planned an exhibit on Swampscott's history. As of early October, neither had a published date.

The building also sits near two of the town's regular fall dates. The Swampscott Farmers Market runs Sundays at 10 a.m. at Town Hall, 22 Monument Ave., on October 4, 11, 18 and 25. The Fall Harvest Festival is set for Saturday, October 24, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at St. John's the Evangelist Church. That church's parking lot is now part of the conversation about what happens to the Hawthorne parcel.

How the Parcel Got Here

The temporary lease makes more sense next to the four years of planning that came before it.

• June 2022. A Special Town Meeting voted 214 to 3 to authorize acquiring 149–169 Humphrey St. for municipal use.
• January 2023. A community brainstorming session ranked public community space first and multi-use space second.
• April 2024. A town survey found residents rated a public park and open space as the most important use. Revenue generation ranked lower, and off-street public parking was rated "not important." The same month, a preliminary design for a glass-encased library came in at an estimated $30 million or so. It drew strong opposition and was considered a dead end after a public forum in May 2024.
• February 2025. The Select Board created the Hawthorne Re-Use Advisory Committee. Its community meetings raised "a place to go," a focus on pedestrians, and the short lifespans of businesses on Humphrey Street.
• November and December 2025. The Athanas family announced the restaurant would close, and Town Meeting approved the short-term lease.
• August 4, 2026. The Select Board voted 3 to 2 to remove residential use from the long-term request for proposals. Mary Ellen Fletcher, Wayne Spritz and Danielle Leonard voted in favor. Ted Dooley and Katie Phelan voted against.

The committee's preferred concept, Plan G1, has two rows of buildings set perpendicular to Humphrey Street. They would total about 25,000 square feet at two stories, with a 40-foot opening to keep the view into a courtyard and open space, and roughly 28 parking spaces. The town is also exploring a purchase of the adjacent St. John's Church parking lot. Officials say that could "unlock the full potential of the site" with a plan that combines green space, parking and businesses that bring in revenue. Vice Chair Leonard said after the housing vote: "I do believe in my mind that we will get responses to that RFP that do not include residential. I believe it is doable."

The Clock Under the Calendar

Ray is thinking in a longer timeframe than his lease.

"What we hope to achieve is much bigger than this but we have the model in place. Five years from now we have national and international acts who are seeking an intimate music venue to entertain."

His contract runs through June 2028. The gap between that five-year goal and the 30-month lease is the open question for the building. The long-term RFP that will decide what replaces the current setup did not have a release date in the most recent reporting. In August, town staff were drafting it, and the Select Board chair expected the board to review it at least twice.

The next fixed date is the Annual Town Meeting on December 7, 2026. The Select Board opened its warrant on September 23 and scheduled the warrant to close on October 7. Neither agenda listed a Hawthorne article. Until the warrant is published, the clearest public information about the parcel's near future is the center's own calendar. That calendar shows Sinatra Comes Alive every Thursday at 7 p.m., with no cover, starting October 29.

If you live near Humphrey Street, the parcel's long-term plan may affect your plans for your own property, whether you're thinking about a sale, a downsize or an estate transition, or just want to know what a new use at 149–169 Humphrey St. could mean for the blocks around it. Annie Wachtel follows the Hawthorne process closely and can help you think it through. Request a confidential market consultation.