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“When we took the baseball crowds away during lockdown, we watched that completely change the game for us financially.” A tray of meats and sides from Sweet Cheeks Q. “We saw that is 100 percent not the case,” she says with a laugh. The increased bustle had her thinking, for a while, that the neighborhood could even flourish separately from Fenway Park, but a year-and-a-half absence of sports fans during the pandemic proved a cold wake-up call. We have that first part still, but the other two not so much.”Ĭertainly, her restaurants helped draw new audiences to Fenway, and she’s thankful that there are tons more people living and working in the area. It was a really affordable place to live. I would love to see us have a queer space, because it was so driven by that for so long - like the Fens and Machine, and there were other spaces here - and to lose that entirely it’s really sad,” she says. I would love to see us have a gay bar that functions all the time. Jokes aside, Fenway isn’t what it used to be. “I remember someone coming out and being like, ‘Chef, the dumpster’s on fire next to your car.’ So it was a literal dumpster fire.” In Sweet Cheeks’ early days, Faison parked her Subaru where the Pierce Boston luxury apartments now stand - back in the pre-high-rise days when it had been an eyesore building with a D’Angelo’s, a parking lot, and a dumpster. “There’s no one reason, but for me it’s just turning a page on a specific time in my life,” she says.īeside personal changes, she’s seen shifts in the neighborhood, both throughout the pandemic and in the years since she opened her first restaurant, Sweet Cheeks, which is celebrating its 10th birthday this month. Mike Diskinįor now, Faison is keeping mum on plans for her new project but reiterates that closing Tiger Mama wasn’t due to one monolithic factor. “I have a very specific idea of what should be, and it’s like ‘Well, can we make some space for this?’” The exterior of Faison’s first restaurant, Sweet Cheeks Q.
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“And also this space of knowing what the next incarnation is and being like, do we need to tweak it?” There may be “whispers” of Tiger in the space’s next form, she says.
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“It’s put me in a really grateful space,” she says of the outreach. But people seemed to take this closure personally, posting tributes on Instagram during the completely booked final week of service and sending Faison I just heard the news-type condolences.
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Then there are three spots on the way in High Street Place when the long-delayed downtown Boston food hall opens in March 2022. Sure, the James Beard-nominated chef is bringing a new restaurant to the space next year, and Boylston Street is still home to her other restaurants under Big Heart Hospitality: homey barbecue spot Sweet Cheeks Q, upscale Italian restaurant Orfano, and the snug Fool’s Errand snack bar. Really, though, the closure of the popular restaurant after a six-year run did come as a surprise. She might live in my tiny apartment for a bit.” She’s gonna stay with me.’ She might find a way into the next restaurant, but she’s not going anywhere. “Someone from Maine reached out and was like, ‘We will adopt her and give her a home and a new name.’ I was like, ‘I don’t think she’s a country girl. “Oh my god, I got so many emails about that,” Faison laughs, sitting at the bar of another of her Fenway venues, Fool’s Errand, days before Tiger Mama’s final service. Just where’s the disco elephant statue by the host stand going? Tiffani Faison knows the question that popped into many peoples’ minds when news broke that she’d close her beloved Fenway restaurant, Tiger Mama, at the end of October.