New Restaurants in Waltham: Main Street & Moody Street, Fall 2026

Most of the restaurant news in Waltham this fall involves names you already know. Dominican Grilled Chicken plans to reopen on Oct. 12, a few doors up Main Street from the building it had to leave. Maple & High is serving smoked short ribs in the Moody Street dining room that used to be Da Vinci Ristorante. The team behind it comes from Bison County, which closed years ago on the same street. Monarca Taqueria spent its first year in the storefront Gustazo left behind.

Very little of this is new money arriving from somewhere else. Mostly it's people and storefronts the city already had, changing places. Two storefronts on Main Street are still empty, and they show where that pattern stops.

Main Street, address by address

Main Street has moved the most since last fall. Here's where things stand as of early October 2026.

The fire at 895 Main St. started on a Monday morning, Nov. 17, 2025. It began inside the walls of the second-floor apartment and spread to the attic. The Watertown Fire Department and a Boston Sparks Association crew helped fight it. Newton, Weston, Lexington and Belmont sent mutual aid to cover the rest of the city's calls. Nobody was hurt. Both ground-floor restaurants, Hakata Ramen and Sushi and Dominican Grill Chicken and Pizza, closed until further notice.

Dominican Grilled Chicken found a new space without leaving Main Street. At its September meeting, the Waltham License Commission approved a transfer of the restaurant's common victualer license to 657 Main St., with Marvin R. Belliard as manager. The restaurant plans to open on Oct. 12. At the meeting, Belliard was asked what makes the chicken Dominican. "Flavor!" he said. "The chef, he puts the magic on it. To bring everyone together."

That puts it next to the newest restaurant on the block. Monarca Taqueria at 663 Main St. moved into the Gustazo space, which had been vacant for a long time. Gustazo didn't close. It moved to Moody Street in 2022. Monarca is run by Ramiro and Raquel Marin, whom the Waltham Times calls veteran restaurateurs. So within two doors, one storefront is filled by owners who came from elsewhere in the restaurant business, and the other by a Waltham restaurant that moved after a fire. A business that left one Main Street address made room for the first, and a fire that closed another Main Street address sent over the second.

The two storefronts that haven't filled

The two buildings farther down Main show what happens when nobody local is lined up to move in.

Moe's Southwest Grill opened at 831 Main St. in 2012, part of the national chain's push into Massachusetts. A closed sign went up in July 2026. At first, some people online wondered whether it was a renovation. Then owner Steve Hixson confirmed the closing was permanent in an email to the Waltham Times. "Our sales were down 15% in 2025 from the previous year, and this year started off slowly with the bad weather we had in January and February," he wrote. He added that even with two colleges in town and many loyal customers, the location wasn't bringing in the sales it needed. As of early October, no new tenant has been announced for 831 Main.

At 895 Main, local coverage hasn't reported anything on Hakata Ramen and Sushi since the fire. There's no reopening date, no new location and no public update on repairs to the building.

These are the only two Main Street spots in this story still waiting. One was a national chain that couldn't make the numbers work. The other is a building that has to be repaired before anyone can move in. Every Main Street storefront that has filled went to a Waltham restaurant that relocated or to experienced owners stepping into a vacant space. A fire displaced the two businesses that shared one building, and only one of them has a new address so far.

Moody Street is doing the same thing

The pattern holds across the river crossing on Moody Street.

Maple & High opened in September at 482 Moody St. Boston Restaurant Talk had confirmed it was open by Sept. 22. The space has had several lives. It was Charcoal Guido's, then Da Vinci Ristorante, and now Maple & High. The owners come from Bison County, the long-closed barbecue spot on Moody Street, and from The Tack Room in Lincoln. In other words, a Moody Street barbecue team came back to Moody Street. When the plan was approved in December 2025, manager Michael Culpo described the menu as American food with a barbecue twist, and Dan Lane was named executive chef. The current menu includes fried catfish bites, lamb skewers, smoked pork belly, pulled pork melts, chicken pot pie, Cajun salmon and smoked short ribs. The full menu is on the Maple & High website.

The one clear exception this fall is also on Moody. At the same September meeting, the License Commission approved a common victualer license for a bb.q Chicken franchise at 137 Moody St., which serves Korean-style fried chicken. It will be the franchise owner's 10th Massachusetts location, and no opening date has been announced. Chains still come to Waltham. This one just hasn't opened yet, and in the meantime the Main Street spots have been filled by local operators.

One more Moody Street item is worth following. In March, the City Council received a resolution asking to bring back Moody Street's earlier outdoor dining program with a simpler application process. That was a proposal, and the reporting doesn't show it being put in place.

Where the turnover meets the lunch budget

The Waltham Times started a food column on Oct. 1 called Waltham Eats. The writers, Waltham residents Lisa Fruitt and Gary Markowitz, wanted to know where you can still get lunch for under $10 when a Big Mac costs close to $6 and a turkey sandwich runs $14. At all four taquerias they tried, two tacos came to $10 or less. Their route also follows how Waltham storefronts change hands.

• Monarca Taqueria, 663 Main St.: tacos at $4.25. The column's favorite was the shrimp taco with mango salsa, and it timed seven minutes from order to food.
• Taqueria El Amigo, 196 Willow St.: tacos at $3.75 to $4.95. The Timoteo brothers' mostly takeout spot made Yelp's "Top Places to Eat" in 2023. The column's pick was the pulled chicken taco in smoky red sauce.
• Tita's Kitchen, 198 High St.: tacos at $4.50, with a small menu that is mostly Central American. The carne asada taco won here.
• Trencito, 3 Carter St.: tacos at $3.50 to $5.00. It's a diner, deli and taqueria that opened in 2025 in the former Tap-Tap space, and the shrimp taco was the standout.

Two of the four stops opened in someone else's old space within the past two years. The column also names Margarita's, Taqueria Mexico, Antojitos and Amuleto as places for your own crawl. When Moe's closed, the Waltham Times listed several of these same restaurants, including Taqueria Mexico on Charles Street and Amuleto Mexican Table on Moody Street, as the city's other Mexican options. Prices are as of the Oct. 1 column.

October on and around Moody Street

The rest of the month's calendar follows the same idea, with new things happening inside old buildings. The Charles River Museum at 154 Moody St. runs its programs in the old mill there. Its live events calendar lists the following dates. Check with the museum before you go.

1. Friday, Oct. 9, 11 a.m.: "The Mill Girls in Story & Song" at the Charles River Museum. The same day, Boomerangs at More Than Words plans to open a 2,000-square-foot thrift store at 56 Felton St. The expansion adds retail space and 12 positions in its youth program.
2. Monday, Oct. 12: Dominican Grilled Chicken's planned reopening at 657 Main St.
3. Friday, Oct. 16, 11 a.m.: Gallery tour of "Manufacturing the Modern World" at the museum.
4. Saturday, Oct. 17, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.: REACH's free Fall Festival and "Reach Beyond the Finish Line" 5K on Waltham Common.
5. Wednesday, Oct. 21, 6:30 p.m.: A screening of "Destination Watertown—the Armenians of Hood Rubber" and a mill talk at the museum.
6. Wednesday, Oct. 28, 7 p.m.: Mill talk on "The Longest, Hardest Race—Henry Ford & the Cross-Country Contest That Changed America."
7. Thursday, Oct. 29, 8 p.m.: Jenny Owen Youngs in the museum's 2nd SHIFT concert series.

Waltham Open Studios is on Moody Street on Nov. 7 and 8, from noon to 5 p.m. For something outdoors between those dates, our guide to outdoor activities in Waltham covers the trails and riverfront.

Two Main Street addresses to watch over the next few months are 831 Main, where no tenant has been named, and 895 Main, where Hakata Ramen and Sushi hasn't said whether it will reopen.

When a storefront like 831 Main fills or stays empty, it shapes what the blocks around it are like, and buyers notice that. If you own nearby and want to know how today's Waltham market values your home, Diane Basemera can put local sales next to your address. Get your instant home valuation, and when you want more than a number, you'll be talking to someone who keeps track of Main and Moody Streets.