Purchase Street building eyed for proposed 3-in-1 restaurant

FALL RIVER — City officials voted unanimously Wednesday to grant a common victualler license to Townehouse Place, a proposed Purchase Street restaurant that would feature three separate “dining experiences.”

The three principals of RLJ Group LLC, the company that plans to open Townehouse Place, met with the city‘s Licensing Board Wednesday to present some of the early plans for a property at 37 Purchase St. they are currently “under agreement” to purchase as the site of the new restaurant.

According to Arthur Frank, an attorney representing RLJ Group, the building will house three distinct dining rooms, each with their own menus and varying hours of operation. The space will be divided into Cork Chops, a roughly 1,200-square-foot dining room for upscale Portuguese cuisine and Cargo Bar, a 721-square-foot dining room characterized as a sports bar. A third portion of the building would be built into a faster service restaurant called Prego, though a floor plan submitted to the board shows this portion of the building could also feature a 450-square-foot coffee shop called Cargo Coffee.

“We’ve been going back and forth between Prego and a coffee shop,” said Jenny Fernandes, one of the restaurant’s principal owners.

The building is currently unoccupied and had previously served as office for Community Connections, as well as a breakfast restaurant, law office and variety store. According to Frank, the building will cost RLJ group roughly $400,000 to buy, but the overall investment and renovation of the space is estimated to be over $1 million.

Luis Bettencourt, one of the proposed restaurant’s three principal owners, said each dining room would be served by the same kitchen but would each serve distinct offerings.

“The sports bar will be more like appetizers, sings, pizzas. More casual food. If you go to Cork Chops, it will be more of an upscale Portuguese restaurant more dedicated to the meats like steak,” he said.

Rosa Fernandes, the restaurant’s third principal owner, is the current owner of the Central Street restaurant BarCa, formerly known as Cinderella.

The approximately 2,600-square-foot restaurant would have a seating capacity of up to 187 customers spread across its three dining rooms, according to the submitted site place, which also depicts several tables of outdoor seating behind the building.

The restaurant is expected to employ 10 to 15 employees mainly on a full-time basis, though some positions will be part-time.

When asked by board members what the project’s timeline is, Fernandez said their goal is to be open in six months.

The license granted by the board Wednesday was approved subject to an inspection of the building.

Email Peter Jasinski at pjasinski@heraldnews.com.