SHREWSBURY – Nick’s Golden Pizza – a Shrewsbury restaurant that serves pizza, pasta, and sandwiches – asked the Planning Board on Oct. 3 to approve site plans for a new 22-seat restaurant along Route 20.
Nick’s is currently located at 271 Grafton St.
The new restaurant would be located at 299 Hartford Turnpike, across Grafton Street from Flynn’s Truck Stop and close to Edgemere Crossing. The 3.7-acre lot is currently home to Red-D-Arc Welderentals and Sperry’s Super Liquors. Nick’s Golden Pizza would occupy the front of the existing building, which is currently underutilized and “unsightly.”
“This proposal is fairly straightforward. It’s to take an otherwise warehouse-looking building … and take the left side of that building and make some very substantial changes to it, all at the cost of the applicant. … Overall, it’s a very good and proper improvement to this property,” said Richard Ricker, an attorney representing Nick’s Golden Pizza owner Nick Aoude.
The site plans show 19 parking spaces, including five take-out spots. The design calls for fresh landscaping for the currently asphalt-heavy lot; dozens of trees and shrubs that would be planted. The developers tested the soil and would establish a sewer system on the site.
Nick’s Golden Pizza asked the Planning Board to waive a photometric study and traffic study, noting that the project does not include new curb cuts, visibility on Route 20 is “excellent” at this location and that the studies would be expensive and potentially delay – or kill – the project.
No vote was taken on the project at the Oct. 3 meeting. The public hearing was closed.