For more than a decade, Steel & Rye owner Dan Kerrigan stopped at 2 Eliot Street on his way home to drop his deposit in the bank's night box. According to the Dorchester Reporter, he probably never pictured himself turning that bank into a café and grocery. Today the brick building is Two Pence Market. It sits at the corner of Eliot and Adams streets, just over the Boston–Milton line from Lower Mills and across from the Milton stop on the Mattapan trolley.
The building first opened as a Blue Hill Bank and Trust Company branch in 1929. Its last tenant was a Bank of America branch that closed in 2021. Kerrigan's partner JD Wild bought the property in 2023.
Nearly every change in southern Dorchester this fall follows the same pattern. Familiar rooms are getting new uses: a bank, an Adams Village pub space, a Fields Corner café, a Codman Square storefront, and a Lower Mills ground floor once approved for a liquor store. Each one moves at the pace of its own licensing step. That is why the one date anyone can plan around is the oldest kind of neighborhood gathering, a holiday market in a parish hall.
The one fixed date: Ashmont, the Saturday after Thanksgiving
The Greater Ashmont Main Street Holiday Market and Tree Lighting runs Saturday, Nov. 28, 2026, from 3 to 7 p.m. at All Saints Parish, 290 Ashmont Street.
- 3 p.m.: Market opens with food and drinks, craft vendors and gifts
- 7 p.m.: Tree lighting
- After the lighting: Afterparty at Tavolo
The sponsor list is a roll call of Dorchester names: Trinity Financial, the Martin Richard Foundation, the Dorchester Reporter, Mohawk Insurance Agency, Star Contracting Company, and Tavolo Ristorante and Bar. Thanksgiving falls on Nov. 26 this year, so the market is the first event of the season after the holiday. The parish, the tree and the restaurant hosting the afterparty are all places Ashmont already knows.
Everything else on this list is a familiar room getting a new use, a new operator or a new owner.
Room by room, from Lower Mills to Savin Hill
| Address | What the room was | What it's becoming | Where it stands |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Eliot St., Milton, at the Lower Mills line | Bank branch, 1929 to 2021 | Two Pence Market | Open |
| Codman Square | LowKey Dispensary | Legal Greens | Opened Oct. 7 |
| 782 Adams St., Adams Village | Scobie's | Session House | Licensing Board approval Sept. 24 |
| 1448 Dorchester Ave., Fields Corner | Home.stead Cafe | Bottega Cannuccia | Liquor license approved Oct. 29; planned to open by January |
| 1970 Dorchester Ave., near Ashmont station | Not stated | Tori Japan | Proposed; needed parking zoning relief as of August |
| 1153–1155 Washington St., Lower Mills | Ground floor approved for a liquor store | Offices, local retail, a beauty shop | Proposed use change |
| 112 Savin Hill Ave. | Savin Bar + Kitchen and Ghostpepper Taqueria | Same names, new owner | Sale went before the Licensing Board |
The bank that already made the switch
Two Pence is the furthest along because its approvals are behind it, and the shelves show it. The Reporter lists freshly baked bagels, prepared meals, specialty groceries and wine, plus seasonal produce from Allandale Farm and Wards Berry Farm and ice cream from Toscanini's. There is outdoor seating along both the Eliot and Adams street sides.
Technically it's a Milton address. Still, it sits at the trolley stop where Lower Mills ends, and the Reporter covered it as part of its Dorchester beat. In Thanksgiving week, a store with local produce, prepared food and wine a short walk from Lower Mills fills a real need.
Codman Square's change put a new operator in a storefront that had already housed a dispensary. The Reporter reports that Mark Bouquet and Vanessa Jean-Baptiste, who have run Legal Greens in Brockton for more than five years, took over the space after LowKey Dispensary had to vacate about 17 months earlier. They opened the week before the Reporter's Oct. 13 story, after more than a year of state and city regulatory steps, and are now licensed for retail and delivery at both locations.
Adams Village: a pub room that needs two licenses
Session House is replacing the short-lived Scobie's at 782 Adams Street. Frank Delaney and Teresa Murphy brought the Boston Licensing Board a plan for Irish pub food with seisiún music, much of it played by local musicians. Delaney gave the Dorchester Reporter the shortest description of the idea:
"It's basically what the Burren does in Somerville. Where there could be one to five, ten musicians, but one general microphone in the middle to pick up."
Murphy told the Reporter they want "a family-friendly restaurant that you can bring kids to see, you know, live music." Delaney said his first apartment was on Adams Street and that his grandchildren now attend St. Brendan's.
The licensing path is a good example of how slowly a familiar room can change hands. On Sept. 24 the Licensing Board approved the plan with a 1 a.m. closing time. The music needs a second approval from the city's entertainment licensing division.
Fields Corner: one café space, three shifts a day
Bottega Cannuccia shows what a planned room can look like. Stefano Quaresima, who owns Via Cannuccia several blocks south on Dorchester Avenue, plans to open in the former Home.stead Cafe by January. Universal Hub reported that on Oct. 29 the Licensing Board approved a liquor license for Quaresima and Tsedenia Kiros at 1448 Dorchester Ave., about three-quarters of a mile from Via Cannuccia at 1739 Dorchester Ave. According to the Reporter, the plan is to open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week, with the menu changing through the day:
- Morning: Italian breakfast goods, including breakfast-style pizza, and Caffè Kenon coffee
- Midday: A tea program built on Mariage Frères from Paris, with sweet and savory pastries
- Evening: A wine bar with small plates and charcuterie
The room will have 30 seats, outdoor seating, greenery and a big display of fresh bread. Quaresima told the Reporter he wants locals to sit, read and work there, and that he wants guests to "feel like this is a small corner of Italy and France." A café space at the heart of Fields Corner will now serve breakfast, tea and wine in one day.
Ashmont and Lower Mills: rooms still being defined
Two addresses near the market's end of Dorchester Avenue are earlier in the process. At 1970 Dorchester Ave., a short walk from Ashmont station, Tori Japan was proposed as a 30-seat Japanese restaurant built for takeout. The Reporter reported in August that it still needed zoning relief for off-street parking.
In Lower Mills, the owner of 1153–1155 Washington Street wants to finish the ground-floor commercial space for professional offices, local retail and a beauty shop. That space had been approved for a liquor store. The proposal went to an abutters' meeting set for Nov. 12, according to the Reporter's notice.
Savin Hill: a new owner, the same menus
At the north end of the list, the plan is to change the owner and keep everything else. Universal Hub reported that Brendan Griffin sought to buy Savin Bar + Kitchen and Ghostpepper Taqueria at 112 Savin Hill Ave. He told the Licensing Board he planned no changes to the names, the operations or the hours. The board's decision was set for Oct. 29. On the timeline, both places stay what they are. The change shows up only in the paperwork.
Back in Ashmont, Saturday, Nov. 28 doesn't depend on any of these approvals. The market opens at All Saints Parish, 290 Ashmont Street, at 3 p.m., the tree is lit at 7, and the afterparty moves to Tavolo.
Seeing how a building gets a new use, from an old bank to a pub space with two licenses to a ground floor whose approved use is changing, is a big part of how we read a street at Colleen Kelly Homes. If you own in Dorchester and want to talk through what changes like these mean for your block, schedule a free strategy call.
