Westford Farm-to-Table Restaurant Saga Not Over Yet

Photo: Google Streetview image of the property.

WESTFORD, MA - Westford residents voted against the construction of a giant farm-to-table restaurant at the town meeting Saturday but the restaurant developer hasn't given up on the dream.

Groton resident Ebrahim “Ebi” Masalehdan told the Lowell Sun he still plans to build the restaurant but will likely have to scale down the size.

Residents turned down the request to amend Agricultural Preservation Restrictions on the Boston Road property in a 101-to-106 vote,

Passing the article would have meant Masalehdan could build a 40,000-square-foot restaurant with 180 seats and 137 parking spaces on the land, Wicked Local reported. The plans reportedly included an orchard and crops that would have been used in the kitchen.

Residents were concerned the proposed restaurant was too large and would cause traffic and excess noise, the Lowell Sun reported. It was also mentioned that the restaurant was a "marketing ploy" because it would not actually be able to source all of its produce from the land, according to the Lowell Sun.

Other residents were more in favor of the idea:

"Certainly I think everybody agrees that the present state of that property is deplorable," resident Tom Peacock said, according to the Lowell Sun. "A restaurant of this size and quantity would certainly generate more than $1 million in taxes and sales in one year."

Masalehdan told the Lowell Sun he will finalize new plans for the restaurant and bring it before the Board of Selectmen in the future.

"To delay the project, that's OK," Masalehdan told the Lowell Times. "I'm an ambitious person."