Speedy Chen’s and Other Main Street Businesses Getting New Signs

After fielding complaints from a dozens of neighbors over several months, the City of Boston will partially fund a new storefront sign for Speedy Chen’s, replacing the restaurant’s spray-painted sign and damaged façade. Meanwhile, the city will help pay for signs at several other neighborhood businesses that requested the funds through the city’s storefront improvement program.

Billy Chen, the owner of Speedy Chen’s, said that since his business replaced Speedy Wong’s nine months ago, he hasn’t been able to afford to a new sign. So he crossed out the previous owner’s name with spray paint and replaced it with his own. But residents didn’t take well to the look.

That's because for months before Chen’s even opened, more than 100 neighbors had rallied for the city to clean up the storefronts and sidewalks between Sullivan and Salem streets. In an e-mail sent last April to city officials, one resident who has led the push wrote that many of the marble tiles on Speedy Wong’s façade had fallen off and that takeout containers and other trash littered the sidewalks in front of the restaurant. Other businesses on the block had deteriorated, too, she wrote. 

(The resident, who lives nearby the Main Street block, declined to be identified in the story, for fear of retaliation.)

“The poor condition of the streetscape seems to encourage the excessive littering and loitering that has become commonplace on this block,” she wrote. “These establishments are fostering an increasingly negative element to an otherwise decent part of Charlestown.”

The city agreed is helping cover the cost of a new sign for Chen’s through a business improvement grant.

The grant, ReStore Boston, aims to make businesses more attractive and inviting, according to the city’s website. The program provides businesses with $2,500 to improve storefront signs and free professional architectural design services.

The city approved the grant for Chen’s in January, but required that the building owner repair the damaged tiles before disbursing the money and services, which happened earlier this spring, said Rafael Carbonell, the deputy director of the office of business development.

Carbonell said that Chen should receive a completed sign in the next three to four weeks, if everything goes as planned.

“We want stuff to get done sooner rather than later," Carbonell said, “but at the end of the day, it’s going to depend on the availability of the designer and sign installer. On our end, we’ve been set and ready to go for some time.”

Carbonell said that during the last year, the city has given out approximately $200,000 in business improvement grants. Grasshopper Café, on Bunker Hill Street, recently received a new sign from the Boston Restore grant, and the city is working on signs for several other neighborhood businesses, including Durty Harry’s, the recently opened La Chic Dog and Cat Grooming and a forthcoming convenience store at 269 Main St.

, who opened Durty Harry’s two years ago, recently applied for a new storefront sign. Her current sign has faded and only shows the “Harry’s” half of the store’s name. Fournier said that the city has been “amazing and helpful” in working with her.

To address residents’ concerns about other storefronts on Main Street, Carbonell said that business managers in his office informed the owners of A-1 Convenience Store and P+J Pest Control about the grant, but the owners weren’t interested.

“Many businesses want to take advantage of the program, but others don’t,” said Carbonell. “But we’re always encouraging them to do so.”