Natick Report - Page 3 of 141 - More than you really want to know about Natick, Mass.

Where to eat in Natick, Massachusetts

October 14, 2021 by Deborah Brown Leave a Comment

Natick offers a variety of eateries, from fancy to homey to chains. Natick’s best-known restaurant team is Dora Tavel-Sanchez Luz and Gabriel Sanchez Luz, who launched Buttercup in Natick following their success with The Farmhouse in Needham. Seafood standbys are Legal Seafood on route 9 and Dolphin in Natick Center. Fanciness aside, Casey’s Diner is the place to go for steamed hot dogs, burgers, and other diner classics.

Take a look at our exhaustive list of restaurants on our Where to Eat in Natick page. Please reach out if restaurants should be added or deleted, or if you have other relevant info: natickreport@gmail.com

Restaurant visit

We recently tried out Eli’s, a Natick staple popular for its all-day breakfast. The Washington Street spot serves a wide selection of humorously named omelets such as the “Hot Mama,” pancakes, breakfast sandwiches, cheesy tater tots, and more. We stopped in for lunch and tried out their Left Coast burger with mashed avocado, fried egg, cheddar, and sriracha mayo. Our burger arrived cooked to order (medium), topped with a single and beautiful sunny-side-up fried egg. The hearty lunch came with a choice of fries, coleslaw, or potato salad. For a slight upcharge we could’ve had tater tots, truffle fries, or sweet potato fries.

Eli's, Natick — Eli’s, Natick serves up a Left Coast burger with mashed avocado, fried egg, cheddar, sriracha mayo, and a side of fries.

Also on the lunch menu: salads, a full roster of sandwiches such as turkey club, reuben, creative grilled cheeses (or just a regular one if you want). A kid’s menu includes chicken fingers, hot dogs, burgers, and grilled cheese.

Eli’s has a beer and wine license and offers a nice roster of about a dozen canned beers including some from local breweries (Jack’s Abby, Framingham; Lord Hobo, Woburn; Night Shift, Everett). Cider, hard seltzer, wines, and a couple of bubblies are also available. Plenty of the usual non-alcoholic beverages on hand as well, of course.

The casual spot seats about 45, spread out over 17 tables. Nice staff, too.

RESTAURANT: Eli’s
LOCATION: 12 Washington St., Natick, MA 01760
HOURS: Tuesday-Sunday, 7am-2pm. Closed Monday.

MORE FOOD, MORE FUN

Where to eat in Wellesley, Massachusetts

Interested in advertising on this page? Good thinking—Natick Report’s Where to Eat page is where diners from Natick and beyond go to find out about restaurants from one end of 01760 to the next. We keep the restaurants page updated, fresh, and current by stopping into local hot spots regularly and letting our readers know about our dining experiences.

US News & World Report 2021 elementary & middle school rankings: Where Natick fits in

October 13, 2021 by Deborah Brown Leave a Comment

US News & World Report for years now has ranked and sorted the nation’s public high schools, based on how students perform on state-required tests, graduation rates, and how well schools prepare students for college.

Now the media company has put out its first-ever rankings of K-8 public schools.

John F. Kennedy Middle School, Natick — Kennedy Middle School was one of Natick’s K-8 schools ranked by US News & World Report

According to US & News Report’s website, “Scoring was almost entirely rooted in students’ performance on mathematics and reading/language arts State assessments.”

The Report sourced its data from numbers put out by the U.S. Department of Education from the 2018-2019 academic year, before COVID impacted education. Here’s a link to the methodology.

Here’s where US & News placed Natick among the 1,104 public elementary schools it ranked:

Memorial—79
Johnson—103
Brown—157
Lilja—331
Bennett-Hemenway—373

Ranked 1, 2, 3 in Massachusetts elementary schools

Martha Jones, Westwood,
Horace Mann, Melrose
Woodward Memorial, Southborough

Nearby elementary schools in the top 40:

Chickory, Dover, 7th
Fiske, Wellesley—15th
Loker, Wayland, 19th
Hardy, Wellesley—25th
Josiah Haynes, Sudbury, 26th
Woodland, Weston, 27th
Sprague, Wellesley—33rd
Schofield, Wellesley—35th

Middle school rankings

Wilson Middle School came in at 113, and Kennedy was slotted at 119 out of the 527 the Massachusetts public middle schools that were included in the rankings.

Prince in Princeton, Boston Latin, and Heath in Chestnut Hill got the 1, 2, and 3 slots, respectively.

Nearby middle schools that cracked the top 40 list—Pollard in Needham was ranked 8th; Charles E. Brown, Newton Centre was 14; Hopkinton Middle School was 17; and High Rock in Needham was 24.

Including “K” students kind of bothers us

We remember a casual conversation years ago with a kindergarten teacher on the subject of school rankings. “Well, there’s another reason I love teaching this age. They haven’t started ranking kindergarteners. Yet.”

Looks like “yet” has arrived.

We’re not sure where the best kindergarteners in all the land attend school. For now, US News & World keeps the elementary school comparisons on a state-by-state basis.

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Fall puts on a show on Main Street, Natick

October 13, 2021 by Deborah Brown Leave a Comment

It doesn’t get much more autumnal than sushine-yellow leaves against a cerulean sky in mid-October on Main Street, USA. Color is popping all over Massachusetts right now, but you don’t even have to leave town to see the beauty. Natick spots we like for leaf peeping: Natick Common, especially the sugar maple with its long limbs that frame the gazebo, and the blazing-red showstopper adjacent to the Civil War monument; Dell Cemetery, with its decades-old trees; and the South Natick dam area, just to name a few.

Fall, Natick — Tree in full fall splendor at the corner of Main and Court Streets, Natick.

Natick turns out to support Boston Marathon 2021 runners

October 11, 2021 by Deborah Brown Leave a Comment

In a raucous show of support, Natick residents lined either side of the 01760 section of the Boston Marathon course in big numbers to cheer on athletes as they made their way to the Boston finish line.

Runners and para athletes seemed to appreciate the mid-race noise put out by the drummers in front of the Morse Institute Library; the golden-oldies tunes that blared from a speaker system set up in a pick-up truck outside of Dunkin; shouts from front porches and rooftops; along with the clang of many, many cowbells

Over 50 Natick residents were on the list from the Boston Athletic Association for official runners of the 125th in-person Boston Marathon. Some qualified based on speed, some for committing to raise money for charities.

Natick’s fastest overall runner was Dylan Jones, with a time of 2:43:29, according to the Boston Athletic Association. Christine Mcgrory topped all female runners from Natick in 3:18:51. More results.

Here are some pics of the scene:

Boston Marathon 2021, Natick — The elite women race through Natick center. Diana Kipyogei of Kenya, 27, in the blue shirt, went on to win the women’s race in 2 hours 24 minutes 45 seconds.

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Natick’s got the trash bag blues again

October 9, 2021 by Bob Brown 4 Comments

Natick’s got a new problem with its blue Pay-as-you-Throw trash bags and for once it doesn’t have anything to do with their quality.

The town says the vendor that makes and distributes the bags “has notified us of supply chain problems related to COVID (raw materials, colorant, spare parts, labor shortage, and shipping limitations) that have impacted their ability to provide a continuous supply of bags for Natick.”

A fresh run of 15 gallon bags will be delivered to retailers this week, and more large ones (33 gallons) should be available next week. If you get really hard up, swing by the Department of Public Works Offices, 75 West St. They have a stash.

The shortage has set off discussion online, with some begging for the town to go to a sticker system in which people could put a certified sticker on any bag of their choosing.

The Select Board also took up the topic at the end of its Oct. 6 meeting.

“We don’t want people not putting their trash out” if they can’t access bags, Select Board member Michael Hickey said, even asking if an emergency waiver to go without the blue bags might be appropriate. He was reassured that while some retailers have run out, others have them.

Natick Town Administrator Jamie Errickson says he is working with the town’s Public Works Department on a “Plan B” if such shortages happen again.

“We don’t know what the plan is yet, we need to figure that out, talk through what logistically we can do,” he said. “I think this highlights the vulnerability and it’s true across a lot of our things…,” Errickson added, making reference to the recent sodium fluoride shortage warning.

The town went to the current system in 2004 as a way to better manage waste and boost recycling.

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