Caught up in a fake liquor license scheme, this Boston restaurant is now in limbo - The Boston Globe (2024)

He thought he had completed the process to open Craft Food Halls, an innovative self-serve beer-and-wine concept, which is already up and running in five other places in Massachusetts. But six weeks after opening at Studio Allston, Desrouleaux had to shut down. The liquor license was a fake, the Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission told him.

“I chose to close,” he explained, “because if a police officer tells me there’s a problem with my driver’s license, I’m not going to drive.”

The fake license was provided by Lesley Hawkins, a top Boston lawyer hired by the restaurant and Studio Allston to transfer the real license. Her law firm, Prince Lobel, has since fired her, contending she falsified the license without her client’s knowledge.

The ABCC is cooperating with the Boston police, which suggests criminal charges are possible. Hawkins formerly served as general counsel of the Boston Licensing Board. Her lawyer, Scott Martin, declined comment “out of respect for the investigation by any authorities involved.”

Exactly when the alcohol will flow again at Studio Allston is anyone’s guess. The restaurant is again going through the process of getting a permit from the Licensing Board and the ABCC.

Before it became Studio Allston, the Brighton hotel was the Days Inn on Soldiers Field Road, a mainstay for tourists and Harvard families. The popular Chinese restaurant Joyful Garden was on the first floor.

Then in 2018 came Jonathan Davis, a prominent Boston developer, who worked with a group of investors and Robin Brown to transform the run-down property into an artsy boutique hotel. They drew inspiration from 19th-century painter Washington Allston, whom the Allston neighborhood is named for. If it sounds familiar, that’s because Brown worked with developer Steve Samuels to turn the old Howard Johnson in the Fenway into the hip, music-inspired Verb Hotel.

Studio Allston’s first restaurant was Casa Caña, a taqueria and tequila concept that’s part of Patrick Lyons’s restaurant empire. It didn’t survive the pandemic and closed a couple of years ago.

It took Davis and Brown a while to find a replacement. Brown, who was general manager at the Four Seasons before becoming a hotel developer, checked out Craft Food Halls’ Waltham location last year.

Dropping by in the dead of winter on a Sunday afternoon in February, Brown wasn’t sure what to expect from a restaurant inside an office park off Interstate 95.

What he found was the epitome of food, fun, and innovation: burgers, pizza, Ping-Pong, foosball, indoor cornhole, and a wall of high-tech taps where customers can pour their own beer, wine, and co*cktails. Customers receive a special card to order drinks, which can only be bought one at a time.

“The place was hopping with families and kids,” recalled Brown. He knew then and there this was the restaurant Studio Allston needed.

Much of that energy comes from Craft Food Halls’ owner and cofounder Desrouleaux. He was born in Boston, went to Brockton High School, and has always liked to throw parties.

He spent several years in Germany where beer halls are popular, and returned to Boston inspired to create what he calls an “elevated” beer hall concept. Then Desrouleaux was introduced to local pizza entrepreneur Doug Ferriman, who wanted to do something around the high-tech beer taps he saw at a food trade show.

The two, along with Ferriman’s wife, Melissa, launched Craft Food Halls’ first location in Waltham in 2019.

Getting a liquor license in Boston can be hard because there are a limited number and most are traded on the secondary market for exorbitant sums, but Craft Food Halls didn’t have to worry about that. Studio Allston had purchased the liquor license from the Days Inn for $300,000. The license had allowed Joyful Garden, which relocated to Watertown after the hotel changed hands, to serve alcohol.

Studio Allston planned to transfer its liquor license to Craft Food Halls, similar to an arrangement many landlords have with their restaurant tenants. They turned to Hawkins and her firm to facilitate the transfer.

Hawkins earned her law degree at American University Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C., and had worked in the administration of former mayor Martin J. Walsh, serving as the Licensing Board’s general counsel for nearly five years before departing in 2021 and joining Prince Lobel as a partner.

Her tenure in the firm’s real estate division began after nearly 10 years “in licensing, permitting, and zoning law with a concentration on cannabis and alcoholic beverage licensing and commercial and residential development,” according to the firm’s website.

She was well known within the tight-knit community of liquor license attorneys in Boston, who oversee the high-value transactions of alcohol permits that can sell for as much as $600,000.

The Licensing Board approved the transfer and forwarded the application to the ABCC on Feb. 9 for approval. But the ABCC did not release the license but rather requested more information, according to Steve Miller, whose firm has since been hired to represent Craft Food Halls and Studio Allston as they go through the licensing process again.

At some point during the process, Hawkins allegedly gave her clients a fake license, and in March, Desrouleaux opened the Studio Allston branch. The fake was discovered when Craft Food Halls ordered alcohol from wholesalers, who noticed the liquor license number did not match their records, said Miller.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Miller, for whom Hawkins once worked and described as a mentor. “I thought she would have learned a lot more.”

For Studio Allston, the do-over and delay is costly, tallying well into the six figures in lost rent, restaurant profits, and additional legal fees, said Davis, one of the owners of the hotel.

“The circ*mstances that caused the shutdown of Craft Food Halls after their successful opening in March continue to bewilder us,” he added.

Craft Food Halls at Studio Allston remains dark — closed longer than it has been open and leaving the hotel without a restaurant. A wall of beer taps overlooks the lobby, teasing thirsty travelers.

Now it’s a waiting game for a legitimate license to be released from the ABCC.

“You usually can learn from everything, but this is one of those situations like, ‘What? How could we have done anything differently?’ ” said Desrouleaux.

Shirley Leung is a Business columnist and host of the Globe Opinion podcast “Say More with Shirley Leung.” Find the podcast on Apple, Spotify, and globe.com/saymore. Follow her on Threads @shirley02186

Shirley Leung is a Business columnist. She can be reached at shirley.leung@globe.com.