Gov. Maura Healey last month signed state legislation that will make 225 new liquor licenses available to businesses across Boston’s neighborhoods over the next three years. Proponents hope the hard-fought reform will unlock economic growth in sections of the city – like the Blue Hill Avenue corridor and Codman Square in Dorchester – that have long been underserved with sit-down eateries.

City officials this week offered details about how they intend to accept applications, noting their intention to award the licenses with an eye toward an equitable distribution across the neighborhoods. Interested parties will be invited to learn more about the plans through a series of remote city-led workshops on Wednesday afternoons over the next several weeks, with the first one on Oct. 16 from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.

In an interview this week, Licensing Board Chair Kathleen Joyce and Segun Idowu, director of the city Office of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion, told The Reporter that the city will accept applications through Dec. 6. And that instead of a ‘first come, first serve’ system, officials will evaluate all the first-round applications together.

“We are planning on holding public hearings on the merits of the applications but holding off our vote on which applications should receive licenses until after Dec. 6,” said Joyce. “That will give the board an opportunity to look at the whole universe of applications that come in and which applications would be best served by these licenses.”

Added Idowu: “The thinking came from the licensing team and thinking about how we can make the process more equitable and transparent. That’s where this idea of rather than using a case-by-case basis to award these licenses, having a set time to receive applications, and then review them made the most sense.”

A second round of evaluations is expected in spring 2025, Joyce said. All of the newly created licenses should be awarded by spring 2026.

At Fresh Food Generation, a planned renovation project became a possible opportunity to become a full-service restaurant with one of the city’s new liquor licenses. Here, morning manager and “future bartender” Julisa Hernandez and co-founder Cassandria Campbell show off their expanded sit-down space. Seth Daniel photo

The new law authorizes 195 non-transferable liquor licenses that will be tied to 13 specific zip codes in Boston. Locally, that includes 02121 (Grove Hall), 02122 (Neponset and Fields Corner), 02124 (Ashmont, Lower Mills, Codman Square), 02125 (Columbia Point and Savin Hill), and 02126 (Mattapan). There will be five licenses awarded in each of those zip codes– three all-alcohol and two beer and wine – every year for the next three years under the current plan.

There will also be 12 new citywide all-alcohol transferrable licenses available, and 15 new licenses for community venues/theatres.

Idowu stressed that the citywide all-alcohol transferrable licenses (they are of the same class of licenses that often fetching some $600,000 on the open market) are not earmarked for any one neighborhood.

“What I’m not going to say is [that] someone who wants to open a restaurant in East Boston or Mattapan can only get the (non-transferrable) license with no dollar value and all the businesses in downtown and the Seaport get the ones worth $600,000” he said. “These licenses can go to places including downtown and Seaport, but we’re not centralizing them there.”

Idowu noted that the dollar value on these licenses could potentially unlock funding to acquire properties, building more stability in commercial districts like Mattapan Square, Fields Corner, and Codman Square.

The opportunity to seek a license is already generating significant interest in Dorchester and Mattapan. One interested party is Fresh Food Generation (FFG), a restaurant and commercial kitchen located along an otherwise desolate stretch of Talbot Avenue near Franklin Field.

The business – in place there for roughly three years – has outfitted its space to function as a commercial kitchen for its popular food truck business, and as a take-out restaurant on the side.

Now, they are renovating while hoping to secure a liquor license and establish more of a traditional sit-down eatery.

“We’ve grown as a company in the last two years and as individuals,” said co-founder Cassandria Campbell. “The change in the restaurant is a reflection of that and of the community saying they wanted to sit down and enjoy themselves and we observed that pattern. We have folks bringing in dates to eat…At first, we were a quick item and go kind of place, but we realized people were ordering things that take more time. So, they might as well sit down and enjoy the time.”

She continued, “The plan for the renovation came way before we knew the bill was a real thing and not talk. We saw it come out and we thought that it could be good timing for us so people can now sit down and also have a drink…We think it could help us round out the experience.”

Campbell and her team appeared at the Codman Square Neighborhood Council (CSNC) last week and held an abutter’s meeting online as well to announce their plans to renovate, re-open on Oct. 15, and get the process rolling for a new all-alcohol license. So far, the plan has been well received.

“I love that Fresh Food Generation is stepping forward on this,” said City Councillor Brian Worrell, a champion of the state liquor license bill. “These existing businesses that really relied on takeout are the businesses we want to empower…That they have a restaurant without a liquor license and still were able to keep the lights on says a lot about the talent they have.”

In Fields Corner, the Main Streets program has already held information sessions and talked with 10 existing operators – resulting in four applications in process and two just getting started.

There’s interest in Mattapan too. On Monday night, the Greater Mattapan Neighborhood Council (GMNC) hosted guest speaker Nick Korn, of the hospitality consultant group OFFSITE. Korn went over the process with neighbors and operators, including potential applicants like Café Juice Up and the forthcoming Blue Mountain Jamaican Restaurant.

Korn was key in pushing new licensing efforts after publishing a 2022 study showing that the fewer the number of people of color in a Boston neighborhood, the more liquor licenses and restaurants there were.

“The Dec. 6 deadline is for a completed application and a completed community process,” Korn warned. “Those interested should start today. Two months is a great timeline to get this completed.”

State Sen. Liz Miranda, who pushed the new law in the Senate, was also on the call. She said she worried about existing operators getting discouraged by the “daunting” application process. She stressed there needs to be more help and more language translation.

“The excitement is here in our community, but we’re really going to have to join hands to make this work for all of our business owners,” said Miranda.

Back at FFG, renovations have made more room for seating, with booths and tables placed where a pandemic-era mindset had created space only focused on getting in and out without getting sick. Campbell and her general manager, Victor Medina, and staff members like “future bartender” Julisa Hernandez envision the day when servers come to the tables with expanded menu offerings paired with beer, wine, and innovative cocktails. They see their strongest customer base coming from the surrounding Codman Square area and from the Joseph Lee School, its staff members a source of steady customers already.

They plan to accommodate 12 indoor seats and 12 outdoors seats.

“We’re keeping everything healthy with food and juices and maybe really nice crafted drinks,” said Medina during the abutter’s meeting. “There’s no need for people to get smashed with shot after shot. We just need a place where people can have one or two drinks and relax and socialize and finish their day. I think it really could help close off that social loop here.”

Idowu said that’s the kind of thinking his office is hoping to see more of. “Alcohol sales can be the difference between a small business being able to pay rent on time or pay higher wages to employees or tucking away savings to open a second or third location,” he said. “For us, the opportunity is to help grow the potential of a lot of small business across the city.”

After the Oct. 16 info session, the city will host three more remote meetings from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Oct. 30, Nov. 13, and Dec. 11.

Additionally, the Office of Small Business is holding in-person liquor license information sessions this month around the city. The Dorchester session will be this Thursday (Oct. 10) from 2 to 3 p.m., at the Dorchester Bay Economic Development offices, 594 Columbia Rd. A Mattapan in-person session will take place on Oct. 17 from 2 to 3 p.m. at Voltage Park Events Center at 1260 River St. in Hyde Park.