THE BOSTON COMMON is the oldest public park in the country and a meeting place for tourists, locals and workers. Yet the park’s only restaurant is closing after years of unprofitability.

After spending $1 million in 2013 to convert a long-closed octagonal restroom, known as a “comfort station,” into a restaurant and suffering total losses of $2.2 million over the past 11 years, Florida-based sandwich chain Earl of Sandwich has asked the City of Boston for permission to close its Boston Common location at the end of next month, four years before its 15-year lease expires.

The city has approved the request and will issue a request for proposals sometime this fall to find a new tenant for the Boston Common site, once nicknamed the “Pink Palace” due to its pink brickwork.

“We now also offer beer and wine as part of our food and beverage operations, which is different from the previous lease,” said Ryan Woods, the city’s parks commissioner. Asked if the successful bidder would be allowed to expand the 650-square-foot building to accommodate some indoor seating, Woods pointed out that the Boston Common is a national and local landmark. “So there are restrictions that may not allow that, but any proposal will be carefully considered,” Woods said.

Representatives of Planet Hollywood, parent company of the 54-store Earl of Sandwich chain, did not respond to requests for comment. The franchise has 32 restaurants in the U.S., eight in the Philippines, eight in Korea, five in Canada and one in Paris.

The city’s search for a new tenant is likely to spark a lively debate about what is needed on the Boston Common, as the Earl of Sandwich, home of what the chain calls “the world’s best hot sandwich,”” didn’t cut it.

Despite the prestigious Boston Common address, the location has a number of disadvantages for operating a restaurant. For one, the building itself is tiny. There’s no room for indoor seating, so the restaurant offers takeout and some outdoor seating from April to October, and even then, sales are weather dependent.

It is also set back from the road, somewhat near the centre of the Common between sports fields, tennis courts and the Parkman Bandstand. The original rest stop was reportedly built in the 1920s, closed in the 1970s and then, after extensive repairs and retrofitting, was renovated and reopened as the Earl of Sandwich in 2013..

Competing restaurants line the Boston Common. In the summer, the Common itself has a beer garden at the corner of Tremont and Boylston Streets, and street vendors sell snacks and drinks at various busy spots throughout the park.

Leora Lanz, an associate professor at Boston University School of Hospitality Administration, said any new tenant needs to increase sales. “At the very least, it would be a good idea to put up signs on the streets surrounding the park,” she said. “It’s an opportunity for the operator to establish and market a restaurant with a ‘sense of place.’ A restaurant in a park can be positioned as a destination in itself – a place that people who work, live or visit there consider a ‘go-to’ place.”

From the beginning, Earl of Sandwich was losing money at its Boston Common location. Despite this, Robert Earl, the CEO of Planet Hollywood, the parent company, confidently predicted that the small restaurant on Boston Common would gain a loyal following.

“We are here for the duration of our lease,” he said CommonWealth Beacon in 2018. “I am a person who doesn’t like to give up.”

To get things back on track, Earl said at the time that he planned to open more stores in the Boston area to “expand our brand.” But that never happened. The only other store he opened locally, at Logan Airport, closed years ago.

Earl is not related to the royal Earl of Sandwich in England, but the company’s website states that the sandwich restaurant is the brainchild of Orlando Montagu, the younger son of the 11th Earl of Sandwich and direct descendant of the fourth Earl, who is credited with popularizing the sandwich in Britain and Ireland in the 18th century.

Earl of Sandwich officials remained confident they could succeed on the Common until March, according to correspondence between the restaurant chain and the city obtained through a public records request. David Snodgrass, operations manager at Earl of Sandwich’s corporate headquarters, predicted “a killer 2024 season” in a March email to the Boston Parks Department.

Meanwhile, the company failed to pay its annual rent of $50,000. Stephen Bickerton, deputy park commissioner, ordered the company to pay the amounts owed.

“This is an annual problem as Earl of Sandwich has been late in paying his rent (sometimes for months) for the past few years,” he wrote Earl on April 11. “As you know, this is a breach of contract, and not the first. If we do not have a check in hand by Monday evening, we will terminate the Earl of Sandwich’s lease on the Boston Common.”

A month later, the city of Boston and the Earl of Sandwich signed a termination agreement that would end the lease on September 30. As part of the separation, the company will only have to pay the city $25,000 in rent this year — rather than the usual $50,000 — for the six months the chain will actually operate on Boston Common.

Related