At Shy Bird in Boston, a customer might order a quick rotisserie chicken salad while on their lunch break, and then several hours later during dinnertime, they could come in with friends during dinner and sit down to order a glass of wine and a more elevated meal, like a bavette steak served with smashed potatoes.
The daypart differences are by design at Shy Bird, an all-day rotisserie concept that just opened its third location in Boston in the Fenway neighborhood.
Shy Bird first opened its doors in Kendall Square in 2019. Andrew Holden said that he came up with the concept because while Boston had a lot of high-end, quality restaurants, many were dinner-only, and Boston was missing a concept with quality food and drink that people could drop into during different dayparts to satisfy different occasion needs.
“For us, a modern neighborhood restaurant is a restaurant that’s always approachable, affordable, accessible, and open non-stop from 8 a.m. through close of day,” Holden said. “At the time, it was a little aspirational … but we thought if we bundled all of that up into an urban setting, it could be an additive to the community.”
Shortly after opening the first Shy Bird location, the concept was hit with its first hurdle: the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We were just a few months old when COVID hit, and we needed to get the name of the restaurant out there,” Holden said. “We were already set up for takeout and delivery. And Eli [Feldman, GM of Shy Bird] and I became delivery drivers for a few months, and we started delivering our signature rotisserie chickens all over the city.”
When Shy Bird opened its second location in South Boston in 2022, Holden knew that they would not only need to be flexible throughout the dayparts but also would need to mold Shy Bird around each neighborhood’s needs. The Kendall Square neighborhood, he said, was much more of a Monday-Friday spot with activity during business and school hours, but not so much after hours or on weekends. But South Boston, where Shy Bird’s second restaurant is located, is much livelier at all hours. Shy Bird’s newest spot is a mix of the two vibes.
“Part of being a good neighborhood restaurant is adapting to the neighborhood you’re in— and each restaurant is a little bit different,” Holden said. “Kendall Square doesn’t have much residential or nightlife, and as I translated our design, it was more of a coffee counter up front and leans more toward the fast-casual side of things while still being a place that you’d be excited to be in at night … South Boston is much more residential with more weekend-driven business so it has a bigger bar that sits more people right in the middle of the room.”
Besides tailoring the Shy Bird concept for each location’s neighborhood, another challenge the company has faced has been differentiating between each daypart enough to create different occasions for people to come in multiple times a day if they so chose, while also being price-conscious and not adding too many SKUs to the menu to overwhelm the kitchen or budget.
“The service model throughout the day needs to feel like it’s offering incredible value and a certain level of casualness, but it needs to shift at dinnertime,” Holden said. “Our weekday lunch menu fits on one page, while the dinner menu shifts to a heavier cardstock menu with a separate bright red beverage book … With an all-day concept, your guests are coming to you for different reasons at different times of the day, and the service model, menu, and physical space needs to change so someone will feel good about bringing a date at night.”
Right now, Shy Bird is focused on operating its three locations at all times of the day, but hopes to one day open another location when the time is right.
“We’re still in startup mode,” Holden said. “We’re innovating all the time.”
Contact Joanna at [email protected]
