251 Old Concord Rd

251 Old Concord Road is the commercial lot at the corner of Riverhurst Road and the old Concord Road in South Billerica, beside the Route 3 interchange. For more than half a century it was a roadside store, restaurant and nightclub, best remembered as The Maples and later as Edible Rex. The present building dates from 1973.

The land was part of the Bartlett family's holdings on "the main road from Bedford to Billerica," registered in the Land Court as part of the Riverhurst case. After Claude B. Bartlett of Bedford died in 1925, his family had it laid out in 1926 by Whitman & Howard as house lots along the new Riverhurst Road. That December the Bartletts sold the corner lot at "the junction of Riverhurst and Main Roads" to Anna C. Cox and the two lots beside it to her husband, Edward F. Cox, who lived on Concord Road.

The Coxes sold in February 1946 to Morris and Rose E. Bornstein of Lynn, who sold that October to two Billerica couples, James D. and Edna J. Fuoco and Leo and Albina E. Nassano. Their certificate of title gives the owners' address as "The Maples, Billerica," and The Maples appears among the businesses supporting the Howe High School yearbook in 1948. In 1953 the Commonwealth took part of the corner for the relocation of Concord Road as Route 3. After Leo Nassano's death the property was sold in 1955 to James N. and Dorothy E. Bassett of Burlington and John L. and Alice M. Gifford of Woburn, and the Giffords, sole owners from 1958, sold the corner lots in August 1961 to Collentro Maples, Inc. James J. Collentro and then Collentro Maples, Inc. asked town meeting several times between 1961 and 1966 to rezone the land for general business, and the Board of Appeals granted the company a variance in 1968. In 1972 and 1973 the company replaced the old building, and "The New Maples" held its grand opening on September 12, 1973, serving luncheon and dinner and "99 Varieties of Pizza."

By 1976 the land belonged to Lawrence G. Trebino's Trinda Realty Trust, which in 1977 also bought the lot across Riverhurst Road. In 1984 and again in 1991 the trust leased "251 Old Concord Road" to AMR Corporation, and by the late 1980s the place was Edible Rex, a nightclub that booked local and touring bands from at least 1988 to 1992 and that Billerica High School seniors remembered "with the gang" into the 1990s. A catering business also worked out of its kitchen. In 1996 Trebino deeded the land to 251 Old Concord Corp., and in 1997 it passed to the 251 Old Concord Road Realty Trust and in 2001 to the Riverhurst Realty Trust, both of David P. Veo. Edible Rex was "in decline" when Zoots, a blues and rock club from Boston's Theater District, took it over in the fall of 1993. Its owners, Greg Stewart and Jim Plunkett, gutted the place and rebuilt the stage, filling four 20-yard dumpsters, and marked a year "up north" in October 1994 with dartboards, pool tables and live blues on Friday and Saturday nights. A 2000 senior still listed Zoots among her memories, and the town's tax books list the 251 Music Bar and Grill there from 2004 to 2007. Carlson HVAC Inc. bought the land in 2010, and in 2017 the Board of Appeals allowed a one-story tradesman's shop on the lot.

References

1. setlist.fm: Edible Rex, Billerica, concert setlists 1988-1992
2. Concert Archives: Edible Rex, Billerica, concert history
3. Tewksbury Town Crier, 2012: "The Road to Jon Ryan's Pubs" (the Ryans catered out of Edible Rex in Billerica)
4. Boston Globe, Oct. 13, 1994: Steve Morse, "Zoots marks a year up north" (Zoots at the site of the old Edible Rex)

Title References Expand all

Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted; Probate # is a Middlesex probate case, Ctf a Land Court certificate of title.