The Hofbrau

The Hofbrau was a one-story roadside restaurant and nightclub with a basement on the south side of Boston Road, then Route 3, at the corner of Shawsheen Road in Pinehurst, on the lot of the former Olga L. Greenwood House and The Branch Bakery. A state building-inspection card dated October 9, 1941 records it as owned by Winifred Mae Turnbull and Zella Lehr, to be used for dining and entertainment; the two women had bought the lot that year from Grace A. O'Connell, whose family had run The Hofbrau in 1940 and 1941. The card does not say whether the building was new or an older one refitted.

The club was the American Hofbrau in 1942, with the entertainers Raynor Lehr and Mae Wynn, and billed itself as the "Best Show North of Boston" by 1948. An October 1947 advertisement in the Nashua Telegraph presented "Blonde and Beautiful Candy Parker", the femcee and comedienne Primrose Semon, the comedy team Sharples and Naples and "6 other acts", with reservations at Billerica 2359. A February 1948 advertisement in the Nashua Telegraph billed the "Billerica Hofbrau" on Route 3 as "The show place of Talent", presenting the comedians Bobby Glen and Tony Pinto, the singer Rita Allen and the dancer Shirly Hayworth. In April 1948 a dancer billed as Candy Parker and the manager, David Gladstone, were arrested after a show there, with a policewoman in the audience, and charged with presenting an immoral show; at their trial in Middlesex Superior Court in May the jury deliberated all night and could not agree whether her combination rhumba and samba was immoral, so she faced a second trial. David Gladstone, who owned the lot from 1946, was president of the Club Hofbrau in 1949, and Edward Gange and Michael J. Gangi of Woburn ran it in 1951. The Copa advertised from the same place in 1952, the last advertisement found for the club. Older residents remember that the building burned in the 1950s; no record of the fire has been found. Residents also remember that about 1956 a Richardson Root Beer stand from Burlington was moved onto the lot; it was later moved to North Billerica, where with an addition it became the building at 176 Boston Road, later Mac's Two Lounge. In May 1957 the lot was sold for the Pinehurst Miniature Golf Course. Its exact size and position are not recorded; the outline shown is an estimate.

References

1. Massachusetts Archives, building inspection index cards, Billerica: Hofbrau, Boston Road, Oct. 9, 1941 (Turnbull and Lehr, dining and entertainment)