Bagel Shop Finagles New Locale

In a neighborhood where diners often have to wrestle for Saturday night seats, Harvard Square restaurants are now themselves playing musical chairs.

Finagle A Bagel will transfer its 14 JFK Street location and liquor license to Z Square Cambridge, a new restaurant and cafe that plans to make better use of the eatery’s 6,000-square-foot space. Finagle A Bagel is not leaving Harvard Square though. It will relocate to a smaller storefront on Mass. Ave. that previously housed the pastry and dessert area of C’est Bon Café.

C’est Bon, meanwhile, is downsizing, keeping its convenience store spot but not its café annex.

The Z Restaurant Group will completely renovate the Finagle location. The street level space will feature a counter café with short-order offerings such as sandwiches, salads, and crêpes for sit-in or take-out service. A full-service restaurant and bar will be located in the basement level, and an outdoor terrace will be created in an adjacent vacant space.

The menu will feature “the kind of food that you would get if you went to a chef’s house for dinner,” said the Z Restaurant Group’s primary owner, David A. Zebny ’84, who was an economics concentrator in Eliot House. “The food will be really simple with fresh ingredients—very flavorful but not overly fancy.”

Both the café and restaurant will serve three meals a day and the café will be open for late night service. Zebny recalled that while he was at Harvard, the Square buzzed with late-night eating options such as Tasty Diner, the Cardullo family’s Wursthaus restaurant, which served up German fare. “I want to bring back late night eating to the Square and have it be fun,” Zebny said.

The restaurant’s owners have teamed up with Boston-based bassist Danny Klein, the 59-year-old veteran of the J. Geils Band, to oversee live entertainment at Z Square Cambridge.

“Expect to see weekly jazz and blues nights,” Zebny said.

Z Square Cambridge is the Z Restaurant Group’s second restaurant. Their first location, Café Z, is a popular restaurant in Marin County, Calif. Z Restaurant Group co-owner and cookbook author Sally Sampson will oversee the daily operations of the Harvard Square location.

“Z Square Cambridge will have a very similar feel to our California location,” Sampson said. “It will be a casual and very comfortable place to eat. Our food will be simple in its presentation yet full of complex flavors.”

Two menu items that are currently most popular at Café Z are a vegetarian Moroccan stew at lunch time and a pork chop with a fruit and olive compote at dinner, according to Sampson.

The Z Restaurant Group will begin construction on Z Square Cambridge immediately after Finagle vacates the space on May 1. It is expected to open in mid-August for lunch service and will be in full operation by September. Finagle A Bagel is already renovating its new Mass. Ave. store and plans to open in mid-May, according to Finagle A Bagel Owner and Co-President Laura Trust.

The owners of Z Square Cambridge offered Finagle A Bagel a financial incentive to move out of their two-level location.

“The Harvard Square location that we currently have is more space than we need, and when we were approached by [the owners of Z Square Cambridge], who wanted a wonderful location and liquor license, the deal worked out best for everybody,” Trust said.

The new Finagle A Bagel location is considerably smaller than the JFK space. Seating will be limited and the menu will be expanded to feature more items that people can purchase on the run. While Finagle currently closes at 9 p.m., it will now expand its hours to be open until 11 p.m. nightly.

—Staff writer Carolyn A. Sheehan can be reached at csheehan@fas.harvard.edu,