New Businesses Launch in Square

Seven new businesses have set up shop in Harvard Square since the beginning of the summer, including a 24-hour New-York-style market and four boutiques specializing in clothing, jewelry, and accessories.

Tistik, a retailer at 54 Church Street that sells jewelry, gifts, and handmade crafts from developing countries, and Market in the Square, which has a hot food bar, opened at the end of June.

“The owner of the store liked that Harvard Square has a...eclectic feel to it,” said Tiffany Y. O’Neal, a sales associate at Tistik, explaining why the store location was chosen.

Peter M. Hwang, the proprietor of Market in the Square—at the corner of Church Street and Brattle Street—said Harvard’s reputation and the Square’s high-volume traffic were draws, adding that satisfying “highly opinionated” Cambridge residents was a stimulating challenge for him. Hwang is a native New Yorker who had previously owned similar markets in New Haven, Conn.

“Harvard approached me expressing that the community had a need for a market-type of place in Harvard Square, ever since Sage Market left over seven years ago,” Hwang said, explaining his move from New Haven.

While O’Neal acknowledged that there are several jewelry stores in the Square already, she said that her store is “less fancy yet more fun.”

“We have anything from $18 to $180,” she said.

In July, Upper Crust, a Neapolitan-style pizzeria (49b Brattle Street) opened. And this month, Passport (43 Brattle Street), Looks (11-13 Holyoke Street), and Topaz (11 Dunster Street) opened. Passport sells travel clothing and accessories; Looks sells women’s clothing; and Topaz offers women’s jewelry and gifts,

The store owners said that their goals are both to sell elegant and homey objects and to reach out to a broad type of consumers.

The owners, many of them young entrepreneurs, named the Square’s commercial and high-traffic environment as the allure that drew them here and said that they hope to bring individuality to shoppers in Cambridge.

Topaz said the store sells jewelry starting at $40; T-shirts at Looks start at $20.

Denise A. Jillson, the director of the Harvard Square Business Association, said that as of August, locally-owned and independent stores occupied 78% of the business locations in Harvard Square.

Ice cream chain J.P. Licks also opened a store at 1312 Mass. Ave. this summer, welcoming students back to campus last week with a day of free ice cream.

—Staff Writer Hee Kwon Seo can be reached at hkseo@fas.harvard.edu.