Las Palmas Uprooted From Harvard Square After Less Than 5 Months in New Location

Las Palmas, a Dominican restaurant chain, shut its doors in Harvard Square in late November, less than five months after it moved into a new location on Mount Auburn Street in The Garage.

Last July, Las Palmas moved to the old El Jefe’s storefront from its original spot in the Smith Campus Center, where it had been located since late 2021.

The Harvard Square location was the third for Las Palmas, a “family-owned, woman-owned and a minority-owned restaurant in Boston.” Currently, the only Las Palmas restaurant open is the original location in Roslindale, Mass.

Seila J. Green, owner of Las Palmas, told The Crimson in September 2023 that the decision to move from the Smith Campus Center to a larger space came out of an attempt to “offer a bigger menu” and to become “more visible.”

That appears to have not succeeded.

Denise A. Jillson, the executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association, said that she saw Las Palmas’ closure as a “consumer issue.”

“If you serve something that people aren’t willing to walk in and buy from you, you will close,” she added.

Eric L. Wang ’26 wrote in a statement that he tried Las Palmas but was not a fan of the restaurant.

“I had it at a hackathon at Wellesley and the only reason I ate it was because there was no other food,” Wang wrote. “It wasn’t that good.”

Gabriela M. Vasquez Rosado ’26, a Dominican student who went to the new location twice, said in an interview that Las Palmas held “cultural significance” for her — but she that its closure wasn’t “completely surprising” to her.

She said that at its Smith Campus Center location, there were a line of customers outside Las Palmas.

“That wasn’t the case when I went to Las Palmas at the new location,” she added. “When I have gone, there haven’t been that many people eating there.”

Grace M. Liu ’26 wrote in a statement that Las Palmas was not a large part of the student scene at Harvard.

“I feel like that place has been closed forever,” she added.

Jillson said that Las Palmas’ closure does not reflect any particular trend and that in Harvard Square, there has been a “tremendous amount of stability.”

“A lot of that comes from the stability of the student body, the student population, having workers back in the Square. That matters,” she added. “Foot traffic matters, tourism matters.”

—Staff Writer Michael A. Maines contributed reporting.

—Staff writer Caroline K. Hsu can be reached at caroline.hsu@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @CarolineHsu_.