“With these restrictions to limit and regulate the vibrant atmosphere that we were trying to create, it is in our best interest to halt service at the Essex Rooftop and Essex Dining Room at the Cambria Hotel at this time,” Jenkins said in a statement.
The restaurant opened in March, with the rooftop bar debuting two months later. The restaurant served ceviche, pasta, and steak, with sip martinis and oysters on the rooftop.
Jenkins also owns 1928 Beacon Hill, a restaurant and cocktail bar on Mount Vernon Street. (A man, naked and armed with a knife, allegedly broke into the restaurant last week before being shot by police. He survived his injuries).
The Essex had previously applied for a license to play recorded track and televisions on the rooftop. At a hearing of the Boston Entertainment Board in April, an attorney for the restaurant said both would be kept at “a very low volume” to “curate an atmosphere and ambiance of an elevated, chic rooftop,” adding that there were no plans for live entertainment or DJs at the rooftop.
The application drew nearly 200 signatures in opposition, including several neighbors, officials said at the time, according to a recording of the hearing.
“These residents don’t feel its appropriate,” said Conor Newman of the city’s office of neighborhood services. “They wanted to make the distinction that they feel their neighborhood is separate and different from the Seaport, which has more entertainment options.”
Resident Marcy Jackson agreed, saying the stretch of West Broadway in South Boston is too densely populated for the sort of nightlife the Essex would bring.
“This is a residential neighborhood,” Jackson said at the hearing. “It started as a residential neighborhood, and the Cambria came after the fact.”
Residents also expressed their negative experiences with the previous operator of the rooftop, who they said allowed a disruptive atmosphere and were unresponsive to community concerns.
“From our experience last time, it was so loud that the dishes in our house rattled, we couldn’t open our windows, we couldn’t possibly sit on a deck,” neighbor David Green said at the hearing. “When it wasn’t the actual dance band and pounding, it was a continual ambient sound, like elevator track nonstop.”
The Essex replaced the former Six/West Rooftop at the Cambria, which closed in 2023.
The entertainment board, which took the application under advisement at the hearing, did not immediately return a request for comment on Wednesday.
Jenkins, a former art preservationist from Barrington, R.I., has run 1928 Beacon Hill since it opened last year. Her fiancé, Aaron Sells, is a well-known local businessman — though Jenkins said through a spokesperson Wednesday that he had “absolutely nothing to do with” 1928, Essex, or any of her other business ventures.
Former business partners of Sells disputed that claim in a 2022 court case, accusing Sells of fraudulently diverting their funds from another restaurant venture in Seaport to help finance 1928 Beacon Hill. Sells has denied the allegations, both in court and in a recent Boston Magazine profile, and the case was ultimately dismissed.
Sells does have one connection to Essex Rooftop: his nephew, Avery M. Sells, is director of operations for the company that runs 1928 and Essex, a spokesperson confirmed.
Material from previous Globe coverage was used. This story will be updated if more information becomes available.
Camilo Fonseca can be reached at camilo.fonseca@globe.com. Follow him on X @fonseca_esq and on Instagram @camilo_fonseca.reports.
About the Author
