Reading Select Board Approves New Italian Restaurant License, Delays Trash Contract Vote

Select Board · Meeting of October 7, 2025

Reading Select Board approves new Italian restaurant license and defers trash contract decision. The board voted 5-0 at its October 7 meeting to grant an annual all-alcohol restaurant license to Reading Forno LLC, doing business as Toscana Forno, at 45 Walkers Brook Drive, the former Bertucci's location, with owners Angelo, Lucio, and Valentino Perina targeting a February 1, 2026 opening. A decision on the town's next five-year trash and recycling contract was postponed after Republic Services submitted a revised late proposal with a year-one cost of $1,872,913, roughly $110,000 below top-ranked Waste Management's effective annual cost of $1,976,850, and offered one free bulk pickup item per week that Waste Management does not include; the board directed both vendors to submit best-and-final offers by Thursday for a possible special meeting vote the following week.

The new contract is expected to raise the town's solid waste budget by at least 25 percent to approximately $2.76 million annually, with weekly recycling pushing that figure to $3.1 million. More than a dozen residents spoke against the MBTA's proposed commuter rail turnback track, and MBTA Director of Rail Modernization Delivery Sharon Cranston acknowledged the authority cannot confirm which locomotive model was used in its April noise study because Keolis did not retain the GPS data.

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Source: the Select Board meeting of October 7, 2025, reported from the official video recording and transcript.