Rhode Island is Ready for Providence’s Track 15 Food Hall

The Marsella family, including president of Marsella Development Corporation Christopher Marsella (center), his father Romolo “Rom” Marsella, and Chris’ sister, Jennifer Marsella. Portrait by Cole Harper/GraphiCole Photography.

 

“Beyond the bridge were narrow cobbled streets with rails; and then came the ascent, at first gradual, but incredibly steep as the Rue d’Auseil was reached.”

It reads like a premonition of the city’s relocation of its rivers and train tracks to create “space alive with motion and music,” and draws comparison to the quiet power of the Marsella family, which has been humbly, stealthily and methodically transforming the city’s urban landscape over five decades.

When people think about the renaissance of downtown Providence, former Mayor Vincent “Buddy” Cianci often comes to mind. But, before the rivers were moved, developer Romolo “Rom” Marsella and other federal, state and city planners played an integral role in making the Creative Capital what it is today. They moved train tracks and relocated the Amtrak train station to its current home, which provided the open space to build Waterplace Park.

And Rom’s continuing that work today, alongside his family, including his son, Christopher, and daughter, Jennifer, long after his retirement. Together, they are launching Track 15, the city’s first locally focused food hall, inside historic Union Station.

The 18,000-square-foot food hall development has secured seven tenants, including a seafood and raw bar concept from Dune Brothers; regional Mexican cuisine from the Meza family at Dolores; burgers and more from There, There; and two Italian concepts from Kevin O’Donnell, chef and owner of Giusto and co-owner of Mother Pizzeria in Newport. The two latest merchants to join are Little Chaska, an Indian concept from Sanjiv and Vandana Dhar, and Tolia from chef Alp Gumuscu, who will focus on the cuisine of the region of Anatolia.

The Marsella Development Corporation owns 16,000 square feet of the Union Station building, including the former Capital Grille and Bar Louie space, and the Rhode Island Foundation owns and occupies the two floors above.

A rendering of what Union Station’s plaza will look like. Rendering courtesy of Vision 3 Architects & Neoscape.

Floors are polished, tile is laid, and the wooden boards on the windows have come down. It’s the third time Rom Marsella has reimagined the space. “When this thing opens, he is the one to thank,” says Christopher Marsella, president of Marsella Development Corporation, the agency his father launched in the late ’70s. Chris stands over six feet tall, is impeccably dressed in stylish casual wear, and is reluctant to don a white hard hat over his full head of blond, coiffed hair. He gestures around the dusty, noisy construction site in mid-November.

“I have blood, sweat and tears and lost pounds of flesh in this thing, but this man forgot he retired and has been here every day and running around at the age of eighty-three,” he says. “His story and background with this building, for the third time, is an interesting one.”

After stepping down as the director of the Providence Foundation in 1976, Rom Marsella — also with a remarkable head of silvery blonde hair and equally as well dressed as his son — established the development firm Urban Consultants. The firm played a role in the Capital Center, Providence Performing Arts Center and Promenade Center projects in Providence, in addition to the Union Station Complex, One Citizens Plaza and the Marriott Courtyard Hotel, which all breathed new life and business into the capital city.

Track 15, the Marsella family’s latest project, pays tribute to one of Providence’s greatest assets: its food scene.

Christopher and Rom Marsella overlooking the Union Station Plaza. Portrait by Wolf Matthewson.

Individuals have tried unsuccessfully to open a food hall in Providence, never progressing from fundraising and planning to construction. And while the multilevel Plant City bills itself as “Providence’s first food hall,” it’s different from food halls in other cities in that all four plant-based dining options and market are from the same owner. A food hall typically contains several independent eateries and a large communal dining area.

Rom and Chris Marsella say their family committed to involving local businesses, rather than a nationally recognized chef, and that decision has gained tremendous respect. “This is not the largest project I’ve done,” Rom says. “Obviously, that was the railroad relocation, which was a monumental effort. And the Citizen Plaza buildings were much larger, but nothing has had as much interest and support as this food hall project.”

PICKING UP SPEED

Track 15, which has been chugging along since 2020, is approaching its final destination after facing delays due to the pandemic, supply chain issues and unplanned utility challenges.

The $25 million project is on the fast track to get to opening day. Funding came from a $1 million Rhode Island Commerce grant, several private investments and the Marsella family. The Marsellas hired Matthias Kiehm, principal of Convivium Hospitality Group, and Michael Anthony, who has a background in hospitality ventures and beverage development in major Las Vegas restaurants, including Renoir and Bouchon, to get the job done. Vision 3 Architects of Providence and the Boston-based CM&B construction management firm completed the project.

The name Track 15 is a nod to the building’s origins as a train station. Built in 1898, the station was the center of Rhode Island’s machinery, textile and jewelry industries, operating fourteen intercity rail lines before closing in 1986 when a smaller Amtrak station was built near the State House. Track 15 is a homage to the proverbial “fifteenth rail,” which will bring together like-minded eateries under one roof.

Rom Marsella revitalized Union Station back when the new Amtrak station was built. “A lot of people forget that the first step in the renaissance that had happened was a railroad relocation, which kicked it off first and reopened all that land downtown that became the capital center,” says Chris Marsella.

The food vendors of Track 15 pose together at a preview party at Giusto in Newport. Photograph courtesy of Regan Communications.

Rom reflects on the redevelopment as a team effort. “One thing I learned early on in this whole concept of how do you bring a city back? You can’t do it alone,” he says. “You might have the ideas, but you need to be able to reach out to elected officials, to the business community, etc., and convince them to put their support behind it — without their support, it would be just another plan on the shelf.”

The Marsella family originally reimagined the station as a mixed-use project of five historic buildings with the main terminal serving as the headquarters for the Rhode Island Foundation, and before that, it was Cookson America’s offices. The concept for the nationally acclaimed restaurant chain, The Capital Grille, also was born here in 1990.

“It was here that the small local restaurateur named Ned Grace conceived of a restaurant concept around steaks. At the time, he was looking out at a massive construction site with piles of dirt and cranes and roadways going in different directions all the way up to the State House, where there was nothing. Ned Grace understood what it could be,” Chris says. “The Capital Grille name came from the fact that from the front door of the Capital Grille, you could see the dome of the State House. And it has obviously gone on to become a national phenomenon.”

The Capital Grille now has more than seventy locations across the United States and Central and North America.

In 1993, Union Station also became home to the city’s first brewpub, Union Station Brewery. Other establishments included Raphael’s Bar Risto, Rí Rá, a popular Irish pub, and Luxe Burger, which opened in 2005 and closed in 2020. At the height of its activity, there was a diverse mix of restaurants offering different experiences. But as time marched on, guests began to prefer casual experiences.

A rendering of a food stall. Rendering and photograph courtesy of Chris Marsella/Vision 3 Architects & Neoscape.

“Many of them were serving burgers and beers and were glorified sports bars. It became a less curated experience, which eventually led to a lot of these restaurants eating each other’s lunch,” Chris says. The Capital Grille eventually moved to a new riverfront location across the street in 2015. “It left this massive hole here at Union Station, so our family, having long-term interest here historically, but also continued interest in the office buildings and development site, needed a solution.”

As businesses closed or pulled out as tenants of Union Station, they were determined to come up with a plan. “In order to bring back some life here, we needed a spark, and seeing these beautiful empty spaces in the center of Union Station continue to be empty pushed us into action to see if we could find a solution,” Chris says. “We thought a food hall would be the perfect fit for the location and really would bring the city something it didn’t have today.”

Fast forward five years, and the original location of the very first Capital Grille in the nation will now become Providence’s first food hall that spotlights local food purveyors.

A rendering of the interior of the Track 15 food hall. Rendering and photograph courtesy of Chris Marsella/Vision 3 Architects & Neoscape.

TRACKING TRENDS

When you go in, you will really see it,” Chris Marsella says in mid-November, stepping on plywood planks placed over a dirt path that leads to a boarded-up door. The boards will soon be removed to reveal floor-to-ceiling windows at the main entrance of the food hall, which includes an epic, long bar. “Last time you were in here, there was no back of the house. There were all frames, basically all the plumbing, electrical and mechanical. Now we have our respiratory system, our nervous system, our muscles. We’re building a body. We’re putting the kitchen equipment in, and the next thing will be putting the skin on everything.”

“What is this, Silence of the Lambs?” says Track 15’s marketing director Kaitlyn Frolich, who was a server at Raphael’s. She says back then women served the patio at Raphael’s and only men were allowed to wait tables inside the dining room.

The two take me through the building that’s still a construction zone with two members of their public relations team from Regan Communications. We go through the placement of each of the food vendors and learn where the bar, a potential stage and the dropdown media screen will be located. The back of house area includes walk-in refrigerators and freezers, storage areas, and a central dishwashing location. All the food and drink will be served on real china, using glasses and silverware, and a separate bar will serve local spirits, craft beer and fine wines, including Track 15-branded vodka and gin from Industrious Spirit Company.

The food hall involves indoor and outdoor seating for approximately 600 patrons, an entertainment venue, and a 10,000-square-foot plaza for special events. Flipboard-style menus, similar to those that announce train track arrivals and departures in transportation hubs, will entice diners, and old railroad car floors have been repurposed into communal tables. Menus will change with the seasons.

Much research went into choosing food vendors. The Marsellas hired Kiehm, who played an integral role at the food hall at Harrods in London and later developed many of the Time Out markets in the U.S., to handle that part of the project.

“We sat here in September 2020 with masks on and had the first conversation about what a food hall in Rhode Island would look like,” Kiehm says. “The answer had to be local-centric.”

Kiehm worked with the Marsella family, including Chris, Rom and Rom’s daughter, Jennifer — who lives in Spain and frequents European-style food halls, which is where the food hall idea originally came from — to create a list of potential purveyors and sample as many restaurants and food producers in Rhode Island as they could.

“We literally ate ourselves through Rhode Island. I think it was between 150 to 200 restaurants,” Kiehm says. “I began to understand the food direction of Rhode Island and had conversations with the potential operators.”

They narrowed down the list and secured the seven eateries.

“The idea of a food hall is that if the six of us go, then everyone can experience what they want to experience, rather than being at a restaurant where you usually have one direction,” Kiehm says. “As you come in, you decide what you are in the mood for. Everyone selects their preference, orders and pays, then goes to the separate bar, gets their drink and gets situated at one of the tables. By the time you are settled, you will get a text message that your food is ready.”

Kristen Adamo, president and CEO of the Providence Warwick Convention & Visitors Bureau, is particularly thrilled about Track 15 because of its location near the Convention Center and the fact that it brings new event space to the city.

“There’s a trend within meetings and conventions that they don’t want to have all their events in the center or the ballroom, so they look for unique function space. A lot of times the size of the space is prohibitive,” she says. “But the capabilities of the food hall, whether it’s a full buyout or utilizing patio space, there’s such flexibility and nimbleness in it that it’s going to make our job easier. Now we have this unique venue space that can be part of the package.”

She also notes that visitors in town for conventions and sporting events may not have time for a full restaurant experience, and Track 15 will allow them to enjoy something local, quickly. “Chris has been great with us about making sure that people understand the role that meetings and conventions play,” Adamo says. “A lot of the work that he does is behind the scenes, but it impacts those public facing things like tourism, the arts and the city’s culinary brand, but he just doesn’t feel the need to trumpet that.”

Like the anonymous maniac musician hiding in the corner of a room in a house in Lovecraft’s “The Music of Erich Zann,” many people might not know who Chris, or his father, Rom Marsella, are. And while the quote from the short story is now buried under layers of drywall and paint, it’s still there, like the invisible tracks the Marsellas have laid for years in the capital city.

HERE’S A RUNDOWN ON ALL THE VENDORS AT TRACK 15

There, There

Handheld burgers and sandwiches that feel like home.

A variety of burgers, sandwiches, fries and CNY salt potatoes from There, There. Photo courtesy of There, There.

The whole premise behind the name There, There is providing comfort. When chef Brandon Teachout came up with the name for his casual burger and sandwich eatery in the West End, he hoped that his food would help people feel better. “It’s that little hug and a tap on the back, like ‘You’re here now,’” he says. “We don’t know what’s going on out there, but when you’re here, we’re going to make sure we do everything we can to make it good for you.”

There, There was selected as one of the Track 15 vendors for its beloved burgers and handheld fare. Teachout started out in the local restaurant industry at Tallulah on Thames in Newport and Tallulah’s Taqueria. Then he went on to be the opening chef at Durk’s Bar-B-Q, finally opening his own food startup called Dips Dips. The mobile food business served up French dip sandwiches and sausages, and later snacks like pimento, onion dip and chips from its cart. It later lead to opening There, There.

Track 15 will serve as There, There’s second location, offering the same menu items as the West End location. They hope to use the food hall as an outlet to grow and expand the menu at the original spot, while steering more guests there from the food hall. “There, There has been an awesome proof of concept of what we can execute consistently, at a high level and quickly. We’re not trying to break that mold. We’re just going to copy and paste what we’re doing at There, There, but make it downtown. It’s a little welcome for people new to the city.”

The Track 15 menu will include hefty sandwiches like the T.T. Bird with buttermilk fried chicken, mayo and honeygold sauce and the Dream Burger with two patties, cheese, patty sauce, onion jam and shredduce (shredded lettuce) on a griddled sesame bun. The CNY (Central New York) salt potatoes, drizzled with pepperoncini butter and dusted with green onion, are a must. Teachout also takes pride in lighter fare like a chopped iceberg wedge salad and a kale roll with cornmeal battered kale, tartar sauce, smoky pickle relish and a barbecue rub on a griddled brioche bun.

“The food hall is an exciting project. We came down here and checked out the space, talked about the vision and the history of the location,” Teachout recalls. “I think a lot of people agree that Providence wants a food hall like this.” theretherepvd.com

Giusto and Mother Pizzeria

Coastal Rhode Island Italian, wood-fired pizzas and housemade gelato.

Kevin O’Donnell, chef and owner of Giusto and co-owner of Mother Pizzeria, both in Newport, is a Rhode Island native who learned he wanted to be a chef by working in various Rhode Island restaurants, including CK Pizza in North Kingstown, where he grew up, and Junction Pizzeria in Wickford. He opened Giusto in 2020, and Mother followed in the summer of 2023. Track 15 will host the Providence versions of both restaurants. He is running Mother Pizzeria with general manager Lauren Schaefer and executive chef Kyle Stamps, who he met at Junction Pizzeria. Track 15’s Mother Pizzeria has its own wood-burning pizza oven, just like the Newport location.

Squid ink calamari from Giusto. Photo courtesy of Giusto.

O’Donnell views the food hall as an opportunity to expand the brands of both businesses. “This is our first time leaving Newport from a business perspective, so we’re looking at this as a great opportunity to tap into and bring awareness about our restaurants to the Providence area and the northern part of the state,” O’Donnell says. “You know Rhode Island — people don’t always love to cross bridges. That goes both ways.”

For Track 15, they are compiling a menu of Giusto’s greatest hits, including fresh pastas, seafood and the popular squid ink calamari. “We change the menu every month at Giusto so we have a stockpile of recipes and dishes we’ve done over the past four years,” he says. “We took all of our favorites and fan favorites and put those together to compile the opening menu at Giusto PVD.”

Mother will have a similar approach to the Newport location with wood-fired pizzas and salads, and a special sundae served only in Track 15: coffee milk gelato made with Autocrat syrup and New Harvest coffee and candied lemon pieces reminiscent of Del’s Lemonade.

A wood-fired pizza from Mother Pizzeria. Photo courtesy of Mother Pizzeria.

O’Donnell says he hit it off with the Marsella family from the very beginning. “We wanted to make sure we stay true to what their vision is, which is trying to showcase Rhode Island and everything that is great in the state. So when we are cooking our food and coming up with dishes, it’s important that we think about great producers,” O’Donnell says. “Sourcing is one of my favorite things to do as a chef. It’s this constant search, and we have so many great ingredients in Rhode Island.” giustonewport.com; motherpizzeria.com

Little Chaska

Indian-style food.

Saag paneer with naan bread from Little Chaska. Photo courtesy of Little Chaska/Jim Baker.

When Sanjiv Dhar first learned about Track 15, he reached out to Matthias Kiehm to get the scoop. Dhar and his family have a history of introducing Indian cuisine to Rhode Islanders, starting with Kabob and Curry, established in 1987 on Thayer Street in Providence. Since then, their empire has expanded to four restaurants and counting. “I felt that Indian cuisine would be a great addition, because there were a lot of other kinds of flavors represented,” Dhar says. He and the group met over lunch and sealed the deal.

Dhar already owns four independent Indian restaurants with his wife, Vandana, including Kabob and Curry, Rasoi in Pawtucket, Rasa in East Greenwich, and Chaska in Cranston’s Garden City Center, but this will be the Dhars’ first foray into counter-service street food.

They plan to highlight the most popular items from their restaurants, including samosas and chicken tikka masala, and handheld, snack-like items like kathi rolls, which involve thick whole wheat bread that’s grilled and stuffed with meats like lamb or chicken kabob, and saag paneer, a housemade soft cheese served with spinach. “What we are trying to do is establish this menu as something that you may enjoy at any time of the day, and not necessarily just for lunch or dinner,” Dhar says. “You can come in and have a cocktail with a snack.”

Dhar is excited to see Providence’s food hall come to fruition. “It’s perfectly located for those who may come here for a convention. I think it’ll add to the vitality of the downtown,” he says, “Personally, I’m very excited about this because I’ve always wanted to do a quick-service concept, and this will be a great learning experience for me. The team that’s handling it is very well equipped to tell us what we are doing wrong or right. So we’ll get a lot of help from the management. It’s wonderful to know that there’s a great team behind it.” chaska-usa.com

Tolia

Middle Eastern street food specialities.

Kibbeh from Tolia. Photo courtesy of Tolia/Tarci-Lee Galarza.

Middle Eastern cuisine will have a place at Track 15 with Tolia, the first restaurant concept by husband-and-wife partners Alp Gumuscu and Tarci-Lee Galarza. Gumuscu grew up in Turkey cooking Middle Eastern cuisine from the Anatolia region that surrounds Turkey, Greece and other parts of the Middle East. The name Tolia is derived from Anatolia, which means “the land of the sunrise.” 

Gumuscu started out in Turkey as a food engineer, then realized his interest in cooking by working with other chefs and cooks. He applied to culinary school and graduated from the Culinary Arts Academy in Istanbul, then worked in five-star hotels and restaurants in Istanbul. He traveled all over the world learning about cuisine, but ultimately returned to his family’s cultural roots.

“I grew up eating street foods, like the kebabs on the street after school. Home cooking is important in our culture, because when we have family gatherings, the mother of the home makes a bunch of different-style foods, especially olive oil-braised vegetables that they call zeytinyagli and puts it on the table,” Gumuscu says. “For family gatherings, the table is covered with mezzes, hot and cold appetizers, breads, pilaf and the main course is meat. That type of cooking was always part of my history.”

Gumuscu came to the United States in 2018, and started working at the Newport Harbor Hotel, then moved on to the restaurant at the Chanler at Cliff Walk, also in Newport. Alp and Tarci met while working at the Chanler, and then Gumuscu went on to work for Yagi Noodles when it first opened and continued running the food truck.

When Turkey experienced a devastating earthquake in early 2023, Gumuscu turned Yagi Noodles into a popup Turkish restaurant for the night to raise money for World Central Kitchen to help feed those who had experienced tragic loss, including friends and family who lost their homes and loved ones. The Newport community loved the Turkish food so much, Gumuscu realized he could create a restaurant here serving cuisine from his homeland.

Tolia will be their first venture. They will serve mezzes, zeytinyagli vegetables, shawarma, falafel and roasted chicken and lamb kebabs from Hopkins Southdowns farm grilled on the spitfire rotisserie installed in the food hall, served with fresh herbs, charcoal-grilled vegetables and pita or lavash bread. “The most important parts are the spices like urfa isot pepper, sumac, za’atar, dukkah, advieh [a combination of rose petals, golpar spice, cinnamon, nutmeg, coriander, cumin, cardamom and cloves],” Gumuscu says. “The spices and fresh herbs are the main part of the cuisine.” toliarestaurant.com

Dolores

Mexican cuisine representing the Mixteca region.

A selection of tacos from Dolores. Phot by Jhonny Ramos Photography.

The Meza family is culinary royalty in Providence. The matriarch and self-trained cook Maria Meza, and sons, Joaquin and Marco Meza, began their journey in the local hospitality scene in 2007 with the revered El Rancho Grande in Providence. El Rancho Grande closed due to a fire and the results of COVID in 2020. But the family launched Dolores, a more traditional Mexican restaurant that represents the food they grew up eating, in 2019 on the East Side of Providence.

Chef Maria Meza was acknowledged as a 2024 James Beard Foundation Awards finalist for Best Chef: Northeast. It’s a big accomplishment for the family that wasn’t quite sure how the community would react to more authentic Mexican cuisine representing the Mixteca region of Puebla and Oaxaca.

While they focused on running Dolores, ingredients like maize, Mexican peppers, herbs and seeds became more accessible from Mexico into the United States. Chef Maria Meza’s cooking represents their culture rather than Americanized tacos and quesadillas.

The Dolores outpost in Track 15 will be a more casual venture centered on tacos and sandwiches. They have their own tortilla press inside their stall, where they will make both flour and corn tortillas using corn from three different regions of Mexico. They use a molino to grind the maize into masa and focus on the complex process of nixtamalization for tortillas.

Tacos will be filled with braised meats including chicken, as well as a special taco arabe served on pita instead of corn tortillas, a precursor to al pastor which is derived from Middle Eastern immigrants who arrived in Mexico in the 1920s. Vegetarian options will also be available. “The idea is to focus more on street food; food that’s eaten at the mercados in Puebla and Oaxaca,” Joaquin Meza says.

The Track 15 team, including general manager Brent Oberholzer and assistant general manager Jay Carr, previously of the Eddy, Durk’s and Lucky Enough, will coordinate with Dolores to make sure the quality of the tequilas and mezcals match the cuisine. “Jay wants to capture the importance of beverages at each establishment, and he knows how we feel about our agave,” Joaquin says. dolorespvd.com

Dune Brothers

Rhode Island seafood favorites.

A warm, buttered lobster roll from Dune Brothers. Photo courtesy of Dune Brothers/Jacob Schiffman.

The Dune Brothers mission is to expose guests to underutilized varieties of fish. They have successfully normalized eating species like dogfish (Cape Shark) in place of haddock and cod for fish and chips, and made sea robin, scup and fluke part of mainstream menus at their established seafood shacks in downtown Providence and Riverside. Alongside recently opening their first seafood market and sit-down restaurant in Providence’s Fox Point, they will launch as a vendor inside Track 15 with a full raw bar.

Owners Nick and Monica Gillespie recently sat down with production manager Jose Morales to describe the future of Dune Brothers. The Track 15 spot and Fox Point market and restaurant will be open year-round, while the seasonal shacks will continue running from early spring through late fall. The Track 15 outpost’s raw bar will shuck and serve locally harvested shellfish and oysters, ceviche and daily crudo, in addition to plated items like fish sandwiches, chowder and clam cakes, lobster rolls and fish and chips. They will also have a market fish of the day, such as scup, served with a seasonal salad.

Morales has been Dune Brothers’ longtime connection to local fishermen since the very beginning of the first Dune Brothers shack, seven years ago. He started out working in the seafood business unloading fishing boats in New Bedford when he was sixteen, as a summer job, and then moved into production and sales management, until he was hired by Dune Brothers.

“He was a critical link in connecting us with local fishermen,” Nick says. Morales purchases fish directly from the boats in Point Judith, Sakonnet Point and other ports, effectively cutting out the middleman. Now they share that connection with other local restaurants as a seafood wholesaler with Luke Mersfelder serving as fishmonger.

They pride themselves on finding ways to make locally sourced seafood appeal to a broader audience, like using dogfish or pollock in place of haddock for the flaky fish and chips, and by starting a calamari cart that serves locally sourced fried calamari by the cone. “It’s really easy to make something popular. You just have to make it taste good,” Monica says. “That’s where Nick and our team come in.” dunebrothers.com

Union Station Evolution

The evolution of a Providence landmark over 175 years.

Photography courtesy of Providence Public Library Digital Collections and Go Providence.

1847: The Union Railroad Depot, designed by architect Thomas A. Tefft, is built in the Lombard Romanesque style with two large roundhouses and two grand spires.

1896: A fire destroys the building.

Photography courtesy of Providence Public Library Digital Collections and Go Providence.

1898: The new Union Station, consisting of five yellow brick structures, is built atop the recently filled Cove Basin. It was designed by Stone, Carpenter and Willson and constructed by the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad. In the station’s early days, some 300 trains ran through it daily.

1916: The Rhode Island Foundation is organized at the Rhode Island Hospital Trust Co. by a group of prominent Rhode Islanders who want to provide charitable giving to the community.

Photography courtesy of Providence Public Library Digital Collections and Go Providence.

1941: A fire rages through the east portion of the station.

1977: Penn Central owns the building, which looks “dour and abandoned.”

1986: A new Providence train station served by Amtrak (and later, the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority) opens across from the State House.

1986: Marsella Development Corporation is awarded development rights to Union Station and begins renovations to turn the parcels into retail and office space.

Photography courtesy of Providence Public Library Digital Collections and Go Providence.

1987: Another fire strikes, severely damaging the building and halting the $11 million renovation project.

1989: Cookson America moves into the upper floors of the central building.

1990: Local restaurant impresario Ned Grace opens the nation’s first Capital Grille restaurant in the Union Station complex.

1993: Providence’s first brewpub, Union Station Brewery, opens in the complex, serving its own craft beer.

1999: The Rhode Island Foundation purchases the building for $4.5 million and moves its headquarters there.

Photography courtesy of Providence Public Library Digital Collections and Go Providence.

2000: Rí Rá, an Irish pub, opens.

2005: John Elkhay’s Luxe Burger opens.

2014: Rí Rá closes.

2015: The Capital Grille moves across the street to the space formerly occupied by Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse.

2019: The Marsella family mulls turning the ground-level restaurants into a food hall.

2025: Track 15 food hall opens.  —Dana Laverty

RELATED ARTICLES

Dolores Chef Maria Meza is a James Beard Finalist for Best Chef: Northeast

Dining Review: Giusto in Newport