Florida is where the trash comes from. Florida is trash’s natural habitat

NERB is great but it’s always been a nitpick for me that you can’t get any of the bread toasted

So never been to New England Roast Beef or Major League Roast Beef huh?

Get a real beef spot in worcester. I’m from the beef belt originally and moved to the sahara of beef

Major League.

Kelly’s is trash. They’re also expanding to FL

In Worcester the public transportation is not good. You really do need a car to enjoy what the city offers because it is a large city as far as it’s land mass goes. so you have a bunch of bad neighborhoods mixed into good ones. None of the areas in Worcester are free of crime. Property crimes are still common but violent crimes are far between compared to cities of that size.

Because Worcester is so spread out I encourage people to check out the surrounding towns to live and head into Worcester to enjoy the city.

I’d rather live in Worcester than Boston, Springfield, Fall River, Lowell, Lawrence, Brockton, and like a couple dozen other places in Massachusetts, but I would still rather live in one of the surrounding towns of Worcester, because the property crime is so high.

I lived in Tatnuck, a good neighborhood, and my house got broken into multiple times. My brother lived on May street, a bad neighborhood and his joint got broke into as well. 3 floors up and still got robbed. Property crime is still real bad.

Cool. Glad to know her business was doing well.

What's the place on Route 20 in Auburn? Really good.

I agree with your assessment of the restaurant scene, “fine, unremarkable.” I’ve had lots of good, even very good, meals in Worcester but not a single one stands out in my memory. You can definitely get great beer, though.

Transportation is great if you have a car, parking is rarely a hassle. I gave up on trying to bike in Worcester very quickly after moving there (lived in Tatnuck). There’s plenty to do for just about every interest. The art museum is a gem. After five years in Worcester I gave up on it and I now live near nearby. I get there pretty frequently but I go to Boston more often.

Really can't beat NERB.

Exciting!

Or, pressure him to keep her there, depending on your point of view.

If you mean Lulu's it's because she has young kids at home and wants to spend more time with them. I am guessing she is overwhelmed by how much time and work go into running it.

We always wave when we pass him.

It's Worcester. He gets shot at a lot.

I’ve specifically noticed Central Auto Body on Park Ave parks all their cars on the sidewalk a half mile in either direction and the cops don’t give a shit yet they ticket regular folks doing the same thing on the same street.

As a 30 year old yuppy born and raised in Worcester that has also spent a lot time in Boston with college friends, my certainly biased opinion is that Worcester greatly exceeds living in eastern MA when you look at it from an ROI standpoint. Cost of living has increased quite a bit the last few years after the secret got out that Worcester is a great/affordable alternative to eastern MA, but the delta in COL between Boston and Worcester is still tremendous. If you need to go to Boston occasionally, the drive is 45 minutes to and hour.

Restaurant scene is fantastic. Truly a foodies' paradise. New restaurants popping up all the time that my gf and I love checking out. We have a handful of go-to's but when we want to switch it up and try somewhere new, there's a extensive list of options.

Night life has come along way recently. It isn't as lively as big city night life, but there's still plenty of options. Valentino's, the Banner, Funky Murphys, Mercantile, Cigar Bar, Vincents, White Eagle, tons of breweries. There's an option for really every crowd. As with most cities, making friends usually revolves around your social scene (which bars/restaurants you frequent) and the workplace. I have numerous transplant friends that have done just fine meeting people.

Public transit is Worcester's Achilles heel. Very unreliable schedules and inconvenient routes.

If you're going to be working at Biotech Park, I suggest looking in the lake ave/plantation street area first, and if you don't have any luck there you can extend your search to the Burncoat neighborhood or across the bridge in Shrewsbury if your rental budget is large enough. Burncoat and Shrewsbury are farther away but IMO nicer neighborhoods.

Every time I go there they have like two workers but a line of 20+ people out the door, I pity the workers but not the manager.

NERB for life.

Cool

Yeah it’s gone. I think it closed shortly before or at the start of the pandemic.

>- How are restaurants, nightlife, and recreation in Worcester? Are there enough restaurants where it feels like you can always try somewhere new?

Good amount of restaurants to eat at, but only a few that my husband and I think are worth the money and they tend to be on the pricier side. He used to be a chef, and I've been expanding my cooking skills A LOT since the pandemic, so our opinions could be quite bias.

As for nightlife, we live near Indian Lake so we'd have to take an Uber, or similar, if we both wanted to drink which can make it expensive to go out. We generally just do game nights at friends houses and whatnot, but there are a decent amount of bars and club like bars around.

Recreation is dependent on what you enjoy to do. We like disc golf, hiking, camping, and such but not many good places in Worcester for that. We end up going outside Worcester for most of our recreation, but much of it is within a 30 minute drive of us so it's not bad.

>- How prevalent is public transportation? How do people get around?

We're from the Twin Cities in MN so my opinion may be bias here. I think the public transportation is crap within Worcester. I like that there's the train station so you can easily go to places like Boston, but for places within Worcester, you'll need your own vehicle or an Uber.

>- What are the "good areas" and "bad areas" of Worcester? Where should we avoid? Where do young professionals tend to live/hang out?

It really depends. As mentioned, we live near Indian Lake. We're near Holden, not far from Goldstar Blvd, and not far from WPI. Some people think we live in a bad neighborhood, but it's VERY quiet where we are. We're near a couple busy streets, but we live on a dead end street so we don't get a lot of noise beyond kids playing and people using yard equipment. We hear the trains in the winter, but it's dulled by the trees once the leaves come back.

For young professionals, I'd suggest looking more for the house you'd want and judging the neighborhood second. If you two want kids in the near future, get a house with that in mind. If you don't, get a house with that in mind. There are pockets of super expensive places with mansion like homes, other places with all multi family homes, some with all single family homes, and some with a mix. And think of commuting as well, if you don't WFH. You'll want to be near the highway if you commute as getting around within Worcester can be a PIA and take upwards of 20 minutes to get from east to west depending on the lights and route taken.

>- How easy/hard would it be for us to meet new people within our age group?

Depends on how extroverted you are. We tend to go into Holden more, but we've chatted with people when out and about in Worcester. People are mostly friendly if you choose to start up a conversation. But, if you go out and keep to yourselves, you won't meet anyone.

I don’t think that Kelly’s is there anymore. There was one on Comm Ave in Allston that I used to frequent, but that’s long since gone too.

you right - totally missed the part where you said youre 25 mins out. my bad. I wrote my comment from the prospective of someone coming from worcester