City Clears Mike’s Pastry To Open in Harvard Square

Mike’s Pastry, the celebrated North End cannoli and sweets shop, can move forward with its plans to open a second location in Harvard Square, after the Cambridge Board of Zoning Appeal unanimously approved a request to grant the pastry store a fast order food permit at a meeting Thursday evening.

The decision followed a similar vote of approval on Jan. 27 by the city’s Harvard Square Advisory Committee and was the last municipal hurdle for the business to clear.

“Mike’s Pastry is locally owned and family operated,” the shop’s lawyer,  Joseph Hanley, said Thursday. “We’re very excited to bring this concept to the Square.”

Hanley noted that the pastry store offers goods that are currently unavailable in the Square.

Hanley and Mike’s General Manager Angelo Papa presented the board with floor plans and photos of the future storefront space at 11 Dunster St. and responded to questions from the committee about whether the establishment would properly comply with local and state requirements.

Those requirements include demands that the pastry store use biodegradable products and that the building remains compatible with the existing neighborhood.

Papa and Hanley assured the board that the plans for the new Mike’s Pastry met all the prerequisites.

Denise A. Jillson, executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association, also spoke on behalf of the establishment, highlighting the excitement the proposed shop  has generated in the Square.

“There’s been a lot of activity on Facebook as well as people tweeting about it,” Jillson said.  “We’re all really looking forward to it.”

The members of the Board of Zoning Appeal, joking that they may need to taste-test Mike’s cannoli, voted unanimously to grant Mike’s Pastry a fast order food permit.

Although Papa noted he was somewhat nervous about appearing before the board, he said that he was very pleased with outcome.

“We’re ecstatic, very happy,” Papa said. “We can’t wait.”

Construction on the Dunster St. location is expected to begin in April. Papa previously said that the shop should open by early summer.

—Staff writer Celeste M. Mendoza can be reached at celestemendoza@college.harvard.edu.