On a Thursday at the end of October, friends and family filled 11 Elm Street for a soft opening. The next day, Low & Slow Southern Kitchen + Tap opened to the public. Co-owner Gidi Goldberg told The Daily News that it was "a combination of relief, stress, excitement."
Craig McPherson, a food influencer who lives in Amesbury, was at the soft opening. The same Daily News story quotes him on the corner it reopened: "There's just been a lot of buzz around that location for a while."
The change that matters most is upstairs. When this building last sold, nobody knew what its second floor would become. The new owners turned it into a bourbon bar. A downtown corner that used to have one restaurant now has two rooms, and they're built for two different kinds of night out.
A building that has fed downtown before
The building at 11 Elm Street went up in 1874. It has six apartments plus commercial space at street level. Martin Lonergan bought it in 1981 for $90,000 and owned it for more than 40 years. Over that time it housed several businesses, including Bossie's Restaurant, which Lonergan once owned.
The Daily News reported the sale when it happened and called the building 151 years old. It sold in late October to 11 Elm St. MA LLC for $1,175,000. Lonergan's explanation was short: "It was time." He also wished the new owners well, calling it "a nice building" in "a great location."
At the time of the sale, the most recent tenant was Hoppy's Cantina, which had already closed. The new owners started on upgrades before they had signed a tenant.
The question the sale left open
The ground floor was always going to be a restaurant again. The second floor was undecided. The commercial broker who represented the seller described the plan to The Daily News this way:
"They'll be looking for a new tenant for the restaurant. And then, depending on who the tenant is, they'll decide whether they'll combine the second floor or whether a restaurant will just utilize the first floor."
The same article listed three possibilities for the upstairs: extra restaurant seating, a function room, or a couple of office spaces.
As offices, the upstairs would have gone quiet at 5 p.m. As extra seating, it would have been more of the same room. The tenant took the option that changes what the address is for, and it ended up covering two of the three. The 1874 Bourbon Room is a bar of its own, and Low & Slow also books it for private events.
Two floors, two different nights
The Goldberg brothers announced the concept to WhatNow in April 2026. Twin brothers Gidi and Eitan Goldberg own Low & Slow together. Gidi, the chef, spent 24 years working in Arizona restaurants before moving to the area. Eitan has lived in Massachusetts for nearly three decades.
Downstairs is a Southern kitchen built around smoked meat. The posted menu has a few dishes that show what the kitchen is going for:
- Smoked wings with seven sauce choices, including Six Shooter, Alabama White, Mango Habanero and Old Fashioned BBQ.
- Crispy Baby Backs with an unagi BBQ glaze, slaw and pickled Fresno peppers.
- Bacon Beer Crab Cakes with remoulade.
- Kung Pao Cauliflower with smoked peanuts and house blue cheese dressing.
- Southern Falafel, served with black-eyed pea hummus, tahina and skug.
That falafel stands out. It mixes Southern and Middle Eastern cooking, and it comes from a chef who spent two decades cooking in Arizona before bringing a smokehouse to downtown Amesbury. The Daily News opening story also mentions shrimp and grits and a pork belly Caesar salad. The menu rotates, and the restaurant posts "Today's" lunch and dinner menus that show what's actually being served on a given day.
Upstairs is the 1874 Bourbon Room, a speakeasy-style bar that WhatNow described as Prohibition-themed. It features high-end bourbons, whiskeys and craft cocktails, along with local and regional beers and a wine list. The drink menu has a separate 1874 cocktail list and its own bourbon list, and the food menu includes a snack menu just for the bar. At the opening, the Daily News reported espresso martinis and old fashioneds among the drinks.
The bar's name matches the year the building went up. The restaurant's homepage pitches the room for "date nights, gatherings, and special occasions" and also offers it for small groups and private parties.
So the same address now handles two different evenings. A family can come in for brisket and wings downstairs. A couple, or a birthday group that booked ahead, can go upstairs for bourbon and cocktails. Before the sale, the second floor's future was open enough that it could have ended up as office space.
Four months past the forecast
The April announcement aimed for a mid- to late-June 2026 opening, "pending final construction timelines." The doors opened at the end of October instead. In the Daily News opening coverage, Goldberg described the months of work as "renovating, resetting the space, giving it its new life," with new decor and the building outfitted for restaurant service.
Turning a 19th-century building into a two-level restaurant and bar takes time. That's why the opening matters on this corner. Hoppy's had already closed when the building sold in late October of the year before, so the restaurant space at Elm Street and the rotary sat empty for at least a year.
Hoppy's, the tenant before
The previous tenant had its own hard opening. In a Daily News story on how local restaurants got through the pandemic, Sean Hopkins said he started a year-long buildout of Hoppy's Cantina on Elm Street in May 2019. He had closed his Lobster Q restaurant in Hampstead, New Hampshire, to do it. He was running tastings and getting ready to hire when the pandemic hit in March 2020.
He switched to takeout burritos through a business phone line, 1-978-LUV-TACO, then added bowls, appetizers and margaritas. Hopkins told the paper Hoppy's had sold about 17,000 margaritas since the previous fall, and by then it had added indoor dining and roughly 10 employees.
Mexican food is still close by. Oye Mira, a family-run Mexican restaurant owned by Ibrahim Geha and run with his son Geryes and daughter Leila, opened in mid-October at Carriagetown Marketplace on Macy Street, in the space Grande Mexico used to occupy. The Daily News reported a menu of tacos, burritos, chimichangas, margaritas, and homemade tres leches cake and flan.
A corner close to City Hall's new home
Location was part of the pitch when 11 Elm Street sold. The seller's broker told The Daily News the building is "right next door to where the new City Hall will be, it's right there at the rotary and in downtown."
The city is moving City Hall to One Market Square, the former BankProv headquarters. According to a City of Amesbury update, the purchase closed June 30, 2025, and some departments were set to stay at 62 Friend Street for a while. The Daily News reported a $3.15 million price, with BankProv leasing back about 4,000 to 5,000 square feet for 10 years.
With City Hall heading to Market Square, more daytime foot traffic is coming to the rotary. A building with a lunch menu downstairs and an evening bar upstairs can serve that crowd from midday through the evening.
Before you go
- Address: 11 Elm St., downtown Amesbury, at the rotary.
- Menus: The lunch, dinner and 1874 snack menus, plus the daily "Today's" menus, are on lowandslowkitchen.com. Some dishes change from day to day.
- Hours: Check the restaurant's website for current hours for both floors before you head over.
- Private events: The 1874 Bourbon Room takes private party bookings through the restaurant's party page, and catering is available for events outside the restaurant.
For more than 40 years, 11 Elm Street had one owner, and in that time its tenants included Bossie's Restaurant and, most recently, Hoppy's Cantina. Now both floors are open, and the upstairs that could have been offices is named after the building's own year.
At The Barnes Team, we follow how Amesbury's downtown buildings change hands and what moves into them, because each new tenant changes what's within walking distance of the homes nearby. If you live near the rotary and want to know how this corner's new life affects your home's value, start with an instant home valuation and we'll go through the local details with you.
