Walk down Washington Street past the old Juicygreens storefront this month and you'll see the paper still up in the windows, the kind that means something's coming but isn't quite ready. What's coming isn't a new concept trying to find its footing in Westwood. It's a business old enough that its founder was scooping cones in Hyde Park when the Ford Pinto was still a new car.
Ron's Gourmet Ice Cream is opening its third location at 305 Washington Street, in the space Juicygreens vacated on June 30, 2026. That alone would be a decent bit of neighborhood news. But look at what else sits on that same short stretch of Islington Center and a pattern starts to show up that most people driving through never notice: this corner of Westwood doesn't attract test kitchens. It attracts businesses that have already proven themselves somewhere else first.
Fifty Years, Three Locations, One New Address
Ron Covitz opened the original Ron's Ice Cream & Bowling on Hyde Park Avenue in 1976. That makes 2026 the shop's fiftieth year, and by coincidence or design, it's turning into the busiest expansion year in the company's history. The Dedham Square location, added in 1999, just finished a major renovation and reopened in late May 2026. That same year, the Westwood Select Board approved a new Common Victualler license for a third location in Islington, a detail Select Board chair Marianne LeBlanc Cummings mentioned in a Westwood Media Center video before most people had noticed the paper going up in the windows. The business is now run by Ron's son, Jay, and the announcement that went out on social media kept things simple:
"Our THIRD location is in the works!"
No mention of candlepin lanes at the new spot, which tracks. The Hyde Park original still pairs ice cream with a ten-lane bowling alley, but nobody's expecting bowling shoes in a storefront sized for scoops and a sidewalk line.
What's Actually Sitting in the Juicygreens Space Right Now
Here's the part worth knowing before you plan a special trip. As of this week, the online ordering page for the new Ron's location already lists the Islington address, 305 Washington Street, but it's not taking orders. The site shows the location, then tells you it's closed. That's a pattern typical of a health inspection or a staffing ramp-up in the final weeks before a Massachusetts food service opening, not a sign anything's stalled. Coverage back in July pointed to a late-summer target. Late summer in New England runs through the equinox in late September, so there's still a real window left, but if you're timing a cone run around a specific date, call ahead or check the order page before you drive over.
Juicygreens, for what it's worth, isn't gone from the region. The chain closed its Washington Street spot but still runs seven other locations across Greater Boston serving cold-pressed juices and smoothies. This wasn't a business failing. It was a seven-location wellness brand deciding this particular storefront wasn't worth keeping, and a fifty-year-old family creamery deciding it was.
The Rest of the Block Isn't Exactly New Either
If Ron's were the only old name showing up in Islington Center, this would just be a nice story about one ice cream shop. It's not the only one.
Islington Pizza and Sub Shop has been at 315 Washington Street since December 1995, opened by the Tassiopoulos family of Dedham and still run today by Maria Tassiopoulos. That's thirty-one years on the same block, longer than most of the businesses that have opened and closed around it. A few doors down, Neroli Ristorante has built its menu around veal parm and orecchiette with a stated goal of feeling like a meal your grandmother made, not a concept chasing a trend. Up on High Street, north of the Center proper, Bar 'Cino runs a weekend spritz menu and a standing Tuesday night dinner special, the kind of steady, repeatable programming that comes from a business that already knows its regulars rather than one still figuring out who they are.
None of these are franchise units testing a market. They're businesses with a track record choosing to plant themselves, or stay planted, on this specific stretch of Washington Street.
Why This Corner Keeps Attracting Longevity Instead of Chasing It
This isn't an accident of geography. Islington Center has been the subject of a formal town revitalization push since the Board of Selectmen created the Islington Center Task Force back in 2015, a fourteen-member group of town officials, board representatives, and Islington business owners tasked with figuring out how to bring the village center back to life. That effort eventually produced the Islington Center Redevelopment Project, which added a CVS anchor, new condominiums, and a renovated Wentworth Hall housing the Islington Branch Library. The town spent more than a decade laying the groundwork for exactly this kind of infill.
What's interesting is what actually showed up to fill it. A decade of municipal planning didn't produce a wave of chain retail. It produced conditions where an established Hyde Park ice cream shop felt confident enough to bet on a third location, in a village center small enough that everybody already knows the pizza place has been there since Clinton's first term.
If you live in Westwood, that's the real takeaway here, more than any single storefront opening. Islington Center's food scene isn't building itself from scratch. It's importing proof of concept, one long-running Boston-area name at a time.
What's Actually Open on the Block Right Now
For anyone planning an evening walk through the Center this month, here's what's already up and running while the new scoop shop finishes its final stretch:
- Islington Pizza and Sub Shop, 315 Washington Street, open daily except Sunday, family-run since 1995
- Neroli Ristorante, Islington Center, Italian dinner service with private event bookings
- Bar 'Cino, High Street, weekend spritz menu Saturdays and Sundays from 11:30 to 3:30, Tuesday night dinner special
And once Ron's flips its order page back on, you'll have a fourth stop within easy walking distance of the other three, no car required if you're already in the neighborhood.
If this stretch of Islington ever has you thinking past the sidewalk and toward what it might look like to actually live on one of these streets, that's a different conversation, and one Edward Gaeta has walked plenty of Westwood buyers and sellers through, from a free market valuation to a 24-hour cash offer if speed matters more than the open house. Until then, save room for a cone.
