CORNER CAFE OPENS: At the former site of the Stoughton Coffee Shop, The Corner Cafe opened Monday morning, February 27. Located at the corner of School Street and Canton Street, the small spot is looking to attract a crowd serving good food with an excellent presentation.

Owners Melanie Cobb and Ed Wormald will be serving breakfast and lunch everyday. Ed told About Town, "We just want to pay the bills and make sure our customers leave happy. We're going to serve fresh, quality food. We'd like to move to a bigger space eventually."

Cobb told me, "We wanted to create a warm, friendly and comfortable place. It's decorated to be inviting and warm, like when you go to visit a friend. The food is all fresh and homemade. Ed is a fabulous cook. He enjoys making people happy with his food.”

Ed and Melanie are the parents of Stoughton High grad, TV and film dancer and actor Kenny Wormald ("Footloose"), as well as Dylan (8th grader at OMS) and Lee (Senior at SHS).

The Corner Cafe was previously Best Pals, and 79 Canton Street has a long history in the town, tracing back to a variety store and coffee shop decades ago that was known as "little Town Hall." (Remember J.DeVito and Company?)

Specialties at the new Corner Cafe include Corner Corned Beef Platter (3 eggs, homemade corned beef hash, home fries, toast and hollandaise sauce) for $9.25 and Combo Platter (2 eggs any style, 2 pancakes or French toast, 2 bacon or sausage or 1 ham, and home fries) for $8.

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L.A. FITNESS OPENS WEDNESDAY: L.A. Fitness, a national fitness chain, will open a branch adjacent to the Target Store and across from T.G.I. Friday's Restaurant on Hawes Way, off Route 139, in Stoughton. Nick Calla is the new General Manager of the expansive facility, which opens on Leap Day, Wednesday, February 29.

This is the fifth L.A. Fitness location in Massachusetts. The closest is the one in Walpole. This will be L.A. Fitness's 538th location in the United States, including the 174 locations they purchased from Bally Total Fitness. Based on membership numbers alone, L.A. Fitness is the largest chain in the United States, according to Calla. Taylor Long is the District Vice President who covers all of the Massachusetts locations, and two in Connecticut.

The Stoughton branch features five racquetball courts, a full length pool, a co-ed Jacuzzi that seats 10-12, a spinning room with 40 bikes, a large group exercise room, a juice bar, and a Kids Klub (a child care center, open seven days a week from 8 a.m. to noon, and also weekdays from 4-8 p.m.).

The club is opening with five personal trainers, and hopes to expand to 15. The Saugus L.A. Fitness location has 16,000 members. The Stoughton Club would love to reach those types of numbers.

The club is huge, and features three or four of each of the dozens of Life Fitness machines, as well as free weights. All the cardio equipment (with individual TV's) is located upstairs. Downstairs are the free weights, and exercise machines.

Unlike Stoughton Old Colony YMCA location, which offers indoor and outdoor pools, camp, pre-school and after school care, L.A. Fitness is looking for adults, and limits memberships to those 14 and over. Mom and dads with young children are invited to work out and leave the kids at Kids Klub.

Photos provided by L.A. Fitness are from similar locations, not from the actual Stoughton location. They would not allow me to take photos inside the building.

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FAMILY DOLLAR OPENS EXPANDED NEW LOCATION: Family Dollar has opened at 525 Washington Street, in the space formerly occupied by Royal Buffet Chinese Restaurant and Kidsports on Route 138.

Family Dollar operates over 6,500 stores in a contiguous 44-state area ranging northeast to Maine, southeast to Florida, as far northwest as Idaho and southwest to Arizona.

Family Dollar had a previous Stoughton location—much smaller in size—adjacent to the STOYAC Community Football Field, behind the Citizens Bank Plaza.

This new expanded location is open Monday through Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

No information is available on management, and no one inside the store was able to give me any information on the place. Queries to the PR Department at Family Dollar went unanswered. (I'll stick with the Dollar Tree near T.J. Maxx in Stoughton.)

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HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY: To Jim Derochea, former Little League Manager and Director, and Director of Client Services at DG3/Vertex Pharmaceuticals; health administrator Debra Falco, and former Finance Committee member Debbie Levine. They all celebrated Monday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TODAY: To School Committee member Deborah Sovinee.

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