Sometimes, it seems, one makes the best decisions when there’s not much time to think about it.
That was certainly true for Matt Wood, who found himself losing an automotive job about seven years ago – one that he held for 16 years.
“My wife’s like, ‘do something else,’” he recalls, “I said, OK, I want to open a coffee shop, so I just started that.”
It’s a people-centered business, whose founder used to love working behind the counter and hearing customers greet him by name.
That is reflected in the people he hires – happy people – because those are the people skills he feels can’t be taught and is just as welcoming to people who like to work or hold meetings in his shops. So far, the business is making fixtures of some of his regulars.
“We have a lot of people who come in every single day,” Wood said. “We have a guy who’s writing a book who comes in every day and just sits at the counter and does his research and writing. That’s what [the shop] is here for.”
It’s a can-do attitude that is in synch with how this small business chain was born and was among those few businesses that enjoyed expansion during the COVID pandemic.
“We opened two shops during the pandemic, in Whitman and Bridgewater,” he said. Some of that was luck of location as the Better Bean in Bridgewater center had closed, during COVID and never reopened. Since Wood had already rented space for his photography studio from the same landlord, on the third floor of the same building, he called as soon as he heard the Bean was not reopening.
“I told him we need to take the space,” Wood said. The place needed a lot of work, but he got it done and finds the shop is something of a magnet for the Bridgewater State University community, especially.
He opened his first Restoration Coffee business as a corner counter in the Bostonian Barbershop in Whitman in 2017 and recently opened his latest shop in a new mixed-use apartments and commercial property at 999 Main St., in Hanson. He left the Bostonian during COVID when occupancy regulations would not allow the coffee counter to stay and Hanson embodies the most recent growth.
“I’ve been waiting for a while for this, but I’m glad it’s all done,” he said of the property investment. “Once we got the OK to start putting stuff in here, we were open about two weeks later.” He had already been accumulating the equipment he needed. “My whole basement was full of everything,” he said.
The Steve Egan development replaced the burned-out remains of a former dress shop torched during a string of South Shore arson cases about a decade ago, an abandoned, building where a construction firm used to be and the vacant house where “The Whole Scoop” ice cream parlor had also been located at 965 Main St.
The coffee shop business is not Wood’s first career change. He had also been a wedding photographer for six years at one point.
“I was always meeting with customers in coffee shops,” he said. “I always liked that whole vibe. It’s kind of like that ‘Cheers’ thing with ‘everybody knows your name,’ and they come in every day.”
Wood still has locations in East Bridgewater, the Bridgewater common area and Whitman center.
It took a little while to get the Whitman location, he said.
“The owner of that, who also owns this, would come into the East Bridgewater shop during COVID, telling me ‘I’ve got a spot for you, I’ve got a spot for you.’” Wood recalled. But at the time, he wasn’t ready for that leap and he had been trying to get a spot in Hanson in the plaza where Shaw’s is located. A non-competition clause in the plaza owner’s agreement with Shaw’s, which also sells baked goods, ended that quest.
“I called Steve and said, ‘Let’s just do it,’” he said.
It was the first location he’s moved into that didn’t require work on an older building, such as straightening walls, and the apartments on the upper floors were already rented out. Egan is building another similar business at 965 Main St.
“I’m glad that Steve built this,” Wood said. “The place looks beautiful and he did such a good job.”
Wood said there were Hanson residents who were upset about losing the house where The Whole Scoop had been, but noted there were no takers even after Egan offered the house free of cost to anyone who wanted to move it.
“The people that owned the house were going to do something like this,” he added. “They were going to knock it down.”
Egan has built a similar project in Whitman center, where Supreme Pizza, Whitman Wellness Center and John Russell Studio have moved.
When Wood started his business, it was just coffee, and finding a name was the first order of business.
“It’s wild, trying to figure out business names,” he said. “Every single name’s been taken. He hit on Restoration Coffee because it’s a beverage that restores you.
“Coffee brings you back to life, but also both the Whitman and Bridgewater shops both needed full rehabs before you could do anything – like a full restoration.”
When they added a menu, they started out easy with toasts and simple fare, and chicken salad sandwiches adding what they’ve wanted to the menu as they go along.
Much of that took place during the pandemic when business was slow.
“We were all very tight and [at times] were just hanging around for hours, waiting for people to come in,” Wood said. “It was so slow, so that was when we ended up kind of experimenting with things, going with cravings and stuff like that.”
One of those sandwiches, the Marley, leads some customers to wonder if there’s “something different” in it, he said with a laugh.
“It’s got [tomato] jam,” he said. “We have a food team now, that makes all the sauces, the tomato jam and things like that.” Most of that, as well as the bean roasting is done out of the Whitman shop at the corner of Washington and Temple streets and distributed to the other locations. The muffins are baked on-premises in each shop.
They buy green coffee beans from Colombia, Ethiopia and Guatemala through a supplier in Rhode Island who, in turn, deals directly with the farmers. Then Restoration roasts their own beans.
At the very beginning he used another roasting company, but before long Wood started roasting his own coffee.“I watched every YouTube video [on coffee roasting] I could possibly find and read every book I could on roasting,” he said.
The décor is practically identical in each shop, bowing only to differences in the lay of the floor plan. The tables and chairs are something of a logo and he builds all the main counter tops and even paints the sign affixed to the front counter in each shop.
“I’d like to have 10, but that makes it that much more of a headache,” he said of his ultimate goal for the business, he said, adding it is “just a number at this point.
Stay tuned.

NORWELL – Though it’s been a program that had a slow start, the Plymouth County Comfort Dog Program has quicky gained advocates as one by one, police departments have gone to the dogs.
District Attorney Timothy Cruz developed the program to offer additional services to county communities, providing emotional support for the well-being of drug endangered children, students with adverse childhood experiences, and others in need of emotional support in the county community.
“The schools, to me are really [important] now, as our kids are facing challenges that they’ve never faced before, whether it be from COVID issues, mental health issues,” Cruz said in his opening remarks at the event. “The kids were locked out for a while. Now they’re coming back, and a lot of schools are dealing with a lot of issues with the kids. The dogs have been a tremendous asset.”
Hingham was the first town to adopt the program, seeing some initial reluctance from the School Committee, but was quickly warmed to by educators who have seen its value in action. Now there are 14 departments employing the program.
Cruz credited the success of Hingham Chief David P. Jones and resource officer Tom Ford in really getting the program going a little over one year ago with that department’s first dog – Opry.
To celebrate that success, and provide more information about it, Cruz’ office held a meet and greet Wednesday, Nov. 8, featuring the dogs and their handling officers at JBS Dog Park at 106 Longwater Drive in Norwell. There was pizza, soda and cake for the humans and all-natural specialty dog biscuits provided by Polkadog Bakery in Boston.
But first, there was some mingling on the part of both officers and canines.
As Hanson therapy dog Ziva rolled over for belly rubs from handler and school resource officer Derek Harrington and Chief Michael Miksch, Hingham’s Opry, a mix-breed rescued from a Southern kill shelter, showed off her skateboard skills a bit with Ford. But, as more dogs arrived, Opry gave the skateboard a dismissive kick, sending it rolling back to bounce off a wall. The arrival of the aptly named Star, a harlequin Great Dane from the Plymouth County Sheriff’s Department, grabbed all their attention as she sauntered in with Dennis Desroches.
Miksch said he had some hesitation about the comfort dog program, but that Ford, in fact, was a huge help to Hanson’s adoption of it.
Concerns about funding and the union’s willingness to take on the project were soon discovered to be unfounded. As soon as he mentioned interest in the program, Hanson provided funding mid-year even though there was no budget for it.
“The next thing, somebody’s calling me saying, ‘Hey, can I deposit $1,000 to the town for the dog?’” Miksch said, adding that Deputy Chief Michael Casey raised the initial funding on top of Hanson’s grant money. The union also bought right in and overcame a rough start when their dog, Lucy, had to be euthanized due to a kidney ailment.
“We unfortunately lost our first dog, but the support from the community kind of brought back the impact that she had. There were a lot of messages, a lot of support. … Lucy was worth her weight in gold to us to start off and Ziva’s showing the same [qualities].”
The handlers are the ones who make the program successful, however, Miksch said.
“The dog, in a lot of ways is the easy part, but you need the right handler,” he said.
Harrington advised to those averse to dog hair, this program is not for you.
“But, they make lint rollers; it’s all good,” he said. “We all have stories about how this affects our school, our community, our kids.”
Ziva helps with kids who don’t want to go to school by walking with them to class, he said.
When a W-H student took their life last May, Harrington said he was able to call on several other officer/dog teams in the program to help.
“That happened late at night,” he said. “The school, and the kids – her friends – didn’t find out until they showed up at school the next day and it was a disaster, however we were prepared because we have this network of community resource dogs.
It helped a lot of kids get through the day and open up and talk and have those conversations that they didn’t want to have.”
Jones said Ford’s work with Opry at Hingham High School, too, has impressed just about everyone.
“Opry’s not only the most-recognized ‘person’ in the school, but also in my department,” Jones said. “The connection that’s been made with students at the high school has been incredible.”
She’s got a weird personality, Ford said, but that seems to appeal to students. He said if there is a negative to Opry it’s that he can’t go anywhere without her.
“If you show up someplace without the dog – leave and come back with the dog,” he said.
While the Hingham School Committee had some reluctance to agree to the program, results are speaking for themselves.
“It was a long road, but we’re having fun,” he said. Opry’s trainer makes time to go to the school the next day if there are any issues with the dog, Ford said. “The path is so much clearer [now] if you want to do this,” he advised departments considering the program.
In Halifax, Officer Paul Campbell is one of the newest participants in the program, having just completed the two weeks of training officers undergo with his dog, Roxie. They now transition to once-a-month in-service training.
“I participated in DARE Camp, and I saw the impact [the dogs had] on the children,” he said. “They loved the dogs. So that just attracted me to the program and how much it has a positive impact on children.”
He said Roxie, at six months, is an awesome dog.
“She has so much energy, a really good dog,” Campbell said. “I look forward to working in the community, getting in the schools and we’ve already had a big fundraiser.”
Plymouth County Sheriff Joseph D. McDonald Jr. spoke of the impact the dogs have on people’s lives – something, he said, anyone who grew up with dogs in their lives could understand, comparing it to the old expression, with negative connotations “going to the dogs.”
“Looking around here, I can say this – I think we’ve all gone to the dogs, but I want to thank you all for making that something positive,” he said.
Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office provides a mini grant to Plymouth County Police Departments to assist with costs associated with acquiring, training and caring for their comfort dog.
“The funding that we get – we’re able to utilize drug forfeit money, to put it back into our community – I think that makes a difference,” Cruz said.
Among the dog trainers on hand to speak about the program was Michael MacCurtain, owner of Hanson’s Five Rings training and day care business.
“The need [for the program] over the last several years has increased tremendously,” said MacCurtain, who worked on Whitman Fire for 20 years and had been asked to work with UMass Boston, Abington and Hanover in training their dogs. Working both on an ambulance crew and alongside law enforcement, he said the mental health of officers can also benefit from the dogs.
“We’d love to get them in all of our schools and also in our Boys’ and Girls’ Club,” Cruz said. “These dogs are making a difference.”

WHITMAN — A state policy change due to take effect March 1 would eliminate delivery of new vaccination doses for local fire departments and boards of health. It is meeting with near-universal criticism amid local officials and public safety personnel.

“It is highly premature to cut off the line of local vaccine doses, especially at this critical time,” said Whitman Fire Chief Timothy Grenno on Thursday, Feb. 18. “It cuts off a literal lifeline for many residents.”

Cutting off the supplies to the local clinics — operating for several weeks — showed a “gross lack of forethought” and is a waste of municipal time, energy and resources, he argued.

As state legislators, educators and representatives of more than a dozen Plymouth and Norfolk county police and fire departments and health boards looked on, Grenno sounded the alarm over the state’s mass vaccination program at the expense of local clinics. Holding a press conference at the Whitman Knights of Columbus on Bedford Street, officials expressed concern that the vulnerable elderly are especially being left behind.

“Since the Cold War, municipalities have been asked to plan and prepare for emergency situations,” said Grenno, who also serves as Whitman’s Emergency Management Agency director. “As a result, local leaders are uniquely qualified and trained to handle a situation such as the distribution of vaccines.”

State Sen. Mike Brady, D-Brockton, attending along with state Rep. Alyson Sullivan, R-Abington, and state Rep. Kathleen LaNatra, D-Plymouth, said he planned to meet with state Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders’ office later in the day to readdress the change.

He said regional legislators sent a letter to the Baker Administration expressing disagreement with the vaccination policy change because local communities have the personnel to handle the situation.

“Our chiefs today aren’t saying that the mass vaccine sites aren’t working, they’re saying that they need it here, locally,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan said the Baker administration counted on local health officials from the beginning of the pandemic and is now shutting them out.

LaNatra added that Kingston and Plymouth have been in talks with Mass DPH for a long time with “no straight answers” to set up a regional vaccination site at the Kingston Collection.

“We need to put this back local,” she said. “Our chiefs, our boards of health, know their community. They know who is housebound.”

LaNatra, whose first-responder husband has been able to receive his second dose of vaccine, but not all have been able to do so.

“It’s a big lack of supply and every other week they’re changing their mind,” Brady said of state officials.

“We’re not against the mass sites, we’re not against the pharmacies that are having these [clinics] as well,” Abington Fire Chief John Nutall said. “There’s definitely a need for that, however, they cannot cover all of our residents.”

He said the state cited a question of equity as a major factor in officials’ reason for the policy change, but noted a supply had been approved for a private health spa located in an exclusive country club.

“We’re not allowed to question why these decisions are made,” Nutall said. “It is time to question what is going on, so that we can get the vaccines to our residents that we know best.”

Grenno said there is no doubt that there is a need for regional vaccination efforts, especially in larger areas or areas more adversely impacted by COVID-19, but said they must work in connection with locally led health boards and first responders. It is especially crucial during Phase 2 of the distribution, when seniors ages 75 and older are inoculated.

Whitman has more than 950 residents over age 75, and Grenno’s department offered to help transport them to a mass vaccination site with all proper precautions.

“We’ll register you, we’ll hold your hand, we’ll walk you in, we’ll get you vaccinated and we’ll bring you home,” he said the department told them.

Less than 25 of them accepted that invitation because of fear or mobility problems, he said.

Four Whitman clinics had been scheduled, which would have vaccinated more than 500 of them. The clinics have all been cancelled because the state is denying the vaccinations.

“These individuals are the ones who should be asked to drive the least distance and be given the greatest access to quick and efficient vaccination sites,” Grenno said. “They’re our neighbors helping each other  … local clinics for the oldest and sickest population, offer a familiar, a comfortable and convenient location when people need it the most.”

Mass sites are difficult for some to get to, involve long lines and staffed by unfamiliar people, while at local clinics they would be greeted by local fire personnel and health agents and involve shorter lines.

Whitman-Hanson Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak said vaccinations for teachers and students are also a concern, especially since teachers would run the risk of missing a school day to travel to a mass vaccination site.

“It was surprising to me that our schools aren’t being used as mass vaccination sites,” Szymaniak said. “Our school nurses are available and ready to work with our local health agents and fire chiefs to provide vaccines not only to our 65-and over populations,  but sequentially, our teachers.”

He noted teachers have been moved down the priority list for vaccines.

He argued the change reflects either a significant policy change by the state or a major vaccine supply shortage coming to the state from the federal level.

“Either way, it is an issue that should be discussed and addressed,” he said.

Grenno also expressed concern about the status of the state’s online vaccination registration at VaxFinder, which crashed due to heavy demand at about 8:30 a.m. Feb. 18. The state’s 211 information line also went down that morning.

He said Whitman registers its elder residents, noting a lot of senior residents don’t even own a computer.

“We are prepared to provide local vaccine clinics,” said Medway Fire Chief Jeff Lynch, who is president of the Norfolk County Fire Chiefs Association. “We’ve done extensive planning, we’ve done significant investment in equipment and training for our firefighters.”

Lynch said fire personnel stand ready to bring the vaccine to homebound elders, but as of now, he is not aware of the plan to serve them.

Hanover Town Manager Joe Colangelo said his town has already invested $500 in federal CARES Act funds to build up a program to test residents and merge to vaccinations. Hanover Fire Chief Jeff Blanchard added that town’s frustration is palpable.

“We are prepared to do vaccinations, but we have no vaccine,” Blanchard said.

Abington Board of Health member Marty Golightly has vaccinated more than 200 75+ residents and has a plan in place to vaccinate shut-ins, asking only for the supplies to take care of his town’s own people.

Communities represented: Whitman fire and police departments, schools and town administrator, Hanson Fire Department and Board of Health, Abington Fire Department and Board of Health, Hanover Fire Department and Town Manager, Cohasset Fire Department, Duxbury Fire Department, East Bridgewater Fire Department, Halifax Fire Department, West Bridgewater Fire Department, Medway Fire Department and Board of Health, Plympton Fire Department State Representative, Canton, Stoughton Board of Health, Brookline Fire Department and Middleboro Fire Department.

Who is digging up the Pilgrims and why?

A new mystery novel asks that question through an historical “what-if” and a fictional grave-robbing case, as readers of author Rick Pontz’s “103 Pilgrims,” discover how decisions of our ancestors affect our lives today.

So far, real life is affecting the art.

Plymouth’s quadricentennial celebration has been pushed to 2021, but the book, published to coincide with the 400^th birthday has gone forward according to plan.

He said for visitors to the area, the book [$17.95, paperback, Hugo House Publishers, Austin, Texas] takes people around the town. Characters “dine” at real local restaurants or tourist things like whale watch boats and ferries. He promises his second novel will be using same kind of interactive scene referencing as Plymouth has delayed almost all the 400^th anniversary events until next year.

There is still a 400^th anniversary to tie into in 2021 — that of the first Thanksgiving, as linking with the city’s history has always been Pontz’s aim.

“That was the intent,” said Pontz about his debut detective novel set — naturally — in Plymouth has been on sale in the city and the founding Pilgrim settlement in 1620 following “a rumor that there’s more than 41 signers of the Mayflower Compact — but no one knows because the original Compact doesn’t exist. Or does it.”

Enter protagonist Tony Tempesta, retired Plymouth cop and uninsured private “advisor” who looks into problems for clients seeking a “solution.”

The novel’s opening chapter set aboard the Mayflower offers the what-if scenario of a stowaway on the ship.

“I was reading about the number of people of people on the Mayflower and ‘I thought, boy, that would really throw a monkey wrench into everything,’” he said.

The plot posits the effect of a stowaway, if there was something different about the stowaway and why would someone want to hide the person’s existence.

“About a year and a half ago, I said, ‘If I’m going to do this, I’m going to have to get this thing published,’ because of the 400^th anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims,” he recalled. He felt the publicity surrounding the event might help him sell the book.

What he describes as a “desperate” effort to get it published was fruitless until September 2019.

“The deal I made with them was that, if they published the book, and set it up and get everything prepared, I’m a shameless self-promoter and I would go out and promote it like you wouldn’t believe,” Pontz said. “I have been doing that.”

The Cape Cod Guide has printed an article about the book and Plymouth information centers have placed rack carts with his book on it and the See Plymouth website [seeplymouth.com] offers the links for three sources where the book can be purchased, as well an article about the novel. While it is sole nationally, Pontz has done about half his promotion in the Plymouth area.

Available on amazon.com since Feb. 11, the coronavirus interrupted plans for book signings set up in Plymouth, beginning in May, including an event that was to coincide with a wine tasting at the Plymouth Bay Winery. He is working on setting up some virtual author talk events, but has not done any yet because of the way the coronavirus caught everyone off guard.

Born in Holyoke, and a former Plymouth resident for 25 years after his family had moved to Michigan when he was about 6 years old, Pontz said many people he knew there hail from families who have lived there for five to seven generations. He attended Northeastern University before moving to Plymouth. His grown children still live in the Plymouth area.

“Therefore, I was considered a newbie,” he said in a recent YouTube interview for his publisher. “During the time I lived there, I heard all types of stories about people’s families, the history of the area, some of the nuances, some of the mysteries, some things that were said to be true but were never really written down.”

The novel, 12 years in the writing, Pontz began writing down things that reminded him of the area and stories about Plymouth that people told him over the years.

“I realized they didn’t make mush sense even after I put them together, so I tried to rewrite them,” Pontz said in the YouTube interview. He began to recognize that he “wasn’t a very good writer.”

He decided some creative writing courses were in order. Classes through Arizona State University and online programs near his Phoenix home — and reading other authors — put him on the path to finding his process.

When he is ready to write, Pontz said, he has a beginning in mind  and knows how it is going to end.

“The stuff in between is the interesting part to me,” he said. “When I read [novels], I see the beginning and I always wonder what’s going to happen next.”

Just as reading a good book can keep you awake, reading late at night, Pontz said writing one has the same effect. It often leads to rewrites.

“The book was written at least three times from beginning to end, and then I began rewriting again after I went back to school,”
he said. He is in writing classes again during the process of writing his follow-up novel.

Also set in Plymouth, it is titled “Blood on the Rock.”

“I’m actually trying to rewrite the book a little bit to include the ‘failed’ celebration, how hard that they worked to make it happen,” he said, noting that Hanson’s 200^th anniversary year has also been impacted. “The whole area’s been working on it.”

Plymouth held its first planning meeting for the quadricentennial 11 years ago, and started “pumping money into it” — $40 million worth — six years ago.