Daily Provisions Back Bay Opens Nov. 4 on Boylston Street

Photo: Gunnar Klack, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (file photo, April 2014, cropped). The former New England Mutual Life Insurance Building (right), seen from Newbury and Berkeley streets; the new café is on the building’s Boylston Street side.

Daily Provisions Back Bay is set to open Wednesday, Nov. 4, at 501 Boylston St., on the eastern edge of Copley Square, The Boston Globe reported. The all-day café from Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group, the New York company behind Gramercy Tavern and Shake Shack, becomes its third shop in Greater Boston, after Harvard Square and the Seaport.

For a stretch of Boylston that fills up with office workers, shoppers and Copley Square visitors every weekday morning, that means one more place to grab coffee, a cruller and an egg sandwich on the way in, and a roast chicken to carry home at night.

What’s Opening at 501 Boylston Street

The café takes a storefront in the big office building that New England Mutual Life Insurance Company opened as its headquarters in 1941, on land it bought from MIT in 1937, according to MIT’s archives. Its gold-domed clock tower is easiest to spot from a block or so away, as a local history blog on the building notes; it now goes by The Newbry.

The space most recently held a Pret A Manger, Hoodline reported in May, citing Boston Restaurant Talk, which first spotted the plan. At the time, a company representative told What Now Boston the Back Bay shop was on track to open in fall 2026.

The café has already started introducing itself to the block. It hosted a free Halloween party with a DJ and a “Cruller Patch” photo spot on Saturday, Oct. 31, from noon to 4 p.m., according to The Boston Calendar’s listing, which billed the new café as opening in early November.

One caution for early birds: as of Nov. 1, the Back Bay page on Daily Provisions’ website still said “Coming soon” and did not list hours. Check it before you plan a first-day breakfast around it.

The Menu: Crullers, Egg Sandwiches and Roast Chicken

Daily Provisions grew out of the kitchen at Union Square Cafe in New York in 2017, What Now Boston reported, and it is best known for its crullers. The Globe summed up the Back Bay plan as all-day breakfast, crullers, picnic-ready sandwiches and, true to the name, provisions to take home.

The Back Bay menu posted on the company’s site lists cinnamon and maple crullers at $4.95 each and a seasonal pumpkin spice cruller with toasted pumpkin seeds at $5.95. The signature breakfast order is The Lumberjack ($12.50), a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich built on a maple cruller instead of a roll. A plain bacon, egg and cheese is $9.50, and The Goldilox, smoked salmon with cucumber and red onion on an everything croissant, is $15.

Lunch runs to sandwiches such as herb chicken salad ($13), a chicken Milanese on ciabatta ($15.75) and a patty melt on seeded rye ($15), plus salads like a kale Caesar ($13) and a salmon Niçoise ($18.50). In the evening, the draw is roast chicken: $16 for a half bird, $26 for a whole one, or a $49 dinner that pairs a whole chicken with three sides, such as mashed potatoes, roasted carrots or Brussels sprouts with chili honey.

The Harvard Square and Seaport pages also show a beer and wine list. The Back Bay page does not show one yet, so it isn’t clear whether drinks beyond coffee will be served from day one.

Daily Provisions Back Bay at a Glance

Boylston Street’s Busy Fall

The opening is part of a run of new arrivals on and just off Boylston this fall. LPM Restaurant & Bar opened Sept. 24 in the Four Seasons Hotel One Dalton Street, and Zhu, a Chinese dim sum and seafood spot, moved into the old Lir space at 903 Boylston, as we covered in our roundup of new Boston restaurants for October. For the rest of the week’s comings and goings, see our latest Boston restaurant openings and closings.

Daily Provisions isn’t new to the area. The Harvard Square café sits at One Brattle Square in Cambridge, and the Seaport café is at 200 Seaport Blvd. on Commonwealth Pier. Both are open every day from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., according to the company. If you’re near the Cambridge one, our guide to Harvard Square cheap eats has more budget picks nearby.

Why It Matters for Copley Square

A café that serves a sit-down breakfast sandwich in the morning and a whole roast chicken for takeout after work fills a space in between. It also gives Back Bay a branch of a brand many Boston diners already know from Cambridge and the waterfront. We’ll update this story with hours once the café posts them.

Sources

• The Boston Globe: Saus will close in December; plus, Daily Provisions arrives in Back Bay (Oct. 23, 2026)
• Daily Provisions: Back Bay location and menu
• Daily Provisions: Harvard Square location and hours
• Daily Provisions: Seaport location and hours
• What Now Boston: Daily Provisions to open new café in Boston’s Back Bay
• Hoodline: Daily Provisions to open Back Bay café at 501 Boylston (May 9, 2026)
• The Boston Calendar: Daily Provisions x Grubhub Spooky Social (Oct. 31, 2026)
• The Next Phase Blog: The New England Mutual Life Insurance Building
• MIT Libraries ArchivesSpace: New England Mutual Life Insurance Company materials about MIT’s Boston campus