Restaurants

The Blue Caboose is serving cold brew, ice cream, and sundaes from a historic caboose in East Boston.

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For years, East Boston residents walking along the Mary Ellen Welch Greenway passed the same sight: a bright blue train car sitting empty and covered in graffiti.

Today, that caboose is serving cold brew, ice cream, and sundaes. 

Local entrepreneurs Troy Retzer and Liz Kelley opened The Blue Caboose ice cream and coffee shop on June 3 after spending five years renovating the city-owned train car and navigating a lengthy process of permitting, construction, and infrastructure challenges. 

“I had never dreamed of having an ice cream shop,” Retzer said. But after years of passing the abandoned train car, the shop became something Retzer “wanted personally” in his community and will hopefully “activate the entire area.”

The caboose sits on the Mary Ellen Welch Greenway, near Boston’s waterfront. In the 19th century, a train car served as a kitchen for dockworkers at the East Boston piers. As shipping operations turned to trucking in the 1950s, a similar bright blue caboose was left behind and remained largely untouched for decades.

In 2021, Retzer approached the City of Boston, which owns the 1940s-era train car, about allowing a business to operate inside the structure. Later that year, he and Kelley won the rights to the space through a public bidding process. 

Retzer invited Kelley, owner of Travel Mug Cafe, to be his partner on the project after years of enjoying coffee from her mobile business.

Neither anticipated how complicated the renovation would become. 

The train car was “dilapidated” and covered in graffiti with bunk beds and the original steel stove still inside. Utility connections proved especially challenging. City blueprints often inaccurately reported the location of nearby sewage, electric, and water hookups and the closest hookups turned out to be a few blocks away. 

Construction halted every winter, while meetings with city officials were held biweekly or monthly.

“It was just a lot of figuring things out as we went,” Kelley said. 

When faced with continued renovation challenges, Kelley reminded Retzer that The Blue Caboose was becoming “the little engine that could.” 

In April 2023, the pair announced the project on Instagram. “Our hearts are full to be able to restore a historical piece of Boston and bring a new gathering place to the community,” the post said. 

Since then, the community has been eagerly awaiting its opening, often commenting on years old posts begging for an update. Kelley said the long timeline turned the project into something of a local legend as community members were unsure it would actually open. 

Despite only a day’s notice of the opening on Instagram, the line was down the block at several points. They sold 350 ice cream cones that day alone. 

“We opened as fast as we were able to,” Kelley said. 

The community’s response to the opening was “overwhelming,” Kelley said. The “whole [first] weekend was very packed.”

“The support around the community and just seeing how excited everyone is for it has just been unbelievable,” Retzer said. 

The Blue Caboose offers the Travel Mug Cafe’s popular cold brew, matcha, iced tea, and ice cream sundaes and chipwiches with flavors including black bear, coffee cookies and cream, and salted caramel chocolate pretzel. 

Retzer, who works full time in software development and self-funded the project, said opening day felt like the culmination of years of work. 

There were “a lot of sleepless nights” and “a lot of frustrations,” he said. Now, Retzer gets to “sit back and celebrate.” 

Kelley and Retzer hope to host a grand opening with Mayor Michelle Wu in the coming weeks, Kelley said. A larger celebration will likely have to wait until construction on the surrounding greenway is completed. 

The ongoing project is expected to bring benches and cafe-style seating, and a community garden near the caboose, according to city construction plans. Kelley and Retzer plan to mark that completion with a larger celebration when the the caboose reopens next season.