Harry's Restaurant

Worth the Wait Stop by and enjoy our menu full of classic American home style dishes. Sure, we get a bit fancy here and there, but only to make the food taste extra special.

Harry’s originally opened in Shrewsbury in 1946 and moved to a former gas station in Westborough in 1968. The restaurant and dairy bar are iconic in Westborough. It got started in 1946 by Harry Cohen from Worcester, MA. He used to be a house painter who was diagnosed at an early age with diabetes. The ladders became too heavy to carry and he needed to be in close proximity to food. He had always worked for himself so he decided to open a restaurant. He rented an old shack on Rt 9 in Shrewsberry, MA and started out with pastrami sandwiches. At that time it was called Harry’s Famous Hot Pastrami. He would line up rows of rye bread and being a painter, he would use a paint brush to paint each slice of bread with mustard. People lined up for his famous pastrami sandwiches. Then he followed with hand cut onion rings (devised of a homemade batter) and that too became a hit. The same recipe is still used today (it’s a seven step process). Harry started to slowly add more items to the menu including fried clams, fish & chips and scallops, all of which was hand painted on venetian blinds which he would switch to change between day and evening menus.

Gradually he added sandwiches, hot style diner food and a complete soda fountain with his famous frappes and hot fudge sundaes. This location stayed in tact through 1968 and eventually changed it’s name to Harry’s Restaurant & Dairy Bar. In 1969, he purchased an Esso gas station on Rt 9 in Westborough which is our current location.