When did you last buy a coffee at the corner of Water Street and Edgell Road without getting gas too? The Dunkin inside the old Gulf station closed when that building was torn down in May 2023. Since then, the rebuilt intersection has added a larger pharmacy, a new gas station, a craft beer bar and a trading card shop. The café is still on its way.
That order says something about the Nobscot rebuild. The corner filled in by time of day. Errands came first, evenings came next, then weekends, and mornings are coming last. As of October 4, 2026, Cape Cod Coffee's Framingham listing still says "Coming Soon."
The errands came back first
The rebuild began years before anyone poured a beer. Here is the order, using dates from the volunteer-run Nobscot Neighbors history page:
- 2021: A new CVS opened on the corner of Water Street and Edgell Road, on the former site of the chapel. It is much larger than the CVS that sat in the old Nobscot Shopping Center.
- June 2022: The Nobscot Shopping Center was demolished.
- April 2023: Ground was broken on Nobscot Village, a three-story mixed-use building with 158 apartments and about 10,000 square feet of ground-floor retail facing Water Street.
- May 2023: The Gulf station and its convenience store, Dunkin included, came down on the southwest corner of Edgell and Edmands roads.
- March 2024: Nouria Energy opened a new gas station and convenience store on that corner.
Five years after the CVS opened, the prescription, the gas and the quick convenience-store stop all had new buildings. Before 2026, though, the new ground floor at 770 Water Street had nobody to sit and stay with. The project was expected to finish by early 2025, and storefronts took longer than that.
Then the evenings
The first tenant to open was a beer bar. Boston Restaurant Talk reported on Tuesday, March 31, 2026 that The Brass Tap was already running at Nobscot Village. It had soft-opened that Monday and Tuesday and planned full hours from Wednesday.
The hours show what the bar is built for. According to The Brass Tap's Framingham page, it opens at 11:30 a.m. every day. It closes at 10:30 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday, at 11 p.m. on Thursday and at midnight on Friday and Saturday. No other storefront on the corner stays open that late. The bar sits in Suite 4 at 770 Water Street, and its location page already lists October 2026 events.
For six months, the bar was the corner's only sit-down spot. It anchored the evenings, and the corner had no morning counterpart yet.
Then the weekends
The second storefront aims at Saturdays. Monmouth Trading Cards held its Framingham grand opening on Friday, September 25. Visitors could spin a prize wheel with no purchase required. On Saturday, September 26, Red Sox player Mickey Gasper signed autographs from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. for anyone who spent $50 or more. A community trade night ran Sunday, September 27, from 2 to 6 p.m.
According to Monmouth's store locator, the shop is open every day from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Collectors who come for trade nights stay a while, and that is a different kind of foot traffic from a pharmacy run.
Here is where the three named storefronts stand as of October 4, 2026:
| Storefront | What it is | Status as of Oct. 4, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| The Brass Tap | Craft beer bar, Suite 4 | Open since late March 2026, until midnight on weekends |
| Monmouth Trading Cards | Trading cards and collectibles | Grand opening weekend Sept. 25 to 27, open daily 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. |
| Cape Cod Coffee | Café and roaster | Locator says "Coming Soon" and "Opening Early October" |
The morning shift is the one running behind
Cape Cod Coffee was first. It was the first of the three tenants to pull a building permit, and the last to open. In April, What Now Boston reported that the Mashpee-based roaster had pulled a permit for 770 Water Street and was planning to open in August. The MetroWest Daily News followed with its own report in May. August came and went, and the company's locations page now says "Opening Early October." Today is October 4, so that window has just opened. Nothing we found confirms an opening day yet.
The café is a big step for the brand. Cape Cod Coffee was founded in 1970 and has built its name on small-batch roasting. It sources beans from growers in 12 countries, and its blends carry Fair Trade and Rainforest Alliance certifications. Nobscot will be its sixth location and its first café in Greater Boston. CEO Jan Aggerbeck told What Now Boston that the company is "opening several new locations off Cape this year."
The menu could cover more than mornings. Each location's food menu is a little different, from pastries, light bites and salads to sandwiches, wraps, burgers, wings and pizza. The drinks list includes lattes, cappuccinos, chai and smoothies. If Framingham gets the heavier end of that range, the café could cover lunch too. It would fill the hours between Monmouth opening at 10 and The Brass Tap opening at 11:30.
A bus now stops at the corner's doorstep
The storefronts got more reachable around the same time. MetroWest Regional Transit Authority launched new routes on Tuesday, September 8. When the routes were announced in August, buses were free. Two of the new routes serve Edmands House in Nobscot, according to Framingham District 2:
- Route 301 runs from Edmands House along Water Street to Concord and A streets. From there it goes up Old Connecticut Path and down West Plain Street to the Route 9 and Route 27 shopping plaza, ending at the Natick Center commuter rail station. Buses come less than once an hour.
- Route 203 runs from the McAuliffe Library branch to the Natick Mall. It stops at Edmands House, Framingham Centre Common, Framingham State University's McCarthy Center, Sherwood Plaza and Shoppers World.
MWRTA lets riders flag down a bus anywhere along the route, not only at posted stops. Maps and timetables are at mwrta.com/redesign. With service this infrequent, check the timetable before you plan a trip around it. Still, Water Street now has a direct bus that links the Nobscot storefronts to a commuter rail station.
The trail is the piece still years away
The last link is the slowest. In September 2023, the city bought the right-of-way for the abandoned CSX rail line through Nobscot. That corridor has been planned for more than 20 years as the southern end of the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail.
At a community meeting in late June 2026, the city presented a 25% design for the first phase, which runs from the Sudbury section to Frost Street. A second phase is expected to continue from Frost Street to Route 9, after the state Department of Transportation asked the city to split the project in two. The official public hearing will likely be in December. The current schedule puts 75% design in March 2027, full design in August 2027 and project readiness in May 2028. State construction funding has slipped from 2029 to 2030. Framingham Director of Planning and Community Development Sarkis Sarkisian said he was angry about the delay, and the mayor plans to lobby for earlier funding.
On that schedule, the corner will have had its café for several years before anyone can walk or bike to it on the trail. For this fall, the open questions are smaller. When will Cape Cod Coffee unlock its door, and which of the roughly 10,000 square feet of Water Street retail will fill next?
If you own near the Nobscot corner, the new pharmacy, gas station, beer bar, card shop and café are all part of what your home sits next to now. Mike Reece and The Reece Team follow changes like these across Framingham. If you'd like to know how they factor into your home's value, request a home valuation and we'll walk you through it.
