Today [April 2009], there is no activity at this location, the corner of Highland Avenue and First Street, not far from the northbound ramp from Route I-95/Route 128. A dumpster has been placed in the parking lot beside the former Ground Round Restaurant. Before Ground Round, though, it was a Howard Johnson's Restaurant, which had lasted into the 1980s.
According to an article on Boston.com, the restaurant was around in the 1950s. This stretch of Boston's (and the U.S.'s) first circumferential highway, Route 128, was opened around 1952 (this portion is now I-95/Route 128). Thus, Howard Johnson's had to have been opened any time from 1952-1959. The article mentioned that this was a popular place at that time.
This Howard Johnson's lasted up to January, 1988, when it was closed and the building remodeled into a new restaurant, Brambles, which, according to a Needham Times article, was scheduled to be open in May, 1988. This didn't last very long. A few years later (at the moment, I could not find out when), the restaurant was converted again, this time to a Ground Round restaurant.
In 2004, the Ground Round Company went into bankruptcy and the corporate-owned restaurants were closed. A group of franchise-owners grouped together and bought out the parent company and continued to operate under the new ownership. The Needham restaurant was one such operation and it continued for several more years. However, in July, 2008, it suddenly ceased operations (see the link to the Newton tab article). The reason given was that it just could not handle the increase in food prices as a smallish chain operation.
Whatever the restaurant will be next, it will not likely be a Howard Johnson's or any related operation.
I had spent time after high school and other times at this restaurant. I believe that the architectural style was Colonial, but I could not find any pictures either online or in the Needham Public Library.
Sources:
Boston.com Article on Needham Restaurants:
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Wikipedia Article on Route 128:
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Wikipedia Article on Ground Round:
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WickedLocal.com/Newton Tab Article about the Closing of Ground Round:
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Ground Round Web Site:
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Print Source: "HoJo's Restaurant to Adopt New Look, New Name," Needham Times, December 3, 1987.