The town of Needham was quiet on Monday. The usually busy roads and town center were deserted except for an occasional car and crews clearing streets and sidewalks.
But a few businesses opened, braving the blizzard to provide food and some essential services for residents and the snowplow crews. The Observer ventured out on foot along Chestnut Street to check in with some of them.
“I was driving around — this was the only place I found,” one plow driver said while taking a break at McDonald’s. He was eating lunch with a team who had been on the job more than 14 hours, since 10 p.m. Sunday, handling the route around the high school and Memorial Park. The McDonald’s supervisor said he came in at 5 a.m. from Chelmsford to open the restaurant, mainly to serve workers. Although he had a small staff because many of his employees couldn’t get there, he planned to stay open as long as possible.
At the nearby Dunkin’, district manager Elizabeth Moreira came in from Framingham at 4:30 a.m. “People need to have their coffee!” She said the other Dunkin’ shops in town were also open, and as of noon she said they were serving about 10-15 people per hour. She expected to stay open until it was easier to drive home.
Grocery stores Roche Brothers and Sudbury Farms also opened for limited hours.
Needham Garden & Hardware was serving a different need. “The primary reason we’re open is to support people who are snowblowing and need parts,” said Gary Graham, father of store owner Garrett Graham. The senior Graham lives in Needham, and said his son stayed at his home Sunday night so he’d be close by to plow out and open the store in the morning.
As he was speaking a customer came to the counter to buy pins for his snowblower.
“We sold two snowblowers today,” said Graham.
A few minutes later a customer named Luke arrived at the store on cross country skis. “I need to buy a part for my father’s snowblower!”
“If we can help them, we help them,” said Graham.
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