‘I want to make this town better’: Grafton couple’s passion for community resulted in two popular eateries

By Evan Walsh
Contributing Writer

GRAFTON – For over a decade, Steve Belfiore embraced corporate life. His job – working in telephone sales at the height of the industry – offered him full benefits, a company car, and matching 401(k) contributions, after all.

But driving through Grafton, there was a restaurant-sized hole in his heart. When he congregated with out-of-town friends, everyone seemed to agree that Grafton needed an eatery, and Steve found himself eyeing the town’s abandoned buildings, looking for locales that could become a town gathering-place.

A property at the corner of Bridge Street and Worcester Street caught his eye.

“This was an opportunity – someone was going to do it,” he said.

That property, once home to the Bridge Street Bistro, eventually came up for auction. Nervous about a life-changing risk, Steve sat frozen in the auction’s parking lot, unable to make himself go inside. The building didn’t sell, so Steve wrote a note to its owner, an investor from Texas.

“I can make this thing great, and I want to make this town better,” he wrote.

The rest is history: “It’s yours,” the investor said.

Ten years later, the once-vacant spot is the thriving Grafton Grill & Crust, owned by Steve and his wife, Lori. Since their dramatic introduction to owning an eatery, they’ve opened Uncommon Cow, a coffee shop located in Grafton’s bucolic town center.

“You just have to go forward – don’t look back. If you hit a bump, just go over it,” Steve told the Fifty Plus Advocate. “That place was going to come up for auction. I knew I could do it, and man, I’m glad I did.”

Prior to opening the Grafton Grill, Steve hadn’t owned a restaurant – but he’d been around the industry his whole life. At 13, the Falmouth native was shucking oysters for a Cape Cod restaurant. He also worked as a bartender and server.

When Steve and Lori were looking for a place to settle down, they moved westward on the Mass Pike until they hit Grafton. Their first stop was the Grafton Country Store, and they remember thinking they’d found the “coolest little town.”

“We had never heard of Grafton – I didn’t even know where it was,” said Steve.

The family made the town its home. And before long, Steve and Lori started to get the itch to help improve Grafton, which, as their friends pointed out, didn’t have much of a restaurant scene. The day they first toured the building now housing the Grafton Grill, it was raining and the roof was leaking. The spot had seen better days, clearly.

But Steve considers himself a risk-taker. The community needed this, he thought.

“There was nothing in Grafton. I think Grafton has some big opportunities. You have to be willing to take a risk, and you have to be willing to buy something that is not what you think it is,” said Steve.

When opening the restaurant, Steve didn’t revisit his seafood-heavy upbringing. He originally envisioned a “Grafton Burger” restaurant, but – inspired by The Fix, Rail Trail Flatbread Company, and other spots – it became what it’s known today as. With a marketing background, Lori proved invaluable, and the branding, merchandise, and overall aesthetic were created with purpose.

“We started going out to restaurants, restaurants that we thought would be good to have in Grafton. I remember I had halibut one night, and I knew I needed to have fish like that. So we started pulling menus, and we created a grill,” Steve said. 

No shortcuts: everything is fresh at the Grafton Grill, down to the house-made dressings and sauces. One of Steve’s earliest jobs was hand-cutting French fries, and so those were proudly added to the menu. 

During the peak of the pandemic, Steve and Lori had another idea. Takeout was booming, so what if the company sold ice cream outside? For $6,000, they bought a trailer, painted cow-like spots on it, and founded the Mooving Cow. Soon enough, they upgraded to a proper food truck, keeping its cow-like aesthetic.

Then another property caught their eye: Steve found a piece of Grafton real estate he had to have. This time, it was the brick building at the forefront of Grafton Common. A unit had just become available, and he knew it would be perfect.

“One Sunday, I got a coffee from Dunkin’ and I sat in the Common and watched the building. It was in the summer – so many people were walking around. I knew we needed to be in that spot,” he said.

With no truck, the business was no longer moo-ving, so it became the Uncommon Cow. Ice cream, coffee, and homemade muffins were served. This year, the Uncommon Cow relocated across the street to 21 Grafton Common – a former bank that Steve and Lori transformed over the course of months – and expanded its menu.

“You realize once you have a business in the Common how many people live in the spokes of the Common. This is the coolest little town. When we moved here, there wasn’t a lot. People just needed to take risks,” Steve said.

Steve and Lori never saw themselves settling in Grafton. They never envisioned living in a house built in the 1800s. And they certainly never thought they would turn two underutilized Grafton properties into popular eateries.

But here they are. An uncommon family running the Uncommon Cow.

“I just fell in love with the town,” Steve said.

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