Bye bye Bombay. :(

BerryLine. Grendel’s Den. Bartley’s. Bombay Club. Domna. Few things better define the Harvard dining experience, and now, not only has Domna left her post at the gateway to the Great Hall (aka Annenberg), but it has just been announced that Bombay Club will soon be leaving our increasingly permeable Harvard bubble as well.

Since 1991, Bombay Club has occupied its central location on JFK right above Staples, serving authentic Indian food to Indian food fans and noobs alike. The Kapoor family came to Massachusetts from New Dehli, India, in 1978. Vinod Kapoor started out as a Fayva Shoe salesman until his brother-in-law loaned him $30,000 to open what became Kebab-N-Kurry in Boston’s Back Bay. Today, Bombay Club has become a bustling hotspot, and has been Zagat-rated, and won a number of “Best of Boston” awards.

This Cambridge landmark has hosted students and celebrities alike, enjoying visits from “Led Zeppelin’s lead singer Robert Plant, former Vice President Al Gore, legendary Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar, a host of Bollywood personalities,” as well as “weekly visits from Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates.”

As a faint silver lining to this dark cloud of fantastic-Indian-food-lessness, the Kapoor family will be relocating Bombay Club to Boston’s South End, opening in November. The new Bombay Club will feature many of the same long time favorites, along with “an array of new items that will be introduced every other week after its opening.” They will also host a full bar every night, open until 1 am – how this wouldn’t have been perfect for Harvard Square is a mystery to me.

Nonetheless, this will have to serve as the excuse I’ve been looking for to make the shuttle-less Sunday morning trek from the Quad to enjoy their Sunday Brunch Buffet of delicious dosas, masalas, naan, and curries. And if the grieving process has not run its course by November, I suppose it’ll be the reluctant push I need to hop on the T and check this place out for myself.