The Battleground will close and reopen as a new restaurant next year

Kent’s iconic South End Mexican restaurant The Battleground is slated to close Dec. 31, the leadership announced in a weekend Facebook post.

Mike Raney, manager of The Battleground, said the restaurant will reopen in mid-February as a completely new concept. What that concept is, neither he nor owner Mike Beder would say.

“I think it'll be less of a niche concept and honor the roots of that building in the South End,” Beder said. “It'll be a restaurant. There’s always room for something done right. Concepts that are done right last for a while.”

Former owner Rosi Peruyero Noden and her husband Kirk opened The Battleground in 2020, offering Mexican dishes that cannot usually be found outside of her home country. The restaurant was explicit about its social justice mission, serving craft beer under the Drink Your Values label and hosting political and community events.

Finding that the 24/7 call of owning and running a restaurant was more than they wished, Noden sold the restaurant to local entrepreneurs Beder, Ben Koberna and Scott Patterson in October 2024. 

“When we sold the restaurant a year ago, we were flattered that they decided to continue the concept,” Peruyero Noden said. “However, we know that things change and we support the new owners and the new direction. Mike and his team are deeply committed to Kent. We are excited to see what the new concept is, and we fully support what is next.”

The new owners had pledged to continue her vision, but in the Nov. 28 Facebook post they said “unforeseen shifts” had made that impossible. In an interview, Beder added that consumer preferences were part of the reason they decided to change course.

“We saw the challenges of the concept,” Beder said. “Upscale Mexican is not really a category. Most Americans want to pay a certain price point for Mexican, and they don’t see the value in authentic Mexican versus the Tex-Mex that's so prevalent.”

With a restaurant name that does not “scream Mexican cuisine” and without Peruyero Noden dictating the restaurant’s flavors and engaging culture, Beder said the writing was on the wall.

“We wanted to give it our best shot and understand the place before we made any decisions, but it was always on our radar,” Beder said. The limitations we’d analyzed going into it were kind of confirmed once we got in. Ultimately, we just thought we could do something stronger in the space after feeling it out.”