Bay State cities and towns are turning to a rather unconventional recipe to spur economic development, one porterhouse steak, shrimp parm and fancy flatbread pizza at a time.

Boston, and now suburban hotspots like Newton and Burlington, are going all out to welcome new restaurants in a bid to liven up streetscapes and serve as bait for new companies and jobs.

Local restaurants, in turn, are themselves amassing new clout as well, with two major lobbying groups ready to go to bat for their interests at local town and city halls and up on Beacon Hill.

As far as economic development goes, the strategy appears to be paying dividends, with everything from fine dining establishments to hip burger joints helping create buzz, lure tenants and drive retail traffic at several major new projects.

“Once a leader of a state or town puts the word out that we want these businesses, it changes everything, said David Andelman, chief executive of the Phantom Gourmet and president of the Restaurant and Business Alliance, a regional trade group.

A Waterfront Dining Boom

Boston was early in the restaurant game, with city officials and developers helping spur construction of a profusion of fancy and hip new eateries in the Seaport near Fan Pier and among the refurbished Victorian-era warehouses of Fort Point.

Developer Young Park got the ball rolling a decade ago, when he began buying and redeveloping Fort Point’s old granite warehouses with upscale residential projects like FP3.

He recruited two popular Hub chef entrepreneurs, Barbara Lynch and Joanne Chang, to try their luck on the city’s newest development frontier.

Today all the big names in the Boston restaurant world have a stake in the fast-developing Seaport (since renamed the Innovation District), including Ming Tsai and Tom Kershaw.

And development of new office and condo towers is running fast to catch up.

Suburban Restaurant Explosion

Now city and town leaders across greater Boston are taking a page form the Hub’s playbook, and with stunning success.

Newton has seen an amazing 42 new restaurants open over the past three years, bringing the total to 190. The jump comes after a big push by Mayor Setti Warren to streamline the permitting process for new restaurants and spread the word to dining entrepreneurs that they are welcome in Newton.

Dedham has seen its own restaurant boom with Legacy Place, while in Burlington, new eateries are a centerpiece of the sweeping redevelopment of Northwest Park. The town has seen well over two dozen dining establishments open over the past few years, with a “restaurant row” a key piece of the makeover of Northwest Park, one of the largest business and retail complexes on Route 128.

There has even been talk of a restaurant row with the massive – and now stalled – redevelopment of Quincy Center, while Needham and Wellesley have tried to give local restaurants a boost by relaxing restrictions on serving drinks with dinner.

Bait For Bigger Development Game

Behind the restaurant boom is realization by savvy developers and city planners that restaurants punch well above their weight when it comes to economic development. Sure, the establishments are valuable in and of themselves, providing jobs and new tax revenue. In Boston, all those new restaurants helped bring life and vitality to a waterfront that for years had been a dead zone of new buildings and construction sites surrounded by empty lots.

Yet there is a much bigger payback here when it comes to economic development. Lots of dining venues, plus the foot traffic they helped generate, has played a key role in making the Seaport an easier sell to developers seeking to lure companies to their new waterfront high-rises.

And suburban officials and developers are no less savvy in using restaurants as bait for bigger fish. New restaurants have been a key part of Burlington’s efforts to attract more high-tech and biotech companies to town. Dining and shopping amenities seen as offering a crucial edge in the battle to woo corporate tenants.

New restaurants have been integral to a series of new developments on Route 9 in Newton, helping create crucial buzz for The Street and Chestnut Hill Square.

It puts a new twist on that old saw, that if you build it, they will come.

Once a new restaurant opens, apparently the diners, shoppers, retailers and office tenants won’t be far behind. 

Email: sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com