The Continental's Old Route 1 Dining Room Is Open Again, Now Cooking Over Charcoal

The building at 266 Broadway in Saugus has a new menu. It serves rodízio, with meat cooked over charcoal and carved at the table. It still does the job it had for 72 years, which is hosting the parties, meetings and family dinners that need a big room. Charkoal's Brazilian Steakhouse opened to the public on Wednesday, Oct. 14, in the former Continental, on the northbound side of Route 1.

The popovers and the baked stuffed scrod are gone. During the permitting, Itemlive reported, the restaurant's engineer told the Saugus Planning Board that the project was "not changing the use," and after almost two years of renovation, that is a fair summary. The town knew what it had lost when the Continental closed. The new owners are betting on that same role.

What the Continental was actually for

The Boston Globe reported that Nov. 24, 2024 would be the Continental's last day. The restaurant had been at the same Route 1 location since 1952 and was owned by Paul Kourkoulis together with his father and brother. The Globe mentioned the sirloin steak, shrimp scampi and baked stuffed scrod by name. The menu was only part of why people kept coming back.

When the closing was announced, Wicked Local talked with one family who had been coming for almost 60 years. They listed the occasions they had celebrated in that dining room:

• First Communions
• High school graduations
• First dates
• Anniversaries
• Celebrations of life

At the Oct. 12 soft opening, Selectmen Chair Debra Panetta told Itemlive that groups she belonged to had met at the Continental and had to look for other venues after it closed. She welcomed having a place for local organizations to hold events again.

Two years from last popover to first skewer

The renovation took longer than planned, and the dates explain why the windows at 266 Broadway were dark for so long. The license approvals are in the Board of Selectmen's July 15, 2025 minutes.

Co-owner Ana Lima told Itemlive that the work ran "from the foundation to the roof." In November 2025, engineer Scott Cameron of the Morin-Cameron Group told the Planning Board that the footprint would stay the same but the electrical and plumbing were being replaced. The building looks familiar from Route 1. Inside, very little of the old restaurant is left.

Who runs it, and what comes to the table

Charkoal's is owned by Ana Lima, Marina Lima, Ludovino Gardini and Michele Gardini. Saugus is their first Massachusetts location, and their other restaurant is in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. Ana Lima told Itemlive she grew up in southern Brazil eating meat cooked over an open charcoal fire. The restaurant cooks its beef, lamb, pork and chicken over natural charcoal, not gas, the way she and Marina Lima grew up eating it.

Rodízio has its own routine. Servers walk the dining room with skewers and carve slices onto your plate, and you pick them up with tongs. The servers keep coming back throughout the meal. Itemlive reported a salad bar of more than 40 items, including charcuterie, smoked salmon and hearts of palm. There is also a hot bar with soups, rice, feijoada and house-baked cheese bread.

The upstairs room is the part Saugus has been missing

Sarah Till, the restaurant's event and sales manager, told Itemlive that the main dining room seats 320. Upstairs, a separate event space holds up to 120 and has its own service bar and kitchen. Lima said it can be booked for meetings, weddings, baby showers and other gatherings, with either an à la carte menu or full rodízio service.

That room is how Charkoal's fills the hole Panetta described. With its own kitchen, a 40-person retirement lunch upstairs doesn't have to wait behind a full Saturday dining room downstairs. A group that needs a set menu can order à la carte, and a group that came for the show can have the gauchos carve at their tables. The Continental hosted rehearsal dinners and gatherings after funerals for decades. A room that size, with its own bar, puts the building back in that business.

With holiday parties and office lunches coming up on the calendar, this is the room local organizations will probably ask about first.

What a table costs right now

Charkoal's posts its prices on its rodízio menu page. These are the published prices as of late October 2026, and new restaurants often adjust them in the first months, so check before you book.

The menu says rodízio is free for children 6 and under and half price for ages 7 to 12. That changes the math for a family birthday dinner a lot. The $24.95 weekday lunch leaves out the prime selections, which the menu lists as filet, ribeye, lamb and salmon. The website lists dinner hours of 4 to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 4 to 10:30 p.m. Friday, 3 to 10:30 p.m. Saturday and 3 to 9 p.m. Sunday.

Saugus isn't the only nearby option for churrasco this fall. Fogo de Chão opened its third Massachusetts location on Monday, Sept. 14, at 210 Andover St. in Peabody, beside the Northshore Mall, according to Peabody Weekly News. Its weekday lunch with the Market Table and Feijoada Bar starts at $19 per person, and the Peabody location also has private and semi-private dining spaces. So within a month, two Brazilian steakhouses with group dining rooms opened a short drive apart near Route 1. One is a 50-year-old international chain. The other is run by a family of four owners who cook over charcoal.

The outside of the property is still in review

As of August 2026, the plans included a parking lot upgrade, a fire access lane toward Walnut Plaza next door, and a MassDOT review to cut the Broadway curb cuts from four to three. At a Nov. 2025 meeting, the Planning Board heard that the lot had 60 spaces and that the lease included getting 125 parking spaces next to the building.

The Planning Board's Sept. 17, 2026 minutes record a 5 to 0 vote to continue the hearing for 266 and 266R Broadway. The town's posted records do not yet show a final site-plan approval. So the entrance and the parking layout could still change after you've gotten used to them. For now, give yourself a few extra minutes on a busy Saturday night, especially if you're coming south and need to turn around to reach the northbound side.

If you're planning a dinner, shower or club meeting for 120 people or fewer, the room on Route 1 is open again, and the Planning Board's agenda will show what happens next with the lot. If you live along the Saugus and Peabody stretch of Route 1 and want to talk about how openings like these affect your part of town, Lynn D'Avolio has worked that corridor for decades and is happy to talk it through. Let's Connect.