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NEW BEDFORD – Whitney Lutz, the manager of the newly opened Asian market Yum Yum Tiger at 767 Purchase St., is excited to introduce new types of snacks into the downtown area.

“We offer a lot of Asian snacks, from chips to ice cream and frozen foods,” she said. “We have a pretty big selection of different ramen, there’s a lot to explore there.”

Lutz opened Yum Yum Tiger on March 22.

“So far, a lot of people like it because they've been saying they used to have to go far for these things, and now they can find it closer,” she said. “We take any recommendations, so if they're looking for something specific, we'll try to get it.”

The store is filled with unique items that many locals might not have encountered before unless they visited Asian territories.

“We have some viral ice creams that look like the fruit itself," Lutz said. "And there are fun drinks like pouch drinks.”

TikTok food trends are available to try inside the market

Lutz said a lot of people have been saying they like not having to travel far for these products such as the Providence area where they are more common. She also said that customers of all ages will come into the shop just to try something new.

“We try to make the prices as fair as possible, so everyone can try a little bit of something different,” Lutz said. “It’s important that anyone and everyone feels welcome.”

Although just one week in, there’s already repeat customers.

“We see familiar faces coming back, which is a good sign,” said Lutz, adding that TikTok trends around Asian food have been a major attraction because of that as well.

“We often hear, ‘Oh, I’ve seen this online and wanted to try it!’”

People can walk out with ready-to-eat ramen

Customers can also utilize a microwave or have their ramen made from the counter to take with them.

“We don’t have a seating area yet, but everything is designed for takeout, so customers can enjoy it wherever they like,” she said.

As the store continues to adjust hours and offerings, Lutz is eager to see how Yum Yum Tiger grows within the downtown business community.

“It’s exciting to bring a piece of Asian culture to New Bedford and to have the community embrace it so enthusiastically,” she said.

Standard-Times staff writer Seth Chitwood can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on twitter:@ChitwoodReports. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Standard-Times today.

The official schedule for South Coast Rail is now available.

On weekdays, the first inbound train from New Bedford Station to Boston’s South Station will leave at 4:27 a.m., and the last inbound train will leave at 9:23 p.m., with 14 total departing trains throughout the day. Outbound trains from South Station will have weekday departures from 6:45 a.m. to 11:59 p.m.

On weekends, inbound trains will leave New Bedford Station from 4:47 a.m. to 9:53 p.m., with seven departures throughout the day. Outbound trains will leave South Station from 6:37 a.m. to 11:59 p.m.

The new commuter rail route opens on March 24.

Click the + and – icons to zoom in and out of the schedule ↓

The MBTA will offer free fares and free parking for South Coast Rail riders every weekend through the end of April, including the Patriots’ Day holiday on Monday, April 21.

On weekdays, standard fare for a one-way trip to South Station will be $12.25, and reduced fare will be $6. Daily parking rates will be $4 on weekdays and, after April, $2 on weekends.

State Sen. Mark Montigny shared the schedule in a press release on Tuesday. The MBTA sent out its own press release later on Tuesday.

“I am pleased that the MBTA remains on track to deliver this long-anticipated service with a robust daily schedule,” Montigny said in the press release. “Free weekend service in April will help introduce commuter rail to our community and I encourage residents to take advantage of it.”

Direct rides from downtown New Bedford to Boston’s South Station will generally take 94 to 98 minutes, the schedule shows — up from a previous estimate of 90 minutes. Some trips that include a transfer will take nearly two hours.

The MBTA will run 32 daily weekday trips between Boston and the South Coast on the new line. The MBTA plans to run trains about every 70 minutes on weekdays, making 17 one-way trips per day between New Bedford and South Station. The Fall River branch will have 15 trips per day.

Trains will run about every 120 minutes on weekends.

Some trips will require a transfer at East Taunton Station. That’s because the MBTA will run “shuttle trains” adding extra service along the two branches of the route without clogging up the rails north of Taunton.

If you’re at South Station and the next outbound train is headed for Fall River, you can board that train and transfer in East Taunton to get to New Bedford Station. Or, if you’re at New Bedford Station, you can take an inbound shuttle train that stops in East Taunton and transfer to another train coming from the Fall River branch that will take you all the way to South Station.

Email Grace Ferguson at [email protected]

The country’s oldest continuously operating custom house could soon close.

On Tuesday, New Bedford’s U.S. Custom House briefly appeared on a list of properties that the Trump administration plans to sell. But the list disappeared with no explanation on Wednesday, leaving the building’s status uncertain.

The historic building at 37 North Second St. once registered whaling ships and served as the city’s first post office when it opened in 1836. It currently provides office space for U.S. Customs and Border Protection and NOAA Fisheries.

The General Services Administration, which manages federal real estate, included the building in a list of more than 440 “non-core assets” slated to be sold. The list included 80 million square feet of property, mainly consisting of “empty and underutilized” office space, according to a GSA statement.

“Decades of funding deficiencies have resulted in many of these buildings becoming functionally obsolete and unsuitable for use by our federal workforce,” the GSA said. “We can no longer hope that funding will emerge to resolve these longstanding issues.”

Eight other Massachusetts properties appeared on the list, including Fall River’s Social Security building.

The list reportedly shrank to around 320 properties hours after it was released. By Wednesday morning, the list was replaced by a “coming soon” message on the GSA’s website.

In a written statement, New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell said he hopes the GSA will remove the building from the list.

“The U.S. Custom House is one of the most recognizable buildings in Downtown’s Historic District, and the federal workers perform important customs work to support the City’s role as a Foreign Trade Zone,” he said.

This is the second time in the last year-and-a-half that the GSA has announced plans to sell a New Bedford building.

In late 2023, the GSA shared its plan to close the downtown Hastings Keith federal building, which has offices for the Social Security Administration and NOAA. The agency didn’t publicly explain its reasoning at the time. Mitchell and the city’s congressional delegation blasted the plan in letters to the GSA last year.

The Hastings Keith building did not appear on the GSA list on Tuesday, but there is no other sign that plans for the building have changed. Mitchell said he discussed it in a meeting with U.S. Sen. Ed Markey while attending a mayors’ conference in Washington, D.C. earlier this year.

U.S. Rep. Bill Keating slammed the federal closures in a written statement to The Light.

“It simply makes no sense,” he said. “If we’ve learned anything since January 20th, it’s that this administration doesn’t care about the impacts of their decisions — they just care about cutting taxes for the rich at the expense of everyone else.”

Keating pointed out that if Fall River’s Social Security building and the Hastings Keith building both close, the South Coast will have no Social Security office. The closures would also leave New Bedford, a major worldwide fishing port, with no NOAA presence.

The representative said he would work with the area’s delegation to “make it clear to the Trump administration” that the federal government needs a physical presence in this area.

President Donald Trump has made it a priority to downsize the federal government. But the move to sell offices confused some federal employees because it came right after the administration ordered an end to remote work in the executive branch.

“Everybody comes back to the office, then it’s like, ‘Get out,’” said Jeff Pimentel, a consumer safety officer and the only employee in the Custom House’s second-floor NOAA Fisheries office on Wednesday afternoon. He said many employees in the office do their work in the field.

Pimentel referred questions to the NOAA Fisheries regional press office, which did not return The Light’s request for comment.

Other federal agencies have few answers about what’s happening.

The GSA’s press office did not respond to The Light’s questions about why the Custom House was added to the list and why the list disappeared less than a day later. The building’s manager, a Providence-based GSA employee, referred questions back to the unresponsive press office.

A U.S. Customs and Border Patrol employee in the New Bedford office referred questions to Public Affairs Officer Ryan Brissette. The spokesperson acknowledged The Light’s request for comment in an email on Wednesday afternoon but didn’t immediately have a full response.

The Custom House was quiet on Wednesday afternoon, but it wasn’t always that way.

“At the height of New Bedford’s whaling years, the number of ships registered and the number of seamen requesting their protection papers made the small building one of the busiest places in town,” according to informational signage posted inside the building.

When it opened in 1836, the building “served as an experiment” in what was then a new federal building program, the signage said. It illustrated a need for more buildings, the expense of constructing them, and the development of public planning procedures.

Robert Mills, known for designing the Washington Monument, was the architect. It was one of four small Greek Revival custom houses he designed for the federal government to be built in New England ports around the same time.

The building was deemed “functionally outdated” in 1958 and was “extensively restored” in 1962, according to the GSA. It was registered as a National Historic Landmark in 1971. Today, it sits inside the New Bedford National Historical Whaling Park.

Email Grace Ferguson at [email protected]

When South Coast Rail starts up on March 24, MBTA commuter rail trains will roll into two new stations in New Bedford. This guide will show you how to get to them, no matter how you decide to travel.

New Bedford Station is northeast of downtown, sharing a parking lot with the Seastreak Ferry. Church Street Station is in the North End, southeast of Kings Highway.

The most pedestrian-friendly route to New Bedford Station is the brand-new pedestrian bridge from Purchase Street. It sits between Pearl and Willis streets, and arches across Route 18 directly to the station. If you’re starting from the eastern side of Route 18, there are sidewalks along MacArthur Drive and Acushnet Avenue leading to the station.

The path to Church Street Station is a little more straightforward. If you can make your way to Church Street, sidewalks will guide you to the station.

Use caution if you ride a bicycle to New Bedford Station — there are no bicycle lanes near the station on Acushnet Avenue, or on Purchase Street near the pedestrian bridge.

Meanwhile, Church Street does have bicycle lanes on the same side of the street as the station.

There are bicycle racks at both stations. See the MBTA’s website for bike parking policies.

Bicycles are allowed on South Coast Rail trains, but it’s up to the conductor’s discretion. If the train is too crowded, you might be asked to wait for the next train. More information about bringing bicycles on trains is available on the MBTA’s website.

The trick to reaching New Bedford Station is finding a way to get east of Route 18 onto Acushnet Avenue. Here’s how to get there:

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Church Street Station is directly off Church Street near the intersection with Carlisle Street, and the routes there are much simpler:

Parking will be free at South Coast stations through the end of April as part of a special promotion to encourage people to ride the train. Fares will also be free through the end of March and every weekend through the end of April,

After that, parking will be $4 a day on weekdays and $2 on weekends.

You are allowed to leave your car overnight, MBTA officials said at a recent meeting. Find more policies on the MBTA’s parking page.

You can pay for parking at most MBTA lots using the PayByPhone app, but not at the Whale’s Tooth parking lot at New Bedford Station. It will have its own text-to-pay system called XPressPark. The Whale’s Tooth lot, which used to serve only as Seastreak Ferry parking, is managed by the New Bedford Port Authority instead of the MBTA.

The Port Authority released information on its separate parking system Monday night. The Whale’s Tooth lot’s daily rates will be the same as other MBTA lots, and it will participate in the free parking promotion in April. But anyone parking overnight will have to pay $15 per day.

The lot will have 150 spaces reserved for train passengers and 570 for ferry passengers.

Fare-free SRTA buses have stops close to both train stations.

Route 202 toward Lund’s Corner and Route 204 toward Ashley Boulevard run along Purchase Street — from there, riders can take the new pedestrian bridge across Route 18 to reach New Bedford Station. Route 211 toward Fairhaven runs even closer to the station along Acushnet Avenue.

SRTA buses don’t go directly past Church Street Station, but the Route 221 North End shuttle stops at the Kings Highway Stop & Shop, a 15-minute walk from the station.

The routes run as early as 5:20 a.m. and as late as 9:38 p.m., running about every half hour throughout the day. During early and late hours when the buses aren’t running but MBTA trains are, SRTA plans to add “microtransit” vans that riders can call on an app, like an Uber.

The microtransit service won’t be available in time for the South Coast Rail launch on March 24, because the MBTA moved the date up from the originally forecasted launch in May. But SRTA officials are rushing to launch the vans within the first few weeks of train service.

Email Grace Ferguson at [email protected]

Editor’s note: This story was updated on Thursday, March 20, 2025, with new information by the MBTA on parking and fare promotions.

My wife and I were away for the weekend when someone asked where I was from. When I answered that I was from New Bedford, it occurred to me that I have lived here much longer than I have in my hometown or college town. This actually marks my 30th year on the radio here in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

They asked what we loved most about New Bedford, and I thought that was an interesting question to ask. There are so many things I love about living here.

We decided to ask our audience what they loved about living in New Bedford. Here's a sample of what they said.

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Jasmine Araujo: "Now that I don’t live there anymore, I can say I miss the food in/around NB the most."

Tim Murphy: "The food. Lots of great choices culturally as far as food and of course seafood. I've lived away from the ocean once, never again."

I think that first and foremost, when someone asks me what I love about New Bedford, the answer is going to be its incredible restaurant scene. No one can feed you a better sit-down meal at a better price than a restaurant in New Bedford, MA. Expect food that is bursting with flavor without busting your wallet. The restaurant scene somehow continues to improve on itself as the decades go by.

⬇️ Keep Scrolling to See Over 100 Meals You Have to Try at SouthCoast Restaurants ⬇️

Nikki Clattenburg: "Definitely the fresh seafood."

Jason Garcia: "Recreational fishing. New Bedford is right next to the stripers."

The seafood is so good here in New Bedford it actually makes us seafood snobs. Don't believe me? Travel on vacation to anywhere in the country and order scallops or a fresh fish dish. You'll turn your nose up at it.

Let's not forget that in addition to being America's No. 1 most valuable seaport, there is a ton of great recreational fishing.

Chelsea Silva: "The history, the food, and mostly being 1 minute away from the Atlantic."

Lauriann DogMom: "The ocean, history, food."

Jaime Furtado: "I love that New Bedford has two beaches and I do utilize them. Summers in Fall River are brutal, nowhere to go cool off besides the pool. Even if you just go take your chair and sit, it's a great view."

Clearly, the Portuguese culture is front and center here in New Bedford, but don't forget the Cape Verdean and Puerto Rican cultures that are prevalent here as well.

Adrian Var: "My neighborhood is quiet. Historical buildings."

Melissa Thompson: "The gorgeous historical architecture – every house and building has unique and beautiful features."

The West End, particularly around St. Luke's Hospital, features some tremendous architecture built by the whaling captains.

⬇️ Keep Scrolling to Take a Photo Walking Tour of Historic New Bedford ⬇️

LaBaron Studios: "Food, history, architecture, the downtown, the beaches."

Madison Dufresne: "The history, the culture, the food, the scenery."

Melissa Braga: "Lots!! Beaches so close. Downtown is a great spot. And tons of amazing restaurants."

The scenery of downtown, Buttonwood and Brooklawn parks, coupled with the beaches and even some more rural streets in the far North End offer a variety of scenery.

Adrienne Lunn: "The history."

Flip Rose: "The history. Whaling City."

New Bedford is rich in history dating back to Native people, the American Revolution, and the whale oil boom that lit the world in the 1800s.

Jaime Furtado: "So I am a Fall Rivah girl living in a New Bedford world. I know a lot of people are going to come at me for this, but in New Bedford (no matter what walk of life you lead) there are a ton of please and thank yous when holding doors for people. Not so much in the Riv."

We're definitely not here to say Fall River is rude, but we won't shy away from acknowledging a polite general public in New Bedford.

The Dishes to Try Most at Over 100 SouthCoast Restaurants

From the freshest seafood you can find to some of the best dang Portuguese dishes outside of Portugal itself, there are so many dishes to enjoy and love here on the SouthCoast, and we put 'em all into one spot. Check out more than 100 of the SouthCoast's favorite restaurants, and let us know if your favorites made the list.

Buildings Featured in the New Bedford Pathways Historical Walking Tours

A series of new app-based walking tours called New Bedford Pathways will teach the unique architecture of New Bedford and stories of the people who have dwelled among it. Here, New Bedford Preservation Society Administrator Pat Daughton, who produced the tours, shares a photo of one stop from each of the tours along with information about the location.