The Waltham Times marks second anniversary

About 40 people gathered on Monday, Oct. 5, at Rassa, an Indian restaurant at 470 Moody St., to celebrate The Waltham Times’ second anniversary.

The crowd enjoyed a buffet of appetizers, main courses and desserts. Rassa specializes in South Indian cuisine with dishes such as idli, a delicate, spongy cake made with lentil and rice flour, and curries made with coconut and green chili. The restaurant also excels at classic North Indian dishes such as palak paneer and butter chicken.

Waltham Times food writers, Lisa Fruitt and Gary Markowitz, have noted that Rassa serves an excellent Indian shiraz.

Times’ co-founder June Kinoshita observed how far the news outlet has evolved in two years. The first news post, on July 6, 2024, simply announced that a local news outlet was in the works. The first newsletter, sent out three months later on Oct. 7, featured three stories. 

The Waltham Times has come a long way since then: More than 3,500 stories published, 315 issues of the newsletter emailed to more than 4,000 subscribers and around 40,000 visits to the website every month. 

More than 60 volunteer editors, copy-editors, website posters, newsletter production teams, marketers, designers and people who staff tables at community events and back-to-school nights power the nonprofit news enterprise. In addition, hundreds of donors contributed funding to bring local news back to Waltham, making it possible for the Times to hire a team of reporters.