Going from a grimy dive to upscale bistro in Dorchester

Hanging lights cast a hazy glow over the poplar wood and brushed aluminum booths, where customers dine at tables draped with white cloths. In the background, a DJ plays hushed reggae music as the chefs in the kitchen prepare grilled tuna and bean dishes.

This is not another downtown Boston bistro, but a new restaurant in Uphams Corner, where nearby storefront windows have bars on them and residents say they used to be harassed on the sidewalk. Ka Carlos, which opened this month, is far from the bar it used to be.

Carlos DePina, who also owned the former bar, said he wanted to bring Beacon Hill to Dorchester. Residents say the restaurant can also bring new life to an area forsaken.

Indeed, the city is counting on it. Boston is giving aid and training to restaurateurs willing to start new neighborhood restaurants or expand existing ones. Officials believe that good restaurants are catalysts in transforming some blighted areas into destination spots.

Like Ka Carlos, some of the newest neighborhood restaurants were once dark and shoddy dive bars with small windows too high to see through. With the help of the city, restaurants have claimed the remains of the rundown buildings, to revive them as places for families to get good food.

''Now when you walk in, you're seeing everybody: young couples, empty nesters, families with kids in a booster seat," said Charlotte Golar Richie, director of the Department of Neighborhood Development, which oversees the program.

The city's restaurant initiative, begun in 2004 to create new jobs and revive struggling commercial districts, made about $500,000 in loans to 22 new restaurants in 12 neighborhoods last year. Those restaurants hired about 200 people. In addition to giving financial assistance, the program helped restaurateurs develop marketing strategies and acquire necessary licenses and permits. Workshops were held for rookie restaurateurs.

With the initiative, city officials say, new upscale eateries can evolve into commercial epicenters that lure new business owners and encourage old ones to fix up their neighboring stores to fit in with the new image.

Ashmont Grill in Peabody Square opened in September. Chris Douglass, the owner, received a $100,000 loan from the city. Before he took over the former bar, he said, it was an eerie place with no windows and a parking lot with few cars.

Douglass had opened another restaurant, Icarus, in the South End in 1978, when people thought the neighborhood was a ''sketchy place," he said. The restaurant attracted a number of new businesses, he said. It's still too early to tell if Ashmont Grill will have the same effect. But with about 150 customers coming in each night, Douglass said, there's more activity in the area.

Home Real Estate Group, which specializes in sales, rentals, and property managment, has been using Ashmont Grill as a selling point to potential homebuyers. The firm put restaurant reviews in brochures as evidence that the area is becoming more trendy, said Kenneth Osherow, the owner of the real estate group based in Savin Hill.

One state official involved in revitalizing neighborhoods said that opening new restaurants is a good first step, but not a final one. Phil Hailer, spokesman for the state's Department of Housing and Community Development, said that with new restaurants should come bookstores and retail shops, which all help bring nonresidents in and keep them coming back.

In the past two years, Dorchester has added a handful of restaurants, with Ka Carlos the newest on the block. When it was a bar, the street was noisy and crowded with patrons who sometimes urinated outside.

Now, large windows draw eyes from passers-by. Three flatscreen television sets hang over the bar, with a large projector screen on the back wall. The restaurant serves a blend of American, Portuguese, and Cape Verdean cuisine.

''To see something like this here, it's uplifting," said Harold Cohen, president of the board of Uphams Corner Main Streets, a community group that works to revitalize neighborhood commercial districts. ''I don't think I would have invited my wife and mother-in-law to the bar."

Russell Nichols can be reached at rnichols@globe.com.