A pack of disgruntled Cambridge residents braved last night's biting wind to protest the inauguration of a research center owned by the Swiss government.

A mere 10-minute walk from Harvard Square, the Swiss House for Advanced Research and Education held its grand opening yesterday--complete with champagne and Swiss dignitaries.

The Swiss House, an unassuming one-story brick building, sits on the corner of Broadway and Ellery Street in a residential area near Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School.

For the Swiss dignitaries who arrived last night, the opening was a legal victory.

When members of the mid-Cambridge Neighborhood Association learned last year that the empty building--which previously housed Sage's grocery store and a laundromat--would become a meeting place for Swiss and American scientists, the association members promptly filed a suit against the Swiss government.

"They took away my convenience store," says next-door neighbor William F. Schreiber. "The people who live here deserve some consideration, and we didn't get it."

He said he remembered walking next door to Sage's last winter, when his back problems kept him from walking long distances. Now, the nearest grocery store is the Broadway Market--a 15-minute walk away, he said.

The area was zoned for residential use, Schreiber said. He said the law should be interpreted as saying that the only exception to this zoning law should be for commercial operations that would benefit residents, but that those standards were not upheld in this case.