Holiday Shopping 2023: Groove 

For this installment of our local holiday shopping series, we catch up with Judi Anders, manager of Groove’s New Canaan store on Elm Street. 

Here’s a transcript of our conversation. ***

New Canaanite: Could you please give us some background on the store, and also an overview of what you have on offer here. Judi Anders: The owner is Corri Neckritz and she started the business Groove because she saw there was a need for cute, trendy clothes and gifts and she just couldn’t find them out there. And so she started selling out of her basement. And she then opened her first store in Westport in 2012.

Who Knew: A Very New Canaan Gift Guide

‘Who Knew?’ is sponsored by Walter Stewart’s Market. 

The fun thing about getting older (besides knowing where all the candy is hidden) is that you start to enjoy giving gifts more than receiving them. There’s a midlife shift toward benevolence, whether brought on by parenthood, maturity, or working with a therapist to develop a more sensible attitude toward hoarding Legos. Turns out, ‘tis actually better to give than to receive. 

And when the holiday season rears its $960 billion head in mid-October, we all start to get the Gift Sweats. Not that we won’t find anything; that’s impossible when consumer culture confronts each of us with 4,000 to 10,000 advertising messages per day. But we fear that it won’t be the right thing.

Local Businesses and COVID-19: Groove

For today’s Q&A with a local business, we hear from Judi Anders, store manager at Groove, a clothing, accessories and gift shop that opened three years ago on Elm Street. Groove is open for curbside pickup or local delivery, and the store is staffed 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. Here’s our exchange. New Canaanite: How are you doing at Groove? Judi Anders: I will tell you some background because that helps.

Fishing Derby at Mill Pond Scheduled for Saturday Morning

New Canaan’s young anglers will descend on Mill Pond Saturday morning for one of the town’s most cherished community traditions—the annual fishing derby. Registration will start at 8:30 a.m. for the popular event—a competition for special prizes—and fishing will start at 9 a.m. The fishing derby is open to kids 15 and younger, and 10-and-unders must be accompanied by an adult.

“Personally, it is one of my favorite events because it seems to attract a lot of New Canaan families,” said Tucker Murphy, president of the Kiwanis Club of New Canaan. “It’s a lot of people that we don’t see on a regular basis that come out for it, and I love that. I love to see these kids with all of their little lines, all ready to go, we are so grateful to all of our sponsors. At 9 a.m. they’ll drop the lines in.

FIRST LOOK: Clothing, Accessories and Gifts Shop ‘Groove’ Opens on Elm Street

A new shop offering a wide range of “on-trend” clothing for boys, girls and women, as well as accessories and gifts, has soft-opened in a brightly lit, colorful space on Elm Street. A Grand Opening is to be held Friday and Saturday at Groove (here on Facebook and here on Instagram), according to the company. “We’re so excited to be a part of this great community,” owner Corri Neckritz told NewCanaanite.com through a spokesperson. The store at 115 Elm St., formerly had been occupied by Ralph Lauren Kids, though it underwent extensive interior renovations to accommodate Groove. It’s Neckritz’s second shop, after Westport, where Groove recently moved into a larger commercial space.