Business

‘An Exciting Time of Year’: New Canaan’s Outdoor Dining Season Opens Thursday

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The sidewalks of downtown New Canaan will be remade by midday Thursday as the outdoor dining launches on what is forecast to be a sunny afternoon in the upper-60s. Pushed back one month this year to May 1, the launch of the outdoor dining season is a widely anticipated amenity for restaurateurs and visitors to New Canaan’s lively village center. Adam Zakka, principal of Z Hospitality Group—owners of Solé and Blackbird and new food-and-beverage providers for The Playhouse Pub next door—said he was “super-optimistic” about the upcoming season. 

“It was a little bit of a colder winter than usual, so we’re pretty happy to see the warmer weather coming,” Zakka told NewCanaanite.com. “And I think the town embraces local businesses so it’s an exciting time of the year.”

This year’s outdoor dining will be bolstered by the addition of more sidewalk “bumpouts” on Elm Street, including in front of Dunkin, The Playhouse and Dolce. (Because they’ll exempt the town from a state law that forbids parking within 25 feet of a crosswalk, the bumpouts will allow New Canaan to gain back a handful of parking spaces on the south side of Elm Street’s one-way stretch.)

Asked about the new menu at Playhouse Pub, Zakka said “there will be some unique options for The Playhouse, exclusively, that will fit their concept as far as pub food.” Those include “five or seven revolving items that will be more ‘pubbish’ than Italian,” he added.

Dr. Rick Crolla

Podcast: New Canaan ‘Lifer’ Rick Crolla

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This week on 0684-Radi0, our free podcast (subscribe here in the iTunes Store), we talk to New Canaan’s Rick Crolla (here’s Laura Ault’s “Who Knew?” on him). It’s the third installment of our “New Canaan Lifers” series, profiling longtime residents of the town. Here are recent episodes of 0684-Radi0:

Around Town

‘We Have a Guardian Angel’: New Program Helps Locals Struggling with Auto Repair and Maintenance Costs

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New Canaan residents struggling with car-related costs can now get help through a new partnership involving the town, a nonprofit organization and local businesses. Caffeine & Carburetors—the antique and specialty car show launched by town resident Doug Zumbach outside his eponymous coffee shop on Pine Street—last year raised tens of thousands of dollars for the New Canaan Community Foundation and Waveny Park Conservancy. This year’s downtown C&C, scheduled for June 22, will direct all show funds—including those raised through its registration system—toward a new program that helps qualified New Canaanites with car maintenance and repair costs. 

“When we were thinking about the best use of these funds, we really wanted to make sure that it was going back into our community, and to support local families in one way or another,” C&C Director of Business Development Claire Drexler said. “And we felt like this, with the automotive tie-in, was the perfect way for us to give back to New Canaan, which has been so gracious in allowing us to continue to host this event.”

There are two Caffeine & Carburetors shows scheduled for this year, June 22 (downtown) and Oct. 19 (Waveny).

Government

Selectmen Approve Contracts for Newly Renovated Police Station, on Track for June

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The Board of Selectmen this month approved a series of contracts for the newly renovated Police Department building on South Avenue, which officials say is on track for an early-June move-in. One $35,000 contract with a Shelton-based company, CDW-G, is for “monitors, smart TVs, brackets, cables, cameras” and other related equipment for the Police Department, according to Joe Zagarenski, senior engineer in the New Canaan Department of Public Works. “We’re not hiring a vendor, we’re just going to purchase everything directly so we don’t have to pay any additional markups on it,” Zagarenski told the selectmen at their April 15 meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. 

He continued: “So this includes all the wall-mounted monitors, TVs—there are about 26 in total—[it] covers training rooms, meeting rooms, conference rooms, dispatch, roll call, break rooms, detective bureaus offices, and a couple other miscellaneous ones.”

Funds for the hardware are available in the PD project budget, he said. First Selectman Dionna Carlson and Selectmen Steve Karl and Amy Murphy Carroll voted in favor of the contract. The selectmen also approved two approximately $24,000 contracts—one for designing and installing irrigation systems for the new plantings outside the police station, and another to uninstall the emergency generator at the temporary police HQ downtown.

Business

‘Sportova’ Planned for Former CT Muffin Space on Main Street

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A designer and provider of luxury home and commercial gym equipment and is on track to take over the former Connecticut Muffin space downtown, records show. Sportova, which grew out of a predecessor Boston-based home furniture and decor company, is seeking site plan approval at 108 Main St. from the Planning & Zoning Commission. The space has been vacant since Connecticut Muffin closed in December following decades in business. The retail use is allowed under the New Canaan Zoning Regulations—with site plan approval—“and appears similar to other showroom type retail stores the Commission has recently approved within the Retail A Zone,” Town Planner Sarah Carey wrote in her memo to P&Z ahead of its meeting Tuesday night. 

Referring to what is known locally as “the Raymond Building,” she continued: “The applicant is also seeking approval to remove the metal bars currently placed over the building’s second floor windows and would like to paint the newly exposed bricks black.