Former ‘Silvermine Market’ Owners Seek New Space in New Canaan

The longtime former owners of the Silvermine Market in New Canaan are seeking a commercial space to set up shop again.

Lou Aloupis. Credit: Michael Dinan

Mainly serving breakfast and lunch, Lou Aloupis—who ran the market along with chef Scott Kaluczky for 20 years through 2025—told NewCanaanite.com that the pair are “trying to find a new location to do what we did there somewhere else.” (A new restaurant is planned for the space at 1032 Silvermine Road following the building’s sale earlier this year.)

“After 20 years, the building’s old and it was time for us to go,” Aloupis said during an interview in New Canaan on a recent morning. “We love what we do, we’re passionate about what we do, we’re committed and convicted. Now it’s just a matter of finding the next location.”

Through the economic downturn of 2008, Hurricane Sandy and the pandemic, Aloupis said, the Silvermine Market kept reinventing itself to accommodate its customers and, as a result, forged deep ties with the Silvermine and wider community.

The Big Kalooski, Silvermine Market. Credit: Terry Dinan

That’s the main reason they’re seeking to reopen.

“We were so close with our customers,” Aloupis said. 

“We participated in a lot of community events, from Touch-a-Truck for the kids to sponsoring different police events, hosting political fundraisers on both sides of the aisle, dinner parties, weddings,” he said. “During Hurricane Sandy when Wilton lost power for almost three weeks, we stayed open longer and later so people could stay warm, charge their cell phones. We even did dinners at night—I don’t mean like a restaurant—but we would just say, ‘OK, for let’s say X dollars, you come and get a meal,’ because they couldn’t cook.”

Silvermine Market on Aug. 4, 2015. Credit: Michael Dinan

Popular go-to options at Silvermine Market included buttermilk pancakes and French toast made from scratch, smoked pastrami, turkey breast, roast beef and in-house hollandaise sauce for Eggs Benedict.

Across two decades, Aloupis said, the staff at Silvermine Market came to know its regulars intimately. 

“We hired kids from high school who then went to law school, became lawyers, got married and now have two or three kids,” he said. “You get to know the families.”

Post-pandemic, Aloupis said, the market took a hit because regulars changed their schedules and patterns.

“People weren’t going to the offices anymore and that did impact us, just because you weren’t getting people driving to work in the morning, grab their salad to-go and their egg sandwich and stay at the office all day,” he said.

[Lou Aloupis can be reached at silverminemarket@gmail.com.]