Though it’s not yet been one year since Heidi Burrows opened her specialty olive oil and vinegar tasting shop on Elm Street, the business has gained enough traction here in town that she and husband Travis are expanding to a second location.
“The First Press” will open in a few weeks (exact date not finalized) in The Westchester, an upscale shopping mall in White Plains, N.Y.
New Canaan Olive Oil owner Heidi Burrows. Credit: Michael Dinan
“This town has received us very well and I’m hoping that the same thing happens at the other one,” Heidi Burrows, a Stamford resident, said on a recent afternoon. “People there have already seen our ‘Coming Soon’ signs and they’ve contacted us, so they seem to be excited.”
New Canaan Olive Oil opened last September in the former Dunkin Donut’s space at 98 Elm St. A New Canaan Chamber of Commerce member, the shop required a heavy renovation to transform from its former look and feel—creating shelving, wall paneling, new flooring, painting and other work that the Burrowses did themselves.
New Canaan Olive Oil at 98 Elm St. Credit: Michael Dinan
Heidi Burrows said that since word has started to spread about the second shop, she finds herself assuring her loyal local customers that she intends to be on site here in town.
“I want to make sure that I have enough staff that I’m still spending my time here,” she said. “We are going to make a schedule so that I’m here.”
A Vernon, N.J. native who started riding horses as a kid (“That was my sport”), Heidi Burrows in 2006 earned a bachelor’s degree in business management with a minor in equine business from Cazenovia College in upstate New York.
Heidi Burrows is owner of New Canaan Olive Oil on Elm Street. Credit: Michael Dinan
Her plan had been to create a business around writing business plans for horse farms. Fortunately for New Canaan, two facts got in the way: It never really worked out, and “no one wants to loan you $5 million to start a horse farm, because they all lose money,” she said.
The Burrowses both are on the processed food-free paleo diet, and once in Virginia several years ago, the pair spotted a shop similar to the they have since opened. Heidi Burrows put it on a backburner for a while, working various jobs while living in Newburgh, N.Y.
“We didn’t put much thought into it until his job moved him here, and we drove through New Canaan one day, and I thought, ‘This would be the perfect town for this business,’ and then I really did the business plan,” she recalled. “This location happened to be open and then that was that. We got really lucky, because as soon as we saw this spot and this town, I thought, ‘OK let me do the numbers again and make sure it’s going to work.’ ”
The basil-infused extra virgin olive oil is the single most-popular item at New Canaan Olive Oil, owner Heidi Burrows says. Credit: Michael Dinan
The new space in White Plains is about half-again as large as the 450-square-foot sales floor at New Canaan Olive Oil.
It’s part of a budding industry in the area: Specialty shops have opened in the past few years in Darien, Fairfield and Westport, as well.
“I think it just has to do with the quality of the products, and once you learn the difference in specialty extra virgin olive oils, it’s a whole different world,” Heidi Burrows said. “There’s no going back. And you really can’t find flavored vinegars. You may find one or two in a specialty food store, but the selection we have here, you can’t find it anywhere else.”
The tie to New Canaan has been a special “secret ingredient” to the shop’s success here, she said.
“We do get a lot of tourists who want something from the town that says ‘New Canaan,’ ” she said. “So we got really lucky, too, that way. People who visit the Glass House. They just want a little token that says ‘New Canaan’ on it.”
If you’ve shopped at New Canaan Olive Oil, share your experience with fellow New Canaanites by posting a rating and review on the shop’s listing in the new Business Directory on NewCanaanite.com.