Around Town

PHOTOS: Caffeine & Carburetors Returns to Downtown New Canaan

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Thousands of classic and specialty auto enthusiasts visited downtown New Canaan on Sunday morning for the hugely popular Caffeine & Carburetors car show. Founded and run by New Canaan’s Doug Zumbach, owner of the eponymous coffee shop at Pine and Grove Streets, the three-hour event included a new rule this time around, where those showing their vehicles were required to stay to the end of the show. “People seem to be abiding by the new directive—there are a lot of good questions about it, some people have come and turned around because they do want to leave a little earlier,” Zumbach told NewCanaanite.com as police, volunteers and the Community Emergency Response Team or “CERT” directed pedestrians and motorists safely across Park Street on a clear, cool morning. 

“The show is going very well,” Zumbach said. “Very organized, civil. So it seems to be working out nicely.”

Held on all-pedestrian stretches of Pine and Elm Streets, Caffeine & Carburetors featured about 1,500 show cars, Zumbach said.

Around Town

PHOTOS: Final ‘Caffeine & Carburetors’ of 2022 Held in Waveny 

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An estimated 1,300 auto enthusiasts descended on Waveny Park on a crisp, overcast morning Sunday for the final 2022 installment of an increasingly popular car show. Launched by New Canaan’s Doug Zumbach at his eponymous coffee shop on Pine and Grove Streets, Caffeine & Carburetors features hundreds of classic and specialty autos, drawing gearheads from the community, region and beyond. Zumbach said more than 30 volunteers helped with parking and directing attendees. “CERT [the Community Emergency Response Team] is here helping us, I think we have five New Canaan Police on hand,” Zumbach said. “Well-staffed, well-organized and I think people are having fun.”

Attendees holding cameras, pushing baby strollers and clutching dog leashes roamed through much of the park around the main house for three hours in the morning, leaning over open hoods, visiting vendor booths and getting food from one of three food trucks parked near the Orchard Field for the increasingly popular event. 

Brian Sahai, branch manager at New Canaan’s Bankwell, a longtime sponsor of Caffeine & Carburetors, said, “This is a wonderful event that puts a nice spotlight on a community we all love.”

Against The Grain

‘A Partner to the Community’: Bankwell Works with Local Businesses in Designing, Outfitting New Elm Street Headquarters

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Laura Waitz, executive vice president and COO at Bankwell, had a vision when the company decided to move its headquarters to New Canaan two years ago. 

The largest private employer in New Canaan at 100-plus workers is “a relationship bank,” Waitz, a New Canaan resident, said on a recent morning from the second-floor conference room of Bankwell, located at the corner of Elm and Grove Streets. “It’s all about building relationships in business and for our employees and for the community we work in,” she said. “So when we expanded and brought so many more people to New Canaan it was about being a partner to the community, as well. And that was critically important and I wanted a workplace that was peaceful and serene and didn’t look ‘corporate banking’ but that would provide a welcoming, collaborative environment.”

In designing it, Bankwell—which already donates to more than 200 organizations per year, with focus on children, education, food insecurity, homelessness and financial literacy—hired, contracted and otherwise worked with dozens of New Canaan businesses. The bank’s placid and functional workspace includes conference room pieces handcrafted by New Canaan’s gifted furniture designer maker, Tom Throop of Black Creek Designs, a custom-made 300-gallon aquarium from Randy Jahier of Life Aquatic on Park Street, walls lined with the work of local artist Elena McCoy and photography from CAS Gallery on Elm Street, gardens planted by Gregg’s Garden Center and Landscaping on Grove Street, with year-round outdoor furniture from Against the Grain on Main Street.

Bankwell

‘It’s Part of Who We Are’: 131 Dogs and Cats Rescued (So Far) through Bankwell’s Pet Adoption Program 

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Since launching a program in 2017 to help area animal rescue organizations, Bankwell has seen 98% of adoptable pets find new homes, officials say. As it approaches its five-year anniversary, the company’s Pet Adoption Project counts 131 pets adopted, according to Executive Vice President and COO Laura Waitz. Many of those pets have found homes with Bankwell’s own employees, including Waitz herself, mom to a mutt named Gracie, she said. (Bankwell’s CEO, Chris Gruseke, owns two rescued dogs himself and keeps dog toys in his office, Waits said.)

“We’d love to see it expand more, we’d love to see even more local support,” Waitz told NewCanaanite.com on a recent afternoon when asked about the Pet Adoption Project. 

“We’d love to keep expanding it and actually come out of pandemic holding more than one event of the year, to focus on it for a couple of months in the year, continually with collections and things to make it more of a focus because it is so important. And with so many people who adopted animals during the pandemic now returning them, it’s become even more important for these organizations.

Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

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New Canaan Police are investigating a bicycle reported stolen at 7:10 p.m. Monday from the Thrift Store at Locust Avenue and Main Street. ***

Orders are open for this year’s New Canaan Ornaments, celebrating local heroes of the COVID-19 pandemic. Designed by ornament co-chair Faith Kerchoff and cut by her husband, John, they depict:

The New Canaan Fire Department with their “Drive By Birthday Parades,” which were enjoyed by children and their families.  
Walter Stewart’s Market for keeping everyone fed, making deliveries and pick-ups possible, as well as senior only shopping hours. The Farmers Market which took paid orders for pickup. The New Canaan gnome, which was created by the New Canaan Beautification League as part of their holiday decoration for the town.