Around Town

Location of Planned June ‘Caffeine & Carburetors’ To Be Decided

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Though the most recent, hugely popular gathering of vintage and specialty car enthusiasts in downtown New Canaan came off without a hitch this month—spectators and participants seemed to have a great time and no complaints came in—the planning and staffing required to run it on Pine and Elm Streets likely is prohibitive for the original six events planned, officials say. The creators of “Caffeine & Carburetors” will go before the volunteer group that handles on-street parking and road closures in New Canaan—the Police Commission—at its May 20 meeting in seeking permission for the next planned event, penciled in for June 15. [acx_slideshow name=”May 6 2014 Caffeine and Carburetors”]

 

Held for all of its four years on Pine Street—and then this year, on Elm, as well, as crowds approached 5,000 for the Sunday morning gathering—Caffeine & Carburetors was created by New Canaan’s Doug Zumbach, owner of Zumbach’s Coffee at Pien and Grove, Todd Brown of Ridgefield’s 109 Cheese & Wine, and Peter Bush of FM 95.9 The Fox. Describing the trio as “extremely cooperative,” First Selectman Rob Mallozzi said the event has grown so popular that at a rate of one per month from April to November (minus July and August), and especially on two main downtown New Canaan thoroughfares, it has become cumbersome and difficult to manage and staff. One possibility for future events is to have the first and last of the year downtown but to hold other Caffeine & Carburetors elsewhere in New Canaan—Waveny, the high school or possibly even downtown but off-street, such as in the Lumberyard Lot.

Around Town

SLIDESHOW: Cool and Collected ‘Caffeine & Carburetors’ in New Canaan

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New Canaan resident Matt Konspore—right-hand man of Caffeine & Carburetors co-creator Doug Zumbach—waved a Ferrari forward at Elm Street and South Avenue Sunday morning. “This is the most expensive street in the world right now,” Konspore said as several hundred—likely a couple or few thousand—classic and specialty car enthusiasts gathered in downtown New Canaan for the popular gathering of hobbyists. Pause this slideshow by hovering over a photo with your mouse, article continues below:

[acx_slideshow name=”May 6 2014 Caffeine and Carburetors”]

 

A calm, cool and collected vibe settled over New Canaan for the second installment of Caffeine & Carburetors on Sunday, as smartphone- and digital camera-toting enthusiasts walked leashed dogs, chatted, sipped coffee and chatted over the high-end and vintage autos on Pine and Elm Streets. After the season debut gathering from April drew so much motor and foot traffic to downtown New Canaan that town officials felt compelled call for a review to determine the frequency and location of future events, Sunday saw smiling, relaxed crowds enjoy the 3.5-hour, grassroots show on an overcast, cool morning. Merchants including Chef Luis once again were open on Elm Street with a special sidewalk set-up to serve customers, while groups that included the Veterans of Foreign Wars and New Canaan Mounted Troop set up information booths for passersby.

Around Town

Caffeine & Carburetors Coming Sunday; Future Location Unclear

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Downtown New Canaan on Sunday will host the extremely popular classic and specialty automobile gathering Caffeine & Carburetors—the second installment of the grassroots event this year—though it isn’t clear just whether or where the rest of the 2014 season will take place. Officials have roundly praised the architects of what has become a multi-state draw that brings upwards of 5,000 people to the heart of New Canaan on a Sunday morning: town resident Doug Zumbach (owner of the eponymous gourmet coffee shop at Pine and Grove Streets) Peter Bush and Todd Brown. Yet with its growing popularity, town officials have said questions on logistics, safety and town resources must be addressed before issuing more Special Events permits for Caffeine & Carburetors. “We’re kind of reaching a point where this wonderful idea—and it’s worked out great, I could not have been happier the way it worked out the first Sunday it happened—we’ll see how it goes this time and I’m cautiously predicting that it might be difficult to pull it off six times a year,” First Selectman Rob Mallozzi said. “It might not be fair to the entire town of New Canaan to have it take place in that venue, our whole downtown, six times a year.

Government

Police Commission Wants Caffeine & Carburetors Town-Run

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The grassroots Caffeine & Carburetors gathering of classic car enthusiasts in New Canaan has grown so popular that it should be viewed as a town-run event with more formal planning and execution, officials said Wednesday. About 700 cars and 4,000-plus people—automobile owners and spectators—came to the 2014 debut of Caffeine & Carburetors two Sundays ago, members of the New Canaan Police Commission said at a meeting held in the department’s South Avenue headquarters. Though feedback was widely positive, a post-mortem on the event unearthed several changes that could be made, including whether Zumbach’s Gourmet Coffee continues to play the very same role. “In principal, I would be very supportive of the event. But the feeling I get is that at this point it’s gotten so big that it really is a town event,” Police Commission Chairman Stuart Sawabini said.

Around Town

VIDEO: 5,000 in New Canaan for ‘Caffeine & Carburetors’ 2014 Debut

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Caffeine & Carburetors, New Canaan, CT-April 6 2014
Officials estimate that 5,000 classic car owners and enthusiasts made their way to the heart of New Canaan Sunday for the first “Caffeine & Carburetors” of 2014—a grassroots event whose rapidly growing popularity has surprised even its architects. “What’s remarkable is the growth, since the onset of the digital medium,” 95.9 FM The Fox’s Peter Bush—himself a Mercedes man whose family got into classic cars in 1953 when his dad got a 1929 Ford Model A—said from Pine Street during a break from manning a microphone as hundreds of auto lovers, families, children and dogs milled about in the all-pedestrian zone there and on Park and Elm Streets, many of them sipping java from Zumbach’s Gourmet Coffee. NewCanaanite.com stole Bush for a quick interview that you’ll see in the video above that we put together. One quick note on this: You’re listening to a song that Phil Williams and Jim O’Neil at New Canaan Music wrote specifically for Caffeine & Carburetors—lyrics can be found at the bottom of this page—and we included a clip of a band playing live music off of Elm, and also ran into some of our favorite locals for quick chats, have a look.  

This year, given the heights that Caffeine & Carburetors had reached at the end of the 2013 season, New Canaan’s own Doug Zumbach worked with police and municipal officials, as well as the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce, to bring cars to Elm Street on this sunny, cool day.