Around Town

Caffeine & Carburetors Clears Final Hurdle for Oct. 19 Event in Waveny

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The popular grassroots gathering of classic and specialty car enthusiasts—an event whose only location in New Canaan, to date, has been the downtown—has cleared its final hurdle for a Sunday, Oct. 19 trial run at Waveny. Launched four years ago out of New Canaan resident Doug Zumbach’s eponymous gourmet coffee shop on Pine Street, Caffeine & Carburetors has grown so large that, logistically, it cannot be held downtown more than twice per year. One long-term vision for the event is a combination of installments downtown and at Waveny—for example, two at each spot between April and November. On Thursday, an administrative team known as the ‘Special Events Committee’—overseen by Tom Stadler of the first selectman’s office and including parks, police, emergency management, health and recreation officials—voted unanimously in favor of the October trial run.

Around Town

VIDEO: Caffeine & Carburetors Returns to New Canaan

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New Canaan-Caffeine & Carburetors September 2014
Thousands of auto enthusiasts came to downtown New Canaan Sunday for the return of Caffeine & Carburetors, the massively popular, local event that grew out of an initial gathering of just 50 cars four years ago at Zumbach’s Gourmet Coffee on Pine Street. Gripping coffee cups, dog leashes, cellphone cameras and baby strollers, residents wandered along Pine and Elm Streets, where CERT volunteers, police and helpers from Zumbachs’ directed classic and specialty cars into and out of spaces for gearheads and causal fans alike. Thanks to Phil and Jim at New Canaan Music for supplying this custom soundtrack to “Caffeine & Carburetors” in the video above. The next installment of the event could be held in October at Waveny, pending more planning and town approvals.

Business

Caffeine & Carburetors Returns to Downtown New Canaan Sept. 7; Future Installments Could Be Held at Waveny

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Caffeine & Carburetors, New Canaan, CT-April 6 2014
The New Canaan man who launched what rapidly grew into a hugely popular gathering of classic and specialty car enthusiasts in town—so popular, in fact, that organizers and town officials have worked hard to figure out just where and how often it realistically can be held here—says he’s excited about the return of the event to New Canaan on Sunday, Sept. 7 and optimistic about its future in town. Doug Zumbach, owner of the eponymous gourmet coffee shop at Pine and Grove Streets, birthplace of Caffeine & Carburetors, said he and fellow organizers—Todd Brown of Ridgefield’s 109 Cheese & Wine and Peter Bush of FM 95.9 The Fox—have had “good conversations about the future of Caffeine and Carburetors, and so I’m very comfortable that the event will be here in New Canaan for 2015.”

“The event coming up on the 7th will be well attended, I think. We are getting a lot of calls from all over, people are very eager to attend because we did cancel June. So I think if the weather is fine, we’re going to have a great turn-out, a lot of great cars are coming, some surprises I know of.”

Those include high-end specialty, very limited production cars “as well as the typical array of Porsches, Ferraris, Maseratis,” Zumbach said.

Around Town

Caffeine & Carburetors To Be Held in April, September Only

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The creators of a hugely popular, grassroots gathering of classic and specialty car enthusiasts in downtown New Canaan will cut back from four planned events to just one more in 2014, and thereafter will seek to host just two per year rather than six. Pending approval from a special events committee, the final Caffeine & Carburetors of 2014 will be held Sept. 7 on Pine and Elm Streets, following a decision made Tuesday by the Police Commission. Following concerns that the Caffeine & Carburetors had gotten so large that it couldn’t be held in the center of New Canaan as frequently as planned (an estimated 5,000-plus spectators came to the one in April), town officials had suggested holding two events downtown and the rest off-site, such as at Waveny or the high school. Doug Zumbach, a creator and organizer of the event that has always centered around his eponymous gourmet coffee shop on Pine and Grove Streets, said it’s not worth holding Caffeine & Carburetors anywhere else.

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.