Angela Baldanza

New Canaan Restaurants: Summer Theatre Partnership Helped Business

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The owners of local restaurants that partnered with a theater group that performed in downtown New Canaan through July said the effect on business was largely positive. Angela Baldanza, co-owner of and chef at Baldanza Café, described the restaurant’s partnership with the Summer Theatre of New Canaan as “a very positive experience.” She said that many diners had come into the restaurant to take advantage of a special fixed-price menu, and that she “would do it again.” Asked whether the theater’s impact was noticeably different from previous years, when it had been located further away from the downtown area, Baldanza said “definitely.”

Previously located in Waveny, STONC on Sunday finished its final show on New Canaan Library’s property. The organization partnered this year with a number of local restaurants, which offered special deals for theatergoers.

Around Town

Touched by Tragedy, Local Band Creates Music Event Benefitting ‘Sandy Hook Promise’

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New Canaan resident Sloan Alexander will never forget the morning his daughter entered his bedroom a few days after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, telling him and his wife, Sara Bakker, that she feared getting shot. “We were both just very taken aback,” he recalled on a recent afternoon. “She knew what was going on and she knew what had happened. That moment has always struck me. I start to tear up when I think about it.”

Since that morning in December 2012, Alexander has seen his children come up through local schools practicing lockdown drills that he never had to, and has searched for ways to support an organization to which he feels profoundly connected, Sandy Hook Promise.

Around Town

‘We Would Have To Move Our Business’: Local Business Owners on the Prospect of Reduced Rail Service to New Canaan

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Delivered with a thud last month and underscored by state transportation officials during a recent forum in town, proposed severe cuts in train service on the New Canaan branch line has prompted residents to decry the effect it would have on property values and the ability of visitors—for example, those traveling up from New York City to see the Philip Johnson Glass House—to get here. Less obvious though no less important is the effect that proposed elimination of weekend service as well as off-peak weekday service to New Canaan would have on local businesses, merchants and service providers say, largely because those who work here rely on the train. Steve Karl, vice president at Karl Chevrolet, said that as a business owner in New Canaan, “the news of limiting the train service to our community is the last thing we want to hear.”

“By cutting back the off-peak service and the complete elimination of weekend service it affects our business in a number of ways,” Karl told NewCanaanite.com. “First of all, the employees who use the train to commute will be affected and these are some of our hardest working employees who rely on the train every day. Secondly, due to the proximity of the train station to our store, we frequently sell vehicles to clients who travel by rail to pick them up at our location.

News

Letter: ‘Thank You’ to the Stewarts from Meals On Wheels of New Canaan

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The Meals on Wheels of New Canaan Board would like to wholeheartedly thank Alex and Doug Stewart of Stewart’s Wines & Spirits for partnering with us for our recent fundraiser. Stewart’s Wines & Spirits graciously offered to donate 10 percent of sales from November 15th to Meals on Wheels of New Canaan. The event was a huge success! Walter Stewart’s Market and Stewart’s Wines & Spirits are tremendous assets to our wonderful community. They are always giving back to local organizations and it is much appreciated by all.

Business

‘Every Aspect of the Store is Being Updated and Renovated’: Major Makeover Underway at Walter Stewart’s Market

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New Canaan’s longest-running retail establishment is getting a major makeover. Customers at Walter Stewart’s Market, pushing shopping carts in recent weeks over partially removed flooring as the Elm Street grocer undergoes a comprehensive renovation, soon will experience a new entrance and offerings including an expanded organic produce section and new and larger prepared foods section and salad bar, as well as new fixtures, flooring, glass and lighting in every department. “It’s going to be easier to shop, we are expanding our produce department and we are going to offer an even better selection,” Alex Stewart told NewCanaanite.com. “We will have a greatly expanded prepared foods section that is going to be the centerpiece of our store, and we are putting a brand-new, state-of-the-art kitchen upstairs to meet the demand while we revamp our deli department.”

An expanded “chef’s case” will feature healthy new “grab-and-go options,” he said, complementing new service hot food and salad bar stations. Stewart’s is moving fast, as flooring and shelving will be replaced later this month and in October, with the new produce section complete next month and the rest of the fixtures and refrigerated cases coming in October and November, Doug Stewart said.