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

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.

Starting Thursday, Walter Stewart’s Customers May Direct ‘T-Bill’ Rewards Savings To Tropical Storm Harvey Aid

New Canaan’s oldest retail establishment is setting up a system through which it will aid those displaced and otherwise devastated by Tropical Storm Harvey in Texas. Walter Stewart’s Market from Aug. 31 to Sept. 6 is holding a special “T-Bill Donations Day,” through which customers participating in the business’s rewards program will be able to donate their balances to the American Red Cross and AmeriCares. Stewart’s will match all cash that is raised in the effort.

Stewarts Spirits To Open Friday in New Elm Street Building

One of New Canaan’s best-established anchor businesses is set to open Friday in a brand-new, open, naturally lit and highly visible commercial space on Elm Street. Stewarts Spirits in moving across the parking lot from Walter Stewart’s Market, has doubled its floor space, according to New Canaan brothers Doug and Alex Stewart, great-grandsons of Walter and Nellie Stewart. “We are really excited,” Doug Stewart said as he joined store manager John Robinson and others stocking the tall shelves and wide new refrigerator at 215 Elm St. “It’s been a lot of work, and the work has paid off. We’re excited to open.

Stewarts Spirits To Move Into New Elm Street Building This Fall

The modern, two-story building that’s been taking shape this year in a prominent, conspicuous location opposite the train station on Elm Street is set to welcome its first major tenant in the coming weeks, officials say. Stewarts Spirits, the fine wine shop added in 1974 to the New Canaan’s family’s longtime market by Robert Bailey Stewart—grandson of Walter and Nellie Stewart and son of Walter A. Stewart Sr. and Audrey Bailey Stewart—is on track to open in the brand-new structure this fall, according to Doug Stewart. “We are excited that the new home of Stewart’s Wine & Spirits is taking shape and we seem to be in the home stretch,” he said. The shop will occupy the 1,623-square-foot first floor of the building, designed by Westport-based Frederick William Hoag Architect. Melissa Engel, who owns the property and has overseen the new building’s construction as project manager, said the glass walls of the second floor space will go in this week.