Local Businesses and COVID-19: Zumbach’s Gourmet Coffee

[Editor’s Note: In each daily newsletter this week, the New Canaanite is publishing Q&As with local business owners on how they are faring amid the COVID-19 emergency.]

New Canaan had 24 confirmed cases of the virus as of Saturday evening, according to town Emergency Management Director Mike Handler. For today’s Q&A, we interviewed Doug Zumbach outside his eponymous coffee shop at Pine and Grove Streets. 

How are you all doing here at Zumbach’s? Doug Zumbach: The loyal customers are finding us again. I think everyone is adjusting their daily lifestyle, with kids being home. So slowly but surely we are getting clientele.

Hundreds Come to New Canaan’s Karl Chevrolet for 2020 Corvette Stingray Unveiling

Hundreds of auto enthusiasts visited one of New Canaan’s best established local businesses Tuesday for a milestone unveiling of a new specialty car. 

Supported by New Canaan businesses and designed to support local charities, the all-day unveiling at Karl Chevrolet of the 2020 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray marked the first time that people could see the American sports car in Connecticut. 

“Everybody has been waiting for a mid-engine Corvette, including myself, and here it is,” Gary Trombly of East Granby said as dozens of people sat in and took photographs of an orange Stingray in Karl Chevy’s Elm Street showroom. Trombly traveled nearly two hours to attend. “Beautiful car,” he said. “It’s gorgeous. Well set up.

PHOTOS: Final ‘Caffeine & Carburetors’ of 2019 Draws Thousands to Waveny

 

Thousands of auto enthusiasts descended on Waveny early Sunday for the final ‘Caffeine & Carburetors’ car show of 2019. Camera- and coffee-toting fans of classic and specialty cars moved through the Waveny House forecourt, parking lots and fields on a crisp, cool fall morning for the free event. New Canaan’s Doug Zumbach, the founder of Caffeine & Carburetors who started hosting car gatherings outside his eponymous Pine Street coffee shop about 25 years ago, said during the free event that it was going “very well.” “It’s under control, great participants and great cars,” Zumbach said. Sunday’s gathering marked the only show of 2019 held at Waveny. Three earlier Caffeine & Carburetors events were held in downtown New Canaan.

PHOTOS: Thousands Attend Caffeine & Carburetors in Downtown New Canaan 

Thousands of residents and auto enthusiasts headed to downtown New Canaan on Sunday morning for a popular car show now in its eleventh year. 

Featuring 700 specialty and classic autos, Caffeine & Carburetors on Pine and Elm Streets is “growing and growing and growing,” First Selectman Kevin Moynihan said. “A lot of people come to New Canaan just for this,” Moynihan said while mixing with the crowd opposite Pine Street Concessions on a clear, sunny morning. 

Moynihan, who conceived of the town’s Tourism & Economic Development Advisory Committee, said Caffeine & Carburetors creator Doug Zumbach is seeking to promote the show for New York City residents traveling by rail to New Canaan. Doug Zumbach launched the auto gathering outside outside his eponymous coffee shop at Pine and Grove Streets in 2008, and it quickly drew crowds from about a dozen vehicles to 50 and more, outgrowing that small area. The final installment of this year will be held Oct. 20 at Waveny. 

PHOTOS: Thousands Come to Downtown New Canaan for ‘Caffeine & Carburetors’

Thousands of locals mixed with auto enthusiasts from up and down the Eastern Seaboard on Sunday morning for 2019’s second installment of the popular Caffeine & Carburetors show. Classic and specialty autos lined Pine and Elm Streets, which were closed for baby stroller-pushing, dog leash-holding pedestrians who snapped photos of the vehicles on a warm, sunny morning. Sponsored by companies including Bankwell and Hagerty, C&C is the brainchild of Doug Zumbach, owner of the eponymous coffee shop at Park and Grove. He said the Sunday show had “wonderful turnout.”

“This may be one of the biggest turnouts we’ve had in the last year, I think,” Zumbach told NewCanaanite.com. “Content off the charts.