Business

New Canaan Butcher Shop Set To Open Next Week on Burtis Avenue

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Paul Paris, a former St. Aloysius School student who graduated from Darien High School in 1996, got the idea of opening up his own butcher shop about one year ago. He’d worked for a time at a butcher shop in Darien, then helped the ownership company open another one in Old Greenwich, running it for them for the past several years. 

“I always wanted to do something like this, but for me it was always a few things, like the finances and the location,” Paris said. 

He added, “And last July, my wife and I decided we really wanted to take that next step.”

They did. Paris is on track to open the New Canaan Butcher Shop (here on Instagram) next week at 12 Burtis Ave. Located in the former Red Grape Wine & Spirits space with parking on Burtis or in the nearby Morse Court, the shop will offer prime meats, grass-fed meats, Wagyu, dry-aged, poultry, lamb, pork, a freezer with wild game such as elk, venison, buffalo and antelope, salads, prepared foods, cold cuts and sandwiches. 

“You name it,” Paris said.

Around Town

Greg Sages, Longtime Executive Director of The Glass House, To Step Down

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Greg Sages, with characteristic modesty, views the eight years that he’s led The Glass House as executive director in terms of the organization’s larger goals and history. 

When the historic Glass House building and campus on Ponus Ridge opened to the public in 2007 following the deaths of Philip Johnson and David Whitney, the then-director’s priority was “getting the place open,” Sage said. The second director was from the art community and had strong ties to Manhattan galleries and architects, and focused on those connections in raising the visibility of The Glass House. 

For Sage, “the most important thing was integrating the site into the fabric of New Canaan,” he said. “My predecessors had not focused on that effort,” Sage said. He added that he and Christa Carr, The Glass House’s director of communications, “have been pretty active in local organizations and also we set out to do a number of partnerships with other not-for-profits in town including the library, the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society, Grace Farms, S.T.A.R in this past year, and others.”

“And I think we have maintained a very positive reputation in the museum community with visitors coming from around the country and from around the world,” he said. Sage recently notified his employers at the National Trust for Historic Preservation that he’s stepping down as director.

Brian McMaster

‘The Greatest Return on Investment’: Inspire Fitness Moves to Downtown New Canaan 

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Brian McMaster started looking last summer for a new home for his 10-year-old strength training business. Inspire Fitness, which also focuses on its clients’ mobility and stability, had been based in North Stamford since its inception, and “while looking for a location I just really fell in love with the look of New Canaan,” McMaster recalled Tuesday. “I’d looked in Stamford, also in Bedford [N.Y.] and other places, but New Canaan just seemed like a really nice fit,” he told NewCanaanite.com. 

He opened in September at 100 Park St. and recently joined the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce. Since then, he’s had many of his longtime clients follow him to town and found new ones here.

Business

‘We Are Thrilled’: Earth Garden Finds New Home on South Avenue

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One of New Canaan’s best-loved local businesses has found a new home downtown. Located for the past decade in The Playhouse, Earth Garden opened Friday at 13 South Ave., formerly a tobacco and cigar shop. “We are thrilled we found a storefront and it’s actually working out really well,” owner Nancy Kline Gorkin said. “We were able to put a sign on the fence in front of the old shop, which the town agreed to let me do, directing people to the new location and of course we’ve let people know through social media,” she added. “We had a very good turnout for Valentine’s Day—I would say our foot traffic was as good if not better.

Beau's Boxing & Fitness

‘A Great Way To Get in Shape’: Beau’s Boxing & Fitness Opens on Main Street

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Jamal Beau had already been teaching New Canaanites fitness, including through boxing, for 15 years when he received a call from his then-employer that they were shutting down a gym, leaving him out of work. It was September 2022 and Beau—grandson of boxing middleweight Jimmy Beau, who compiled a 36-16 record in the 1940s and ‘50s, fighting at venues that included Madison Square Garden—had just returned from vacation. 

“So I kind of got put in a bad place,” Beau recalled Tuesday. “It wasn’t planned. It was just kind of, ‘OK you know what? I’ve got to take the next step.’ ”

He did.