Business

PHOTOS: Sidewalk Sale Draws Crowds to Downtown New Canaan

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Scores of bargain-hunters headed to downtown New Canaan on Saturday for the annual Village Fair & Sidewalk Sale. Crowds of shoppers milled about on Elm, Main and Forest Streets on a warm but mercifully unsticky summer day, flipping through racks and rummaging through tables set out on sidewalks and streets by New Canaan and seasonal merchants. 

“We are thrilled,” said Laura Budd, executive director of the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce, which organizes the annual Sidewalk Sale. “We have a terrific mix of vendors and organizations here, and Mother Nature has cooperated 100% with some beautiful breezes. We’re really pleased. It’s just a classic New Canaan event.”

One local family, the Falsettas, counted themselves among those sharing information about nonprofit organizations—in their case, the  Gracie Fund for Pediatric Cancer, which will be the beneficiary of this year’s Oct.

Business

Local Business Q&A: New Canaan Music on Main Street

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In today’s installment of our Q&A series spotlighting local businesses, we hear from Phil Williams, a town resident and owner of New Canaan Music. Here’s our exchange. New Canaanite: New Canaan Music has become a fixture of the downtown, a Business Of The Year honoree that offers not only in-store items for sale but also music lessons, in person and remotely. How are you faring, as we enter this our second shopping season since the onset of COVID-19? We are hanging in there and continue to be grateful to the community for thinking of us for all things music.

Business

New Canaan Music Opens Second Store in Newport, R.I.

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An established New Canaan business has opened a second location in Rhode Island. New Canaan Music, which sells and rents out instruments and offers music lessons, opened its Newport, R.I. store on Saturday, according to owner and town resident Phil Williams.

“Newport New Canaan Music” is Williams’s first location outside of New Canaan. 

“I think we’ve got a pretty good formula and I wanted to broaden [the company] a little bit,” Williams told NewCanaanite.com. 

“I’m feeling really good about it,” he added. Asked why he chose to open a shop there, Williams said, “It’s a great little town.”

“There’s a big music community there and no music store,” he said. New Canaan Music is a membership business of the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce. Williams, a Planning & Zoning Commission member, is a former member of the Chamber’s Board of Directors.

Business

Podcast: New Canaan Music Owner Phil Williams

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This week on 0684-Radi0, our free podcast (subscribe here in the iTunes Store), we talk to New Canaan Music owner Phil Williams, as the state lifts most of its COVID-19-related restrictions for businesses. We hear from Phil about the mask policy at his own Main Street shop, what he’s learned from the pandemic and about a rise in the popularity of musical instruments and lessons in the past year. 

Here are recent episodes of 0684-Radi0:

Business

Podcast: New Canaan Music Owner Phil Williams

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This week on 0684-Radi0, our free podcast (subscribe here in the iTunes Store), we talk to town resident and Planning & Zoning Commissioner Phil Williams, owner of New Canaan Music. The Main Street fixture, like so many of our local businesses, has been through the ringer in 2020—with a forced closure followed by a restricted reopening and new operational requirements. As a retailer (instruments) as well as a service provider (lessons), New Canaan Music has been through as much as any of our local merchants. Here are recent episodes of 0684-Radi0: