Business

10 Great Last-Minute Christmas Gift Ideas from New Canaan Shops [GALLERY]

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We’re entering the home stretch of Christmas shopping in New Canaan, as most every holiday shipping date has past. For anyone looking for great last-minute gift and stocking-stuffer ideas, we’ve created the gallery above—covering everything from $5 squishies for the kids to a $3,600 six-liter bottle of wine for the grownups. Though it’s not meant to be exhaustive—for example, we left off favorites such as the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce’s gift cards, New Canaan Historical Society’s ornaments and Philip Johnson Glass House’s design store items—the gallery represents a good cross-section of downtown merchants. As Laura Budd from the Chamber’s offices above the Playhouse on Elm Street said: “From our office on the ’50-yard line’ and from our interactions with store owners and managers, we know that New Canaan shoppers have embraced the ‘Shop Local’ movement. We know this is in no small part due to the tremendous effort the local businesses put in to the ‘experience’ of shopping here in New Canaan.

Business

PHOTOS: New Canaan Music Settles in on Main Street

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As New Canaan families return to town for sports practices and the start of the school, musicians and those learning how to play instruments will have a brand-new hub for musical activities. New Canaan Music spent much of August moving into its newly renovated, expanded home at 90 Main St.—a brightly lit, inviting space that had served for a few years as the temporary Post Office. “We love the new space,” New Canaan Music owner Phil Williams said on a recent afternoon. “Just being on Main Street is wonderful, it’s awesome.”

The shop—a combination of retail in front with lesson rooms in the back—has a larger space to showcase its merchandise and has made use of it, in part, by offering the full line of Squier guitars, including their Classic Vibes from Fender for electric guitars. “We are adding more acoustic guitars—our acoustic guitars are going to be better—and we have twice as many lesson rooms as we had before with bigger, better soundproofing,” he said.

Business

‘Subway’ Sandwich Shop To Reopen on Main Street

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Nearly four months after it closed, the Subway sandwich shop on Main Street is to be reopened within one week under new ownership, officials say. The national made-to-order sandwich shop could be reopened as early as Friday, or possibly Monday, according to Zack Ullah, a Norwalk resident who will manage the Subway at 64 Main St. The staff has been hired at Subway and Ullah said the shop is “going to do something special for ‘Back to School.’ ”

“I know they’re playing football and the camps are going on as well, so we can have them in or deliver for their convenience,” Ullah told NewCanaanite.com. Located directly opposite Town Hall and popular among both municipal workers there and the guys at the Fire Department up the street, Subway had been a fixture of downtown New Canaan for more than 25 years. A sign appeared in its window in April that the store was closing, just as the national chain closed hundreds of stores nationwide, faced with a slowdown in sales.

Around Town

Popular ‘New CanaanOpoly’ Board Game To Return, Thanks to Local Resident

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Around Christmas last year, town resident Ryan Davis recalled, locals began contacting his mother about the availability of an out-of-stock and hugely popular Monopoly-based board game that had been customized to New Canaan. Barbara Davis had created ‘New CanaanOpoly’ 10 years ago as a fundraiser for a local nonprofit organization. For Ryan Davis, the interest represented a chance to breathe new life into the old board game in order to benefit one of the most widely anticipated fundraising efforts in town. “We decided this could be a great idea and thought it would be a great way to help out the New Canaan Library,” he told NewCanaanite.com. Soon, New Canaan High School alumni Thomas and Spencer Williams joined the effort, and a newly updated version of New CanaanOpoly is in production and will be available for purchase in the fall, Ryan Davis said.

Business

Sidewalk Sale: Return of Caffeine & Carburetors Announced as Throngs of Bargain-Hunters Hit Downtown New Canaan [PHOTOS]

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Scores of bargain-hunters descended on downtown New Canaan on a tolerably warm Saturday for the 52nd annual Village Fair and Sidewalk Sale. Merchant booths on Main, Elm and Forest Streets sold out well ahead of the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce’s deadline, and shoppers moved through areas cordoned off for pedestrians to peruse racks of clothes and tables of goods, visiting the Pop Up Park for live music and food and riding on “zippy pets” where Karl Chevrolet and the New Canaan YMCA set up at Main and Elm. “The weather is going to be great—it’s not 99 degrees,” Chamber Executive Director Tucker Murphy said. “This is all good.”

Doug Zumbach, owner of Zumbach’s Gourmet Coffee on Pine Street, in the afternoon announced that Caffeine & Carburetors—originally ruled out for 2017—would make a special return to downtown New Canaan on Sunday, Sept. 17.