Around Town

Sidewalk Sale Sneak Preview: What to Expect This Saturday

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The NewCanaanite.com Summer Internship Program is sponsored by Baskin-Robbins, Connecticut Sandwich Co., Joe’s Pizza and Mackenzie’s. In advance of Saturday’s annual Village Fair & Sidewalk Sale (9 a.m. to 5 p.m.), NewCanaanite.com ventured to different shops throughout downtown New Canaan to get some insights into what to expect to see at the different booths this year. One such store is New Canaan Olive Oil located on Elm Street across from the New Canaan Playhouse. The store’s owner, Heidi Burrows, told us that her store will be giving out samples of a variety of products and will offer deals on certain items. “We’ll be doing sales on all of our local jams, all of our sea salts will be on sale for $5, we’re doing gift boxes like a bread-dipper gift box, a salad dressing gift box for $15, and then we’re also doing a buy one get 25 percent off any oil or vinegar,” Ms. Burrows said. New Canaan Olive Oil is not the only local store that will be joining in on the festivities.

Business

Here are 28 Current New Canaan Chamber Member Businesses That Also Belonged in Back in ’82

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Here’s a short list of sweeping economic crises that have affected, directly or indirectly, every U.S. business since 1982: Black Monday, savings and loan crisis, subprime mortgage crisis and Great Recession. Locally, success in business involves nimbleness and acumen, and far more than that—interpersonal skills, involvement, diligence and imagination. Recently, the head of an organization that’s central for many local businesses, the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce, came by chance across a list of 28 current members that also were members back in 1982. “They’ve supported the chamber, supported the town and been here for a long, long time,” Executive Director Tucker Murphy said. “We want to congratulate them on that.”

Here’s the list, in alphabetical order (not every single business has been a continuous member of the chamber, though many—including Bob’s Sports, Karl Chevrolet, Walter Stewart’s and Stewart’s Spirits—have been):

Ann Taylor
Baskin Robbins
Bob’s Sports
Brotherhood & Higley
Congregational Church
Family Britches
Franco’s Wine
Healthfare
Hersam Acorn- New Canaan Advertiser
Hoyt Funeral Home
Hutchinson Tree Company

Karl Chevrolet
League of Women Voters
Merrill Lynch
New Canaan Board of Realtors
New Canaan Community Nursery School
New Canaan Country School
New Canaan Library
New Canaan Nature Center
Pennyweights
Roger Sherman Inn
Silvermine Arts Guild
Stewart’s Spirits
Taylor’s Luggage
Visiting Nurse Association of New Canaan
Walter Stewart’s
Waveny Care Center
Whitney Shop

Ties to the local chamber run very deep for businesses such as Walter Stewart’s, recently recognized as Business of the Year.

Around Town

New Canaan Nature Center, Town, Businesses and Organizations Mark Earth Day 2014 [VIDEOS]

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“Where have those flowers and butterflies all gone

That science may have staked the future on?”

—from Robert Frost’s “Pod of the Milkweed”

 

The migration of monarch butterflies through New Canaan—and everywhere else along the East Coast—is happening less frequently in recent years, to the point where some are calling the insects’ once widely anticipated journey between the Northeast/Canada and Mexico “endangered.”

The major reason, experts say, is a lack of milkweed, which monarch caterpillars feed on. “The butterflies can go to all kinds of flowers for nectar, but the caterpillars can only eat milkweed plants. They’re having a hard time with loss of bio-habitat, so we are encouraging people in town to plant these free milkweed seeds,” Susan Bergen, a volunteer for the New Canaan Garden Club, said Tuesday morning from a table inside New Canaan Library. There, she and Jen Rayher (nee Sillo, a 1994 New Canaan High School graduate), director of membership and volunteers at the New Canaan Nature Center, handed out the seeds (“Got Milkweed?” on the packet) to mark Earth Day here in town. It’s one of several initiatives and events planned by the Nature Center for the next week, which New Canaan’s highest elected official today declared “Environmental Awareness Week 2014Week” (see video below).

Business

Concerns about Customer Parking Loom as Mrs. Green’s Opens

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On the cusp of its grand opening, Mrs. Green’s is facing concerns from police about a lack of available customer parking in bustling downtown New Canaan. The market, following a soft launch Thursday night, opens Friday in the former post office building at the corner of Pine and Park Streets. Capt. Vincent DeMaio said this week that he’s discussed the problem with leadership at Mrs. Green’s. A garage underneath the store has about 30 spaces, but those likely will need to go to store employees, DeMaio said. “They assured me that they will keep things clean and I assured them that there probably will be plenty of fistfights in the Walgreens parking lot, because that’s going to be the natural place for everyone to park, because there will be nowhere else to park,” DeMaio said at Wednesday’s Police Commission meeting, held in the police department’s training room.

Business

Meet ‘Garden Fresh Baby,’ Launching Friday in Mrs. Green’s New Canaan

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Though Marna Altman for eight years had been caring for kids professionally as a preschool teacher, she’d never cooked for others until she had her own children. Originally from Scarsdale, NY, Altman moved up to Westport for her husband’s job a few years ago and—while staying home to raise their two young kids—developed a passion for keeping the children’s diets chemical-free. The baby food Altman found in most markets weren’t living up to her own standards, so she started shopping farmers markets and making it herself. “And from that experience we had a lot of friends and family who were really interested with us supplying them with baby food and making it for them, and then it kind of just became a business from there,” recalled Altman, 32, CEO of Garden Baby Fresh LLC. In just one year, the company has grown its locally sourced, all-organic baby food and toddler meals business—with repeat customers and even out-of-state mail orders—to the point where Altman can start to envision a national presence.