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A year after Elvira’s reopened as Joey’s By the Shore — Featuring Elvira Mae’s Coffee Bar,” there’s more news from Old Mill/Compo’s favorite food spot.
The building is for sale. But Joey Romeo and Betsy Kravitz are not going anywhere. They’re keeping the business just as is — with great eats, an ordering window and a beachy vibe, 7 days a week from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. A long-term lease protects the business.
That’s the good great news. Now if only we had some good news about that long-halted home construction project on the site of the former Positano restaurant, a few yards diagonally across the street …
Betsy Kravitz and Joey Romeo, ready for another season.
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Both myTeam Triumph-CT and Remarkable Theater support the special needs community.
It’s no wonder they’re partnering for mTT’s “Spring Into Action” season-opening event. On Saturday, May 1 (gates open at 6:30 p.m.; movie at 7:30), myTeam Triumph sponsors a showing of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” — the Marvel adventure film — at the downtown drive-in.
It’s not just that the Remarkable Theater employs people with disabilities for screenings at the Imperial Avenue lot. Or that myTeam Triump pairs children, teens, adults and veterans with disabilities with volunteers, who join them in triathlons and road races.
The volunteers are called “angels.” The special needs participants are called … “captains.” So the May 1 film is very fitting.
All proceeds from the event will be shared by Remarkable Theater and myTeam Triumph-CT.
For more information and to buy tickets, click here. To learn more and volunteer with mTT (you don’t have to be an athlete!), click here. To donate, click here.
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Starting tomorrow, there’s another COVID testing center in town.
Progressive Diagnostics opens at 8 a.m. in Saugatuck railroad station parking lot #8. That’s the one off Saugatuck Avenue, between I-95 and the Exit 17 entrance/ exit ramp. They promise same-day PCR and antibody test results.
Weekday hours are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.
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Speaking of COVID: Who better to answer questions about the virus than Dr. Scott Gottlieb — former FDA commissioner (and Westport resident)?
And who better to ask those questions than Dave Briggs — longtime journalist (and fellow Westporter)?
The event is on InstagramLive today (Thursday, April 22, 6 p.m., @WestportMagazine). You can ask questions now: DM@DaveBriggsTV.
Dr. Scott Gottlieb
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Looking for a special Mother’s Day gift? Head to the farm!
Wakeman Town Farm offers spring arrangements, through Hedge Floral. Options include a garden bouquet in twig-wrapped vessel ($95) and posies in upcycled tin cans ($30).
Hedge designs each arrangement with the best of what’s available in early May. That probably means Queen Anne’s lace, mustard, lilac, pieris, euonymus, viburnum, azalea, honeysuckle and spirea.
Click here to order. Deadline is noon on May 5. Pick-up is Saturday, May 8, 10 a.m. to noon at WTF.
A garden bouquet option.
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Speaking of nature: Jolantha celebrated Earth Day today with a few friends, on Weston’s Kellogg Hill:
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We’ve spent the past 13 months urging Westporters to wear masks.
Looks like we need to talk about helmets too.
An “06880” reader sent this photo, from earlier this week at the Compo Beach skatepark. Several other helmet-less youngsters were nearby, he reports.
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And finally … Jim Steinman died Monday in Danbury. He was 73, and had been in poor health.
His New York Times obituary explains that Steinman “wrote all the songs on Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf’s operatic, teenage-angst-filled 1977 debut album, which remains one of the most successful records of all time.”
Meat Loaf was one of Westport’s many famous musician residents. When he wasn’t recording operatic, teenage-angst-filled songs, he played softball at Compo Beach and Greens Farms Elementary School, and coached it too.
Just another normal neighbor. (Hat tip: Adam Stolpen)
There is also a Westport connection to Marvel… The owner prior to Disney was Avi Arad… lived on Minuteman Hill… He and his son Ari were producer or executive producer of pretty much every film they put out… Avi was front and center when they won a golden globe for the animated Spider-Man Into the Spiderverse
played softball and golf with meatloaf, real great guy too.
I can still remember my father yelling across to him on the softball field all those Wednesdays…Hiya, Meat!
Meatloaf lived on Massiello Circle which is now named Boxwood Lane.
Thank you Dan for the info on the new testing site –
Why is the actual food concession at the beach still not open (last time I went)? I remember when Joey ran it, it was always open by now. Was there anything in their contract about when in the year they would provide services? Are they open at the golf course yet?
Meat and my husband Willie coached a girls softball team together. They both had their daughters on the team. Those Wednesday night mens softball games were so much fun also. Meat invited my whole family to his house one Sunday and Jim and his whole group were there. My kids were all dressed looking like they just stepped out of a Preppy catalog and some one said…”Oh my God, give me your camera, there is another one of them”!!!
Fun times in Westport those days!!!
And, another Meatloaf Westport connection…. Paul Jacobs and Sarah Durkee wrote “Modern Girl” and “Bad Attitude” (along with a few other songs for him, as well as, later on, many of the songs for “Between the Lions” on PBS). Sarah’s aunt was the incomparable Anne Beers. Both Paul and Sarah toured with Meatloaf, Paul playing guitar and keyboards.