190 Main (a new restaurant, operated by Nômade, will open here)
2nd Street (second-hand clothes and accessories, Main Street, most recently The Loft)
Big Y Supermarket (Post Road East, where Barnes & Noble was, and Amazon Fresh never moved in)
The Bridge at Saugatuck (Riverside Avenue restaurant, in the old Parker Mansion space)
The Clubhouse (sports simulators, event space and more; Post Road East, site of the former Pane e Bene restaurant
Delamar Westport (on the site of the former Westport Inn; opening late 2024)
Faherty Clothing (Main Street, next to Timothy Oulton)
Henry Lehr Pop-up (Post Road East, next to Middlemarch — and yes, there was a Henry Lehr for many years on Main Street)
Just Salad (soon to replace Salsa Fresca, at the foot of Playhouse Square)
Lyfe Cafe (Pizza Lyfe’s new breakfast café, across Long Lots Road where Gallo Express used to be)
One Medical (Elm Street; an Amazon healthcare company)
Recess (gym by celebrity trainer Eric Johnson)
Riko’s Pizza (Charles Street, where Mystic Market was — and, long before that, where the Arrow made pizzas)
Saatva (custom mattress national company, owned by Westporter Ron Rudzin; next to Walgreens, in the old Citibank)
Spot On Vet (Post Road East, just east of Savvy Smoker and Christian Siriano’s The Collective West)
Sushi Jin (Main Street, just before Mexicue)
What have we missed?What do we need? What are you most looking forward to? Click “Comments” below.
(Photo/Bob Weingarten)
(“06880” is your place for business news: openings, closings, special events, and everything else. Please make it your business to click here, to support our work. Thank you!)
From 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. today, Blossom + Stem has created over 100 bud vases filled with local flowers for customers. There’s also iced coffee and cookies, and Sweetgreen swag.
Westporters who know Sweetgreen are excited. Let’s hope the hype is true.
The 49th straight monthly Red Cross Blood Drive at VFW Joseph J. Clinton Post 399 is tomorrow (Wednesday, July 31, 1 to 6 p.m. Veteran blood donors — and first-timers — are welcome.
Click here to make an appointment. Use sponsor code VFWWESTPORT. You can also call 800-733-2767.
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The Public Works Department’s annual roadway crack seal program begins today.
Work will take about a week, on 12-15 miles of town streets.
Alternating one-way traffic flow will be used. Keep your eyes open — and drive carefully.
Attention will be paid.
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Staples High School Class of 1987 graduate Linda Hall’s latest piece — “What Alice Munro Knew” — has been posted on The New Republic’s website.
The subtitle reads: “After news of Munro’s betrayal of her daughter, its hard not to see a preoccupation with guilt and secrets in her later work.”
Hall is an associate professor of English at Skidmore. (Hat tip: Fred Cantor)
Linda Hall
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“Westport … Naturally” photographer Johanna Keyser Rossi snapped this great close-up of a butterfly, at the Library Riverwalk:
At 6 a.m., the first spots were already reserved for tonight’s fireworks.
(Photo/Pam Kesselman)
This was the scene at 6:30:
(Photo/Jonathan Alloy)
At 6:40, there was this:
(Photo/Susie Kowalsky)
Ghost encampments will continue to sprout all morning long.
Some will be normal, considerate-of-neighbor-sized. Others will be the Compo Beach equivalent of McMansions.
The upside: The trend of setting up for a party ahead of time has lessened the traffic trying to enter the beach the moment it opens to ticket-holders, at around 4:30 or 5.
NOTE: As of 7:30 a.m., only 15 tickets for tonight’s show remained. They’re being sold today at police headquarters on Jesup Road only.
Organic Krush — the property they were replacing — vociferously said “not true!”
It was. But it took 2 years for it to happen.
The sign is now up. The targeted opening date is the end of this month.
(Photo courtesy of WestportMoms)
As “06880” reported in early June — and WestportMoms alluded to yesterday, in the Sweetgreen announcement — Just Salad is likely to replace Salsa Fresca “before the end of the year.”
Brooks Corner — the 23,945-square foot retail and office complex in the heart of downtown Westport — has been sold.
ARC — a Concord, Massachusetts-based real estate acquisition, development and management firm — bought the property from Westfair Inc., the Brooks family company.
The purchase price was $12,750,000.
Brooks Corner is anchored by Brooks Brothers (no relation to the family that built it), and Lux Bond & Green.
Brooks Corner
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There was no wind, rain or any other precipitating factor.
But a large tree fell just before 9 a.m. yesterday on Easton Road, near Coleytown Elementary School.
Branches hit a car driving past. The driver veered into a stone wall. There were no reported injuries.
More than 50 Eversource customers lost power.
(Photo/Mark Mathias)
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The Residence at Westport is a senior living community.
But they’ve adopted our town’s youngsters as a cause.
From now through August 31, they’re collecting backpacks and school supplies, to support students in need.
Items can be dropped off in the lobby. The Residence is at 1141 Post Road East, opposite Greens Farms Elementary School.
Westport Rotary Club outgoing president Kenny Epstein passed the gavel to new president Goldie James at the annual traditional dinner on Friday, at Ned Dimes Marina.
Over 70 members ate lobsters, watched the new board sworn in, and enjoyed awards and gifts, as Rotary rang in its 101st year.
Kenny Epstein passes the gavel to Goldie James. (Photo/Dave Matlow)
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Ewen Rainer grew up in New Jersey. Jennifer Leigh is from the Branford area. They now live in Charleston, South Carolina.
They planned a religious wedding in Italy. But they wanted a civil one in the US, before heading overseas.
What better place than Westport?
But where? And who would perform it?
They got a list of justices of the peace from Town Hall. They chose Andrew Colabella, based on his close associations with Westport.
In May, the Representative Town Meeting member performed the ceremony on Veterans Green. A dinner, with family members who could not travel overseas, followed at Saugatuck Rowing Club.
The couple is back in the States. They’ve got great memories of Italy — and Westport.
Justice of the peace Andrew Colabella (left), with Ewen Rainer and Jennifer Leigh.
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Wondering how space environments threaten exoplanet habitability?
Dr. Ofer Cohen — an associate professor at the University of Massaschusetts -Lowell Center for Space Science & Technology — answers that question July 16 (8 p.m.), in a free Westport Astronomical Society webinar.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch — at least, if you’re eating in or taking out downtown.
Downtown parking though, has always been free — for 1 or 2 hours.
During the pandemic, enforcement of parking limits was suspended.
Tickets may soon return — but only after those parking limits are extended.
The second agenda item on Wednesday’s Board of Selectwomen meeting (August 16, 9 a.m., Town Hall auditorium) reads:
Acting in its capacity as the Local Traffic Authority, to re-establish the enforcement of timed parking limits previously suspended by the Board of Selectmen at its public meeting of June 10, 2020, and further, to establish uniform parking limits and times of enforcement throughout the town-managed and owned downtown parking lots known as Parker Harding Plaza, Sigrid Shultz Plaza, Baldwin, Bay Street, Jesup Road, and Taylor, and the Town roadways known as Main Street, Church Lane, Bay Street, and Taylor Place, by changing FROM the currently posted “1- and 2- hour parking” limits TO “3-hour parking” limits and enforcement times TO “8:00 AM to 6:00 PM.” And further, to request permission from the CT DOT to change the current parking term limits posted on Post Road East FROM “1- and 2-hour parking” TO “3-hour parking.”
Click here for the livestream of the Board of Selectwomen session, or watch on Optimum Channel 79. Comments may be sent to selectwoman@westportct.gov prior to the meeting.
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The 3rd agenda item for Wednesday’s Board of Selectwomen’s meeting is also of interest: a request from the Remarkable Theater to use the Imperial Avenue parking lot from August 28 through November 3 for a 4th season of drive-in movies.
From 2020 through ’22, the Remarkable’s season began in the spring.
Jacqui O’Brien was one of several readers who sent photos of a strange object seen over Westport skies last night.
Susan Leone was the first to identify them as SpaceX Starlink satellites.
They were launched yesterday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. It was the 9th flight for the first stage booster supporting the mission.
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As first noted on “06880” over a year ago — but denied vociferously by Organic Krush — Sweetgreens is indeed moving in to Compo Shopping Center.
Organic Krush has already moved out.
No date has been announced for opening. But the fast-casual salad-based chain — which emphasizes healthy eating and sustainability, and has 158 outlets in 13 states — already has Westporters excited.
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The recent food drive for Homes with Hope’s Gillespie Center and food pantry — which included a special, fill-my-shopping-cart trip by a mother and 2 children — was celebrated yesterday, at the Sunrise Rotary Club’s weekly meeting.
The sponsors — including also the Westport Rotary Club, Westport Police Department and Saugatuck Rowing Club — presented a check for $1,105.62 to Homes with Hope.
Those cash donations were in addition to the hundreds of bags of groceries that were dropped off, as shoppers entered and exited the store.
From left: Liz Wong, Sunrise Rotary president; Rob Hauck, Rotary member; Helen McAlinden, Homes with Hope president; Paris Looney, HWH vice president, and Sunrise Rotary members Bruce Paul and Bruce Fritz. (Photo/James Wong)
The link provided yesterday by Wakeman Town Farm for their September 9 Harvest Fest fundraiser was incorrect. Click here for tickets, and more information.
But all can agree: the Smart Shots Pickleball Social is great.
The September 30 event (6:30 to 9:30 p.m., Milford Indoor Tennis) is a fundraiser for A Better Chance of Westport.
Level-designated courts will ensure exciting matches. Vendors will offer pickleball services and products. A raffle includes special prizes. The Porch @ Christie’s is providing food (available for pre-purchase).
The event is sponsored by ATP (Alan & Tina Pickleball). Click here to register. Questions? Call 203-984-1949.
And finally … anyone who saw the 2012 Oscar-winning documentary “Searching for Sugar Man” knows that Rodriguez’s story is astonishing.
The Detroit musician wrote and sang haunting protest songs. But he never found an audience, and settled into a life as a laborer and office worker.
He was “discovered” in Australia however — and then, even more so, in South Africa during apartheid. According to the New York Times:
“To many of us South Africans, he was the soundtrack to our lives,” Stephen Segerman, owner of a Cape Town record store, said in the documentary.
“In the mid-’70s, if you walked into a random white, liberal, middle-class household that had a turntable and a pile of pop records, and if you flipped through the records, you would always see ‘Abbey Road’ by the Beatles, you’d always see ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ by Simon and Garfunkel, and you would always see ‘Cold Fact’ by Rodriguez. To us, it was one of the most famous records of all time. The message it had was ‘Be anti-establishment.’”
Astonishingly, Rodriguez did not know he had fervent fans in South Africa. Equally astonishingly, South Africans thought he was dead. One rumor was a drug overdose; another, that he had killed himself onstage.
In 1998, he was discovered — alive, and living in obscurity in Detroit. He was invited to South Africa, and played concerts at sold-out venues.
He was “discovered” again more than a dozen years later, with the release of “Searching for Sugar Man” — a film about his strange but vibrant life.
Rodriguez — whose full name was Sixto Diaz Rodriguez — died Tuesday, in Detroit. He was 81.
Click here for a full obituary. Click below to hear Rodriguez.
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Posted onMarch 15, 2023|Comments Off on Roundup: Sweetgreen, Y Memories, March Madness …
As reported last July on “06880,” Sweetgreen will be opening in Westport.
The salad-and-bowl fast casual restaurant — with over 150 outlets in more than a dozen states — will replace Organic Krush.
Although Sweetgreen representatives went before the Architectural Review Board with plans for their new restaurant in July, Organic Krush protested vociferously that they were not leaving.
After 100 years, the Westport Weston Family YMCA knows plenty of folks have lots of memories. And memorabilia.
As part of their century celebration they ask members, former members and everyone else to haul out their photo albums, think back on the past, and share what they find. Click here to submit.
All year long, the Y will feature those photos and stories on their lobby monitor, website and social media, and in email newsletters.
Click here for the dedicated web page. Click below for a sample submission.
The media celebrity (Fox News, NBC Sports, CNN) is hosting “March Madness Fast Break” for Turner Sports. It’s noon to midnight, Thursday through Sunday on MarchMadness.com and the March Madness Live app.
Dave calls it “Red Zone for college basketball with the best live action, analysis and social media reaction.” He partners with a pair of legends: Kentucky’s Tony Delk and Wake Forest’s Randolph Childress.
The Levitt Pavilion season is still 3 months away. But — to help raise funds for over 50 nights of free entertainment — the riverside outdoor venue has just announced 2 special ticketed events.
Samara Joy — 2023 Grammy Award winner for Best New Artist and Best Jazz Vocal Album — takes the stage June 3. Triple Grammy winner Bruce Hornsby follows with the Noisemakers on July 1. Both Saturday shows begin at 7:30 p.m.
Member pre-sales start today (Wednesday, March 15) at 10 a.m. Public sales start Friday (March 17, 10 a.m.).
Tickets are already on sale for the June 24 show: Michael Franti & Spearhead Big Big Love Tour, with Phillip Phillips.
Representative Town Meeting member Matthew Mandell joins other elected officials this morning (Wednesday, March 15, 10 a.m.; Zoom).
They’ll speak prior to the state General Assembly Planning & Development Committee’s public hearing on HB 6890, the “Live Work Ride” bill that proposes withholding, withdrawing and perhaps clawing back state infrastructure funding from communities that fail to adopt regulations permitting greater density, with limited parking and a prescribed affordability component, around transit areas.
Mandell and his colleagues are part of “CT169Strong.” It’s a statewide non-partisan group “dedicated to local control and oversight, and protecting the unique qualities of Connecticut’s 169 towns.
Click here for a link to Mandell’s meeting. The ID is 455 019 2513; the passcode is 6C436A.
Love the Westport Library? Want to help make it even better?
The Library and Representative Town Meeting are seeking candidates to fill vacancies on the Library board of trustees.
Trustees work closely with the executive director, in areas like funding, policies and planning. They develop long-range plans, monitor the budget and help oversee fundraising. The board meets monthly; there are also committee meetings.
Trustees must be Westport residents. There are 20 members. Half are appointed by the RTM, half by the Library board itself.
More information about the role of trustees is available here.
Applicants should email a resume and letter of interest to rpowell@westportlibrary,org. by April 17, with information on how past work and experience qualify them for consideration as a trustee.
How can parents and caregivers support healthy identity development in young children?
Many ways. And you can learn about them at “Supporting Healthy Identity Development in Young Children: Race, Culture and Beyond.” The Westport Library keynote (April 4, 7 to 8:30 p.m.) is led by Takiema Bunche Smith, founder and CEO of Anahsa Consulting and a noted executive leader, advisor, coach and educator.
The session will explore “how adults socialize young children into racial, cultural and other social identities, and what that means in the context of an inequitable US society.”
Click here for more information. The event is sponsored by TEAM Westport.
Sweetgreen went before the Architectural Review Board last night.
The salad-and-bowl fast casual restaurant — with over 150 outlets in more than a dozen states — will replace Organic Krush. The “lifestyle eatery” replaced Chipotle less than 2 years ago. Board members were pleased with the new look. (There were no comments on the menu.)
Representatives from Bridge Square faced more questions, about the new look of that venerable plaza. Questions centered around architectural additions, the back (river) side, and color.
Ultimately, the ARB voted to let the project continue, with the recommendation that the owners come back with a new color scheme.
The ARB took the most time on a pre-application review of a text amendment for The Hamlet at Saugatuck, the proposed redevelopment of the area bordered by Riverside Avenue, Railroad Place and Charles Street.
No decisions were made. Members asked questions about height and architecture. ROAN Ventures, the project developer, continues the process with the ARB and Planning & Zoning Commission in September.
One of Westport’s oldest best known liquor stores is for sale.
A commercial real estate listing for Greens Farms Spirit Shop says: “Prime location on well-traveled road. Fantastic selection of all types of Spirits, with experienced Staff. Full delivery service, and help with all Events, Weddings, as well as corporate outings. Truly a must see to get the full affect [sic] of the operation.”
It’s listed for $2,250,000. Click here for details. (Hat tip: Amy Swanson)
Hook’d — the Compo Beach concessionaire — remains controversial.
A few “06800” readers accused me of being too harsh, with my recent report that my request for a rare cheeseburger was denied.
That’s the Health Department looking out for beef eaters, apparently. (Don’t forget: The girl at the counter said that all their burgers are cooked the same: medium. I couldn’t have gotten mine well done, either).
So take this next item with a grain of salt. Alert reader Martin Iselin writes:
“Joey’s (the previous concessionaire) was known for one of the best hot dogs around. After a bike ride I always rewarded myself with one.
“After finishing a recent ride, I thought I’d try the new place. I ordered a hot dog, and asked if they had sauerkraut. No!
“I asked about relish. No!
“Disappointed, a put a little mustard on it. I don’t what brand they use, but it was so salty I could not eat it.
“What kind of beach summer place has no condiments, and such bad food?”
Sarah Jane Cion snagged first place in the 17th annual Great American Jazz Piano Competition.
Tomorrow, she plays the magnificent Steinway — direct from the legendary Village Gate club — at Westport’s VFW (465 Riverside Avenue). It’s the next, and one of the most anticipated, “Jazz @ the Post” shows of the summer.
Cion has performed with legends like Clark Terry, Etta Jones, Anita O’Day, Bucky Pizzarelli and Don Braden, and is a regular at Birdland. Judges for her award-winning competition were Horace Silver, Kenny Barron, Ellis Marsalis, Benny Green and Bill Charlap.
Music begins at 7 p.m. The cover charge of $10 goes directly to the musicians.
Tag sales wax and wane with the weather. We don’t see too many in winter — or summer.
But on Saturday, August 6 (8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.; early bird special $10 for 8 a.m. entry), the Unitarian Church in Westport sponsors its always popular (and massive) sale.
Thousands of items are donated by dozens of families. Among them: outdoor tools, kitchenware, china, artwork, home décor, rugs, clothing, books, blankets, sheets, arm chairs, lamps — even a unicycle.
COVID knocked out the past couple of tag sales. So there’s plenty of merch — and demand
Proceeds fund operating costs of the congregation, and the social justice causes they support.
Click here to help support “06880” via credit card or PayPal. Any amount is welcome, appreciated — and tax-deductible! Reader contributions keep this blog going. (Alternate methods: Please send a check to “06880”: PO Box 744, Westport, CT 06881. Or use Venmo: @blog06880. Or Zelle: dwoog@optonline.net. Thanks!)
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