New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Changes coming to Ansonia’s Restaurant Row
One closing, one opening and more still to come
ANSONIA — Pandemic scoreboard: one business closing, one opening and four businesses coming.
“Ansonia is becoming the food capital of the Valley,” Mayor David Cassetti proclaimed at the opening of Food Truck and Co., which supplies food trucks and has indoor eating on 1 Howard Ave. “While some cities are seeing restaurants close because of the pandemic, we’re seeing restaurants open.”
The city’s Restaurant Row is in for changes: IHOP will be moving into the former Ansonia Senior Center, an upscale Mexican restaurant will be leasing the former Eddy’s Bake Shop and a coffee and pastry shop is looking at the former Wells Fargo drive through —all on Main Street.
Zuppardi’s Apizza of West Haven will be leasing a portion of the former H.C. Cook Co. on Beaver Street for their frozen pizza business and may add a restaurant. The owner of the Ansonia Plaza Center is close to leasing the former Big Y Supermarket to a new tenant while Arby’s, a fast food restaurant has been looking at properties on Pershing Drive, Cassetti said.
The new businesses join more than a dozen estabilished eateries offering American, Italian, Japanese Latin Fusion, Polish, Puerto Rican and Thai food downtown.
On the down side, Libby Meissner, who owns Crave Restaurant, said she is closing Only For Her, a women’s boutique next to Crave.
“I had an amazing run here,” she said. “I could not compete with the pandemic.”
Hers is the second downtown clothier to close this year. In January, Seccombe’s Men’s Shop announced they were closing after 96 years in business. Their going out of business sale was cut short by the pandemic.
Meissner said business shutdowns, potential customers staying home and imports suspending mailings affected her ability to buy and sell merchandise.
“Distribution is bad and it’s difficult to restock,” she said. “Thirty to 40 percent of the people are staying home and buying on line. My Amazon stock is doing great but my retail business could not compete with them. Yet I still had to pay the rent.”
Meissner said the choice was “staying on a sinking ship or jumping off and watching it sink. I chose to jump off.”
That wasn’t good news for Frank Romano, a longtime customer from Derby.
“For me, this was one-stop shopping during the holidays,” Romano said. “I’d be here for an hour, get everything I needed for my family, have it gift-wrapped and ready to go under the tree.”
Meissner said she’ll miss her customers once she shuts the boutique’s doors Sept. 30.