Claire’s reopens in expanded New Haven space

NEW HAVEN — In the end it all arrived on time.

One day before the scheduled reopening, the shelving lost in the mail was delivered, as was that critical stove part, and the Fire Department finished its inspection of the sprinkler system.

After five months and four days, Claire Criscuolo of Claire’s Corner Copia on Friday was back greeting old friends to her expanded vegan restaurant that will celebrate its 45th anniversary on Sept. 17.

“I haven’t been this happy in months. I haven’t been this happy since my great-nephew was born, since I became prozia ,” (that’s Italian for great aunt,) Criscuolo said.

It started out as a pretty straightforward renovation plan for new walls and flooring, just in the kitchen, and a new counter. It quickly got complicated when her landlord, Yale Properties, asked whether she wanted to annex the small space nextdoor where the restaurant originally was located.

“We are so over budget ... thank God for SBA loans,” she said as the renovation took on a life of its own, not the least of which was discovering the wall that needed to come down was loadbearing.

With each unexpected turn, however, there seemed to be some compensation that kept her going.

Half of a mural in the restaurant’s dining room some eight years ago was mistakenly painted over. But then Criscuolo realized it was the perfect place for her guiding motto:

“The only compelling reason why we have been given more food than we need, more love than we need and more resources than we need, is so that we may share with those who have been given less,” Criscuolo said, something that will greet customers as they come inside.

Nearby there will be another message: “Be kinder than necessary.”

The name Claire’s Corner Copia was the winning suggestion made by a graduate student, Jeff Hall, in a contest held in 1975. The prize was a hot fudge sundae for four people every week for a year.

Criscuolo is full of stories and will often interrupt one to tell another, or switch topics when something else distracts her. In this case it was the sensory overload.

“Oh my God, I smell the bread. Oh my God, do you guys smell the bread?,” Crisculo said to her staff, which was preparing lunch for customers. “Oh, be still my heart. Oh, Lord. This is the first new loaf!”

“We are just so lucky to be back in this corner. This is a blessing,” she said.

She then gave a shout-out to the painters, who do a lot of work for Yale, as they made sure everything was ready for her opening.

“Thank you for making it happen. They squeezed us in. They didn’t have to fit us in,” Criscuolo said.

Candice Klein and her sister, Laurie Klein, who have been customers since Claire’s opened, made a point of having lunch there on Friday. For Candice, she was sticking with the soup and salad combo, but she added a side of nachos. Laurie’s favorite are the fritters.

Of her 25 staff members, 21 are coming back and Criscuolo plans to replace those who moved away.

The remaining workers did all the prep work last night. “We are a well-oiled machine,” Criscuolo said of getting back into the swing of things.

One of them was Erin Guild, her manager for the past 17 years, who came in the see how the lunch hour was doing. Maria Felice, a 10-year veteran at the restaurant, was the baker responsible for the smell of bread wafting through the restaurant. She came into the dining room to say hello.

Asked to reflect on the big picture of New Haven over the last almost-half-century, Criscuolo compared local home-grown businesses with the big names that come and go.

She remembered one of them that was located across the street. As soon as a “mini-recession” landed here, “they closed. That is what happens with corporate. Because corporate looks at sales only . ... Somebody like a small business, that stays here because they love this place, they make it work and they suck it up during the hard times.”

Criscuolo then ticked off the financial downturns she remembers starting in the 1980s, followed by the 9/11 attacks and the 2008 Great Recession and now the pandemic.

“It is going to take more than a pandemic to get rid of us. You know, if you want something to work, you work it. If you want something to be successful, you work to make it successful. If you come from a place of love, then people are your bottom line,” she said.