Family plans to open sandwich shop in New Fairfield
NEW FAIRFIELD — A new sandwich shop is coming to town.
Froggy’s Deli — a familyowned chain of sandwich shops — plans to open a store on Route 39 near New Fairfield’s post office.
John Russo said the store is the next step in expanding the chain of delis he and his brothers, Bob and Tony, started in 2011.
Six years after opening the first Froggy’s in Somers, N.Y., the brothers opened a second location in Pawling, followed by a third in Brewster in 2019.
The New Fairfield shop — which will occupy half the vacant commercial building at 9 Brush Hill Road — will be the fourth Froggy’s and the first in Connecticut.
Russo said the small town atmosphere was one reason he and his brothers decided to open a Froggy’s in New Fairfield.
“We’re a small-town kind of business that gets involved with town sports and activities,” he said.
It’s also a familiar place to Russo and his brothers, who grew up in nearby Brewster.
“I would say about 50 percent of the friends we grew up and went to school with eventually moved to New Fairfield,” Russo said. “Everybody I knew from Brewster schools bought a house in New Fairfield.”
Russo said opening a store in New Fairfield seemed like a good opportunity.
“There isn’t too much competition, really — just Johnny’s, which is a very good and well-known place but a different kind of business,” he said. “Johnny’s is like a market — they have a butcher shop and cold cuts and stuff. We’re different.”
The Froggy’s menu features a variety of food — ranging from wedges, burgers, wraps and fries to omelettes and breakfast sandwiches.
Russo said he and his business partners are working to move away from “the deli name” and “trying to focus on a sandwich shop kind of thing.”
“Sometimes delis are kind of stereotyped as places that hang meats, do a lot of cold cuts, different kinds of salads and stuff,” he said. “We really want to hone in on making some of the best sandwiches around and not get distracted with other things.”
Russo said the goal is for Froggy’s to be the go-to place for “quick, fast sandwiches that are filling and hearty.”
“If you come in to get a sandwich on your way to work, I want you in and out of the store without having to wait,” he said. “My goal is really to get people settled before they even make their coffee.”
As part of a plan to streamline service, Russo said he and his partners hope to launch an app so people can place orders from their phones.
“We’re going to try to be the fastest place around,” he said.
But a lot of renovation work needs to be done at the Brush Hill Road site before the New Fairfield Froggy’s can open.
“It’s a fully empty space, so it’s going to be a full buildout,” Russo said. “This is the first store where we’re building it to be exactly the way that we want, and we’ve come up with a couple ideas.”
Unlike the New Fairfield space — which was renovated several years ago — when the other three Froggy’s locations opened, they filled spaces that had been recently occupied.
“We always had to kind of stick to where they were. This is the first time we have an open box, so whatever we want, we’re building,” Russo said. “We’re very excited about it.”
The New Fairfield Froggy’s is expected to open either later this spring or in early summer.