Thomas MacMillan Photo
After 20 years of weekly visits to News Haven on Chapel street, Bob Breitenstien will have to find a new source for the latest on British grouse-hunting.
Breitenstien (pictured) was among loyal customers of the downtown newspaper and magazine outlet grousing about the latest sign of the times Friday: A Panera Bread bakery-cafe is moving in, and News Haven is moving out.
The popular cafe chain is moving into a 4,000 square-foot space at 1060 Chapel St. next to Starbucks near the corner of High, according to John Wareck, whose family real estate firm owns the building.
Part of the space is now empty. The Allegra photocopying shop used to occupy it. The rest of the space is occupied by News Haven, which has sold newspapers and magazines there from around the world for the past 30 years.
Navin Jani, who has owned News Haven for the past 12 years, said Friday he plans to vacate the space in mid-October. He said he doesn’t fault the owner for bringing in Panera rather than renewing his lease.
“He was good to me. He has to do his business,” said Jani, although he did want to remain in the space.
Panera is the latest chain to come to downtown New Haven. A Shake Shack opened earlier this month; a Chipotle Mexican Grill outlet is opening a block away to 900 Chapel St.
Wareck said Friday he doesn’t yet have an opening date for Panera, which he said has already signed a lease. Wareck’s company has to wait until News Haven moves out to begin retrofitting that space.
Jani said he does not plan to reopen News Haven elsewhere.
Wareck said Jani’s lease expired 18 months ago. Jani wanted it renewed. Wareck said he lowered the newsstand’s rent as the Internet cannibalized the store’s business — in an era when people can get the latest issue of Le Monde, for instance, immediately online rather than have to wait for it to be shipped to a newsstand in New Haven.
Some people still prefer to hold the dead-tree versions in their hand. Among them is the 76-year-old Breitenstien. The Woodbridge man, wearing a waxed canvas jacket, shorts, and wielding a wooden cane, popped into News Haven Friday afternoon to see if the latest issues of two British periodicals were in. Breitenstein is a loyal reader of “The Field” and “Country Life,” which he called “the most bloody civilized magazines in the whole store.”
News Haven stocks hundreds of titles on a wide variety of subjects — music, science, cars, pornography, news, art. Jani, who’s 60, prides himself on stocking magazines that can’t be found anywhere else nearby. He said the store stocks magazines and newspapers in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Croatian.
“You name it, we got it,” he said.
“I had a good time,” Jani said of his 12 years running the store. “People were nice.”
Jani, who commutes to work from his home in Queens, said the closure of his shop is just the latest example of a big corporation pushing out a small local store. He predicted Panera’s arrival would mark the end of other local business — sandwich shops that will lose their customers.
He also predicted Panera won’t draw the interest that his store has. “I’m the guy who brings a lot of traffic here,” he said.
Jani said he was offered another spot for his business, two blocks down Chapel towards the Green. He said he turned it down. “People down there don’t buy the magazines. They steal the magazines.”
“I heard they’re forcing you out,” said Bryan Coburn, a security guard at the Yale Center for British Art who said he often comes in for Diet Dr. Pepper and the New York Post. “That’s not right.”
“That’s a bummer,” said Breitenstein. “That’s a bad deal.”
He said News Haven is the only place in town to buy certain magazines. “New Haven doesn’t even really have a shoe store. It’s a city where no one wears shoes. And now nobody reads periodicals.”
“It’s an amazing selection,” said Nico Silins, 35-year-old from Ithaca, NY, who picked up a copy of Le Nouvel Observateur, a French news magazine. He said he’s a skateboarder who lived in France for four years, and was happy to see that News Haven has a good selection of both French magazines and skateboarding magazines. “They have everything here.”
Jani said he plans to put a sign in the window on Monday announcing the closure, and will shut his doors finally on Oct. 15. In the meantime, people have been finding out one-by-one at the cash register.
A woman buying a Coke offered her condolences. “We’re going to miss you.”