Thomas Breen photo
Pastries ready to much at Olmo’s takeout shop.
A mountain of cheese has given way to a river of baked goods, as the late restaurant Caseus’s much anticipated successor is now open for business.
On Thursday morning just after 7:30, lunch counter manager Kevin McGuire dished out the inaugural bagels at Olmo, the new Italian-inspired restaurant and take-out shop that has replaced the recently closed Caseus Fromagerie & Bistro at 93 Whitney Ave. on the Downtown / East Rock border.
Inside Olmo’s subterranean takeout shop at Whitney and Trumbull.
While the upstairs dining area remained dark in anticipation of the evening’s first night of dinner service, morning commuters trickled into the restaurant’s subterranean breakfast counter and take-out shop, where the Caseus cheese shop used to be.
Instead of the dozens of cheeses stacked on top of one another that greeted visitors to the Caseus fromagerie, Olmo’s breakfast counter boasted trays of gluten free corn muffins, gluten free and regular sugar scones, and maple brioche donuts.
Above-ground Olmo, opening later tonight.
On the shelves behind McGuire stood freshly baked bagels: plain, everything, sesame, poppy, and cinnammon cranberry. Each costing only a dollar.
Olmo’s Kevin McGuire prepares an everything bagel and scallion cream cheese.
This reporter got an everything bagel with scallion schmear, bumping the price up to $2.50.
Wearing a pinstriped black-and-white apron and a red beanie, McGuire sliced the small, dense bagel in two and applied a thick spread of cream cheese.
On the two-block walk back to my apartment, the bagel had already disappeared. Looks like I’ll just have to go back tomorrow to get another.
“You can never describe the feeling of opening a restaurant,” Olmo co-owner Craig Hutchinson wrote on Facebook this morning. “Putting yourself out there to be accepted or judged. All I can say is, please enjoy. It’s a big jump to dedicate your career to making others happy.”
“Opening a restaurant isn’t easy,” Olmo co-owner Alex Lishchynsky added on Facebook today, “you lose friends, girlfriends, sleep, people you thought were close to you. But now I get to live my dream, the dream I had when I was 13 years old.
Click here to read about the people behind Olmo, and go to Olmo’s website for the restaurant’s hours and menus.