2 Restaurant Plans, 2 Reactions

Westville welcomed a plan for a new restaurant at an empty former bank building while expressing reservations about another at a former problem bar spot, as developers made their pitches.

Developers pitched their ideas to more than 30 neighbors at the monthly Westville Community Management Team meeting held at Mauro-Sheridan School. Both plans would need zoning relief to come to fruition.

Restaurateurs Marc Knight and Rob Bolduc fleshed out a few more of the details of a proposed restaurant that they envision bringing to the corner of Central Avenue and Fountain Street in the former First Niagara, now Key Bank, building.

The business partners head to the Board of Zoning appeals next week with an application for zoning relief for a 212-seat restaurant that would feature a patio, full bar and a still-to-be determined menu. The zoning requires 55 spaces for a restaurant that size; the existing site only accommodates six, so they’re asking approval for a plan that would direct customers into the municipal lot at Blake Street. The restaurant also needs special exception to provide a full bar at that spot.

“The focus is going to be on food and food service,” attorney Ken Rozich said. ​“The price point is not designed to attract college kids, or people who want to go out and power drink. If you look at the design inside, the bar is less than 12 percent of the seats.”

Architect Joe Bergin said the footprint of the building will remain the same, but the look will change. The bar, which will seat 26, will be approximately in the center of the room, with additional tabletop seating in the bar area, as well as another section of sit-down seating. The patio, which will wrap the building, will account for 18 of those 212 tables.

In addition to those details, other design points include a fire pit ​“to create a real sense of something going on at this corner,” Bergin said.

The existing windows will be removed to install an overhead door that will bring the outside in and the inside out, Bergin said. ​“We’re removing the colonial look of [the building], for what I feel is a more contextual character to the neighborhood.”

One neighbor asked the all-important question: What’s on the menu?

“It’s still being developed,” Knight said. ​“We’re working on a few concepts. It’s too early to commit to one, but it will be fine dining.”

Another neighbor pointed out that Westvillians have an interest in healthy eating and being active. Chef Arturo Franco Camacho, who leads the kitchen at Knight and Bolduc’s Shell & Bones restaurant at City Point, chimed in he has a ​“farm-to-table” sustainable approach to cooking when possible. (He didn’t commit to that at the Fountain Street site.)

Westville Village business owner, Gabriel DaSilva, asked if the restaurant would open for lunch. Knight said the hours would be determined by the concept, though he assured DaSilva that the new restaurant would be open seven days a week.

“Shell & Bones was a dinner only [concept],” he said. ​“But we decided to open for brunch, and that has been very successful.”

“Brunch is very popular in Westville,” DaSilva said, drawing hearty chuckles from the crowd.

Hmm…

Developer Joy Monsanto pitched neighbors on her own vision for a restaurant in the neighborhood, specifically in what even she deemed a ​“notorious” corner of the 50 Fitch St. office complex set back downhill from the street. The space has seen a series of ventures sour there including Soco’s, Deja vu Bar and Restaurant, and most recently 30 Plus Bar and Restaurant.

Given the spot’s history, neighbors were concerned. They asked Monsanto if her restaurant would truly attract families, or end up a problem bar like some of its predecessors.

Monsanto said she envisioned a restaurant that features American fare. She provided information sheets that included potential menu items such as fish tacos, quesadillas and buffalo wings. The space has a bar and she wants to sell alcohol, but she also said she knows about the the violence that has haunted the spot in the past.

She said she has developed housing in New Haven through her company A&M GroundBreakers LLC. She said she sees Westville neighbors as her target customers and asked what they wanted in a restaurant. As a tenant, she has taken responsibility for snow plowing and pushing the complex’s owner to keep the property clean, she said.

“We want to know what you guys want actually,” Monsanto told neighbors Wednesday. “We’re the owners but we want to hear what you want. We welcome everyone to come down. We’re in there working every day, but we want you guys to let us know how we can help improve the area. We’re going to be a restaurant.”

The plan, she said, is to possibly open in May at the earliest, September at the latest. But there also are some hurdles that would have to be cleared, including getting zoning permission to operate a bar and making legal use of the outdoor deck. Previous owners operated the bar area without proper permissions and the deck was built illegally, she said.

DaSilva told Monsanto the neighborhood wants a restaurant, not a bar.

“I think if you focus on the restaurant part you’ll be fine, but if it’s only a bar that you don’t have control over, it will become a problem like it has been,” he said.