New Haven Independent: Cosi Closing; 15 More Jobless

Cosi Closing; 15 More Jobless

by Thomas MacMillan | November 17, 2008 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (20)

Going to work for the past two years has been like being part of a family for Charles Ingram. Now he’s joining the growing number of laid-off New Haveners looking for a new job.

Ingram, a shift leader at Cosi restaurant on the corner of Elm and Park streets, was making salads and sandwiches on Thursday afternoon in front of the fiery bread oven. He was still processing the news he’d been given on Monday: the restaurant will close Nov. 23.

That’ll leave up to 15 people out of work. The restaurant has been open about five years.

Carlos Pena, a manager at Cosi, said on Wednesday night that the restaurant is closing due to “a number of economic concerns.”

“Business has dropped while costs have risen,” he said.

Pena spoke about the closing of Cosi after an unrelated appearance before the Board of Zoning Appeals, where he was seeking permission to open a new bar-restaurant in Westville.

“The economic drivers behind Cosi closing related very specifically to the physical plant,” he said, citing the high costs of rent, insurance and heat.

Pena said he’s trying to place Cosi employees in his new bar. “It is a family,” he said of his staff.

Thursday afternoon, Ingram agreed. “It’s like a little family,” he said as he put together sandwich orders.

Ingram has been at the New Haven Cosi, a favorite hangout for beat cops, for two years. He worked at the Darien Cosi for two years before that. He doesn’t have a plan for employment after the restaurant closes.

“I’m playing it by ear,” Ingram said. “The economy right now is all messed up… everybody’s losing their jobs right now.”

Fred Buzzell (pictured), working nearby, has been doing food service jobs for ten years, at ten different restaurants. He’s been at Cosi for only three and a half months. He said it’s the best restaurant he’s worked at.

“It’s the funnest job I’ve ever had,” he said.

Buzzell has another career picked out already. He’s enrolled in a CDL licensing program, to get trained on how to drive “the big trucks.”

Behind Buzzell, another employee was putting flat bread in the flame-filled gas oven. “We make our own bread,” Buzzell said. “It’s just water, yeast, and flour. And then we put oil and salt on it when it comes out.”

“I like the food,” he said. “It’s healthy.”

Across the restaurant, Helen (who declined to give her last name) was taking orders and fixing beverages.

“I’m very upset,” she said, about the closing. “I’ve invested a long time here. Over two years.”

But she’s not surprised. “I kinda figured it would happen,” she said. “We used to have lines out the door.”

Does she have a job lined up?

“There’s a couple places I’m looking,” Helen said. Her family owns several hair salons. She might work there. She might waitress.

She might go work at the family business, but Helen said she’ll be leaving family behind at Cosi.

“This is like my family,” she said. “I’m close with every single manager.”

Helen said that there is a small staff party planned for closing day. “We’re going to have a little get-together,” she said. “Just say good-bye.”

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Comments

Posted by: Alphonse Credenza | November 17, 2008 12:51 PM

I ate there twice. Never a hello, thank you or you're welcome from the register. Food not particularly appetizing. LOUD music. Never went back.

Posted by: hi | November 17, 2008 1:33 PM

Bummer! I loved their salads on sandwiches.

Posted by: fred buzzell | November 17, 2008 3:05 PM

hello, nice article. Where can i get a paper of this newspaper!

Posted by: John Tulin | November 17, 2008 3:55 PM

Great, Alphonse, thanks for the insight...

Posted by: cedarhillresident | November 17, 2008 4:15 PM

I love the turkey club. Their bread was to die for! And the soups where the best. ate their at least once a week.

Posted by: cedarhillresident | November 17, 2008 4:15 PM

ps that building is an amazing building :)

Posted by: Mister Jones | November 17, 2008 5:09 PM

I got sticker shock every time I ordered food there.

Posted by: Ridiculous | November 17, 2008 6:03 PM

Thanks a lot Alphonze, I'm glad you commented on this. You really brought a unique perspective to it I hadn't considered.

Fred, this paper is only on the internet, so you have to print it :)

Posted by: Joshua | November 17, 2008 7:20 PM

I will miss Cosi. I really like their sandwiches and soup. I didn't go there very often though because it was more than a 5 minute walk from my workplace.

Posted by: THREEFIFTHS | November 17, 2008 9:23 PM

Go veg!!!! Edge of the woods!!!!!!!!

Posted by: jackie | November 17, 2008 11:13 PM

bummer that they're closing, though i have to admit i had to walk out of there a couple of times in the past because no one came up to the front to take my order.

i've really had to be a lunch-bringer for a few years now (except special occasions) so i guess i wasn't much help anyway! best of luck to the staff and all as people move on.

Posted by: jm | November 18, 2008 12:02 AM

it still didn't beat FITZWILLY'S!

Posted by: Chris Gray | November 18, 2008 3:19 AM

Ah, Fitzwilly's, where I was actually ejected on opening night for slow dancing with Marie Jung, even after we stopped, since they had no cabaret license! The place where Helen, the former Community Soup Kitchen Director claimed she thought up New York City's City Harvest when asking about potato skins, whereas some soup kitchen bottom-feeder actually laid out the plan for her from his adventures dumpster diving for the whole half-starving volunteer staff of the Yale radio station.

It has been called the Church, or High Point, or XandO, before Cosi. Actually, when XandO opened in July or August in their first year, I kept telling the staff to hold off quitting 'til past February when all the heart-broken Yalies (either over romance or, more importantly, grade standing) start drinking and tipping up a storm. Things have changed, nowadays, I suppose.

Lovely building, nearly impossible to profit from but as a public facility, it is potentially very useful. We need after-school youth facilities. Profit based models of youth gatherings don't seem to provide the proper guidance.

Guess it might be a good time for a new model?

Or maybe Yale will someday turn it into the new home of the Yale Cabaret.

Posted by: cedarhillresident | November 18, 2008 8:06 AM

jm and chris I remember Fitzwilly's. My mom worked thier the whole time it was opened! I miss it to. They really used the whole building. But Chris Yale does not own it.

Posted by: DingDong | November 18, 2008 5:07 PM

Alphonse Credenza,

For once we agree on something.

PS (I think you've been coming around on bicycles on the sidewalk too).

Posted by: JackNH | November 18, 2008 8:40 PM

I was a bartender there when it was FitzWilly's in the 1970s. Ah, memories.

Posted by: Chris Gray | November 19, 2008 12:03 AM

CHR, I didn't think Yale owned the building but I have little doubt that it could, should it decide on a plan for it. I watched the Yale Catholic chapel have an earth mover literally eat the sole grinder from the old Park Shoe Repair Shop, shake it around in its jaws and spit it out.

They turned the Daily Cafe into an Ivy Noodle and should it decide to make Cosi a little more or less cozy, it can.

I'd just rather see it be another L.E.A.P. center, such as the one that used to be down the street from it.

Posted by: cedarhillresident | November 19, 2008 7:55 AM

JackNH do remember a woman named Bert? Chris I would love for Yale to rent it. It was the old engine house, I would love to see someone willing to work with the history of the building rent it.

Posted by: Chris Gray | November 19, 2008 3:24 PM

CHR, you are essentially correct. I do enjoy many of Yale's projects in New Haven but somehow I still yearn for ways for those projects to more effectively be integrated with the community.

From my experiences, especially at WYBC when it was open to the entire community, there was less of a sense of isolation and division in our city and a greater commitment to shared celebration, say as exemplified by all the Summer Jazz and Music festivals.

I never found a way to really draw Yale people into Public Access television, but I'm beginning to see that the Internet avoids the obstacles of that system.

There has to be an open dialogue between all the elements of our city to come to effective solutions to our problems. If we don't meet, even on-line, we won't speak. It is better to do it in person, of course.

Which, again, is why I liked and like the idea of the L.E.A.P. office on that block, on-line and in-person simultaneously?

Posted by: Alphonse Credenza | November 22, 2008 9:05 AM

John Tulin: Thanks for the insight.

Dingdong: For the sake of consistency, I can't agree that we agree. But, you, like most people, like value for money, courtesy from employees, an appealing atmosphere and fresh, tasty food. Maybe that's why Cosi is going under.

New Haven Independent

Cosi Closing; 15 More Jobless

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