Lucy Gellman Photo
At the English Building Markets on Chapel Street, owner Carol Orr and a friend were handing out flaky almond cookies one by one, pouring Dixie cups of red wine for grown-up sugar enthusiasts and tea for little ones.
“Do you have your boxes?” she asked visitors who approached the silver platter, still swaying to a brass duo who played at the door.
They lifted them gleefully, grateful for a reprieve from the driving rain outside.
Down the street at Elm City Market, manager Adriana Gheorghiciuc was breaking into the gingerbread, customers swarming around her as the scent of warm molasses wafted over kale and bananas.
Across Orange, a cadre of chefs at Bentara and Skappo Mercato, and Tom Panzella and Teri Bernet were still preparing for the cookie rush, plunging the last of a crop of donuts into sizzling oil, loading sweetened, hand-whipped cream into a piping bag, and rearranging a series of glistening pecan bars still warm from the culinary school oven.
Don’t worry: the cookie monster hasn’t killed Santa (yet). And this much sugar probably won’t inundate the city again until at least 2015. Friday night’s edible festivities came grace à the Town Green Special Services District, responsible for “Cookies On9,” the final First Friday On9 event of 2014.
Celebrating a sweet year for the Ninth Square that has included new businesses, fashion shows, a pie-off, and a Pinnacle Award, Cookies On9 brought together Ninth Square businesses, an inexhaustible array of cookies, and the people who know how to make them – – a group of culinary students at Gateway Community College.
Think scavenger hunt meets small business, but with a truckload of sugar and some live music thrown in. Starting with a cardboard cookie box at The Grove, participants to the $10 event could collect cookies and cocktails at twelve Ninth Square businesses and restaurants, from new shops like Whole G Bakery to established art laboratories like Artspace and Reynolds Fine Art. While some of the over 100 people who registered were deterred by the weather, those who came were in for some sweet surprises: butterscotch brownies at Capture Salon, homemade hot toddies at The 9th Note, a little exercise to burn it all off at Fresh Yoga, demi-baguettes at Whole G and more.
The treat for businesses participating in Cookies On9? Despite tough economic conditions, the year has had several sweet moments for them too.
“A lot more people are finding us, which is really great. The look of awe when they come in … like ooo! It’s so big! … it’s great when people who’ve never been here discover it. I’m meeting a lot of different people … and the artists that come in are amazing with what they pick out,” said Orr, whose English Building Markets was one of the first stops on the crawl.
Just down the block at Artist & Craftsman Supply, Co-Manager Barbara Hawes (pictured above) had good news to report as she doled out chocolate chocolate chunk cookies. “We are off to a strong start, right out of the gate. The word of mouth has been out of this world … it’s the mix of people that it just amazing. I’m doing a lot of the outreach now, and … we’re connecting to the neighborhood, the schools: Gateway, UNH, Yale. The word is out, and we have been busy nonstop,” she said.
Even Elm City Market, for which it was a particularly tough fall, is looking to the sweet side of things this time of year. As hundreds of thin-pressed, spiced, and nutty gingersnaps disappeared from her red-trimmed basket, Gheorghiciuc reflected on one victory: The market may not be a co-op anymore, but it is still standing.
“Yes, we’ve been through a lot of changes. But it’s getting better … everybody has a job, we try together to succeed together,” she said, adding that the staff is hopeful for a steadier year in 2015.
Down Orange Street, sound and spice mingled in the air. Even the raindrops tasted a little sweeter.
It may have had something to do with small, dusty clouds of powdered sugar coming out of Skappo Mercato. When asked how the year has been sweet for him, Tom Sincavage Jr. (pictured above) smiled into a freshly homemade cannoli. “From a personal level, we have a couple new grandchildren. From a business standpoint, we’ve been having a lot of contacts with people … moving into the neighborhood. It’s always a good thing to see new people in the neighborhood, and we’ve seen a lot tonight.”
Manning a tray of oatmeal raisin and chocolate chip cookies at Neville’s Fashion Design Studio, the designer’s son Nicholas Wisdom pointed to his father’s new Branford location as an exciting step forward. “We’re feeling good!” he said, turning to a soaked, pint-sized visitor who had made it through the door.
Other business owners, like Panzella at Cedarhurst Cafe, spoke to the importance of events like On9, which raise the profile of the Ninth Square to New Haveners who might not live nearby or consider the area a vibrant business district.
“It’s been a decent year … we extended our menu, we have a lot of new items, and we’re getting a lot of new customers. We love it here, and we love the customers,” he said.
“Business has been very good, and I think it’s particularly sweet when new people come in … to see the interior, to see what we do,” added Capture Salon’s Ann Cassel.
Which was, as Chris Ortwein and Lindsey Burke of the Town Green District noted after the event, kind of the sweet point of the whole evening: to form new collaborative relationships and expose the Ninth Square to new audiences in a decidedly delectable way.
“We sold out this year, and that was a success. In spite of the weather, we had a great turnout … a couple of bonus stops, some live musicians, and a bigger event overall. In the winter we do more of a crawl because it gets people into the businesses,” said Burke.
“It’s been a year of new staff, new employees, a lot of new ideas … we’ve brought new life to Town Green, we won an International Downtown Association Award and we’ve been recognized nationally,” she added. “We’ve only been doing On9 for about two and a half years, and it’s at it’s best.”
To learn more about the Town Green Special Services District, visit their website.
