Courtney Luciana photo
Bark&Vine ribbon cutting.
City officials gathered in the Ninth Square Friday to launch “New Haven Eats Outdoors 2021.”
In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the city restructured its Leasehold Improvement, Outdoor Experience program, and grants to help small businesses to expand outdoor dining while keeping indoor dining safe from contracting and spreading the coronavirus.
The Leasehold Improvement Program offers small businesses grants for interior lighting, equipment fixtures, and non-structural decorative walls. A separate program offers grants for facade improvements, including new signs, doors, windows, lightings, and cornices. The Outdoor Experience program supports patio dining with money for tables, planters, umbrellas.
The effort is a collaboration of groups including AVANGRID, Town Green Special Services District, the Economic Development Corporation of New Haven (EDC), New Haven Innovation Collaborative, and Market New Haven. Click here to read a brochure the city released Friday with details about how to participate in the programs.
Friday’s event took place at Orange Street at the intersection of Center, where the city has blocked car traffic and set up tables in the street for dining.
Mike PIscitelli: Helping small business bounce back from the pandemic.
City Economic Development Administrator Michael Piscitelli said the program will help businesses toward a sustainable bounce back from the pandemic.
“We’ve got 51 permits in the pipeline for outdoor dining this year,” Piscitelli said. “This is made possible in part from a $20,000 grant from AVANGRID matched by the city to support additional furniture. If you were with us last year, we had some furniture. Now, we’ve got a true place that was made possible with these grant funds.”
Frank Reynolds.
The president of AVANGRID (formerly known as United Illuminating), Frank Reynolds, noted that New Haven is a dining, arts, and entertainment hub.
“Our hope is to help businesses have indoor and outdoor dining and retail experiences so that folks feel safe about coming back into New Haven,” Reynolds said. “We recognize that these businesses have been hit hard by the pandemic. Much harder than many other businesses. Last year we offered 35 grants to different businesses here and our hope is that our support this year will help these businesses to not only survive the pandemic but also to thrive.”
Two businesses that launched during the pandemic, Somos Handcrafted Arepas and Bark & Vine, were applauded or their resilience. Beacon Communities CEO Dara Kovel, a native of the city, said she looks forward to the upgrades to ground-level Ninth Square businesses.
“Above these wonderful businesses, we have 335 apartments, half of which are deeply affordable to low income families and the other half which are market rate,” Kovel said. “I know that when the weather gets warm this place is going to be hoppin.’”
Somos ribbon-cutting with brothers Alejandro and Andres Cordido (at center).
Somo’s avocado tuna salad arepa.
As part of Friday’s press event, a ribbon-cutting took place in front of Somos Handcrafted Arepas at 63 Orange St. Mayor Justin Elicker said he has become a loyal customer of the Venezuelan restaurant . His meal of choice is the rice and bean, tofu, plantains, queso de mano, and the spicy verde sauce. Each creation comes in either a bowl, arepa, or cachapa.
“I think I can take some credit for helping Somos weather the pandemic throughout the winter. I eat at Somos probably one or two days a week,” Elicker said. “It’s healthy and tasty.”
Brothers Alejandro and Andres Cordido opened the restaurant last June. Alejandro said that he and his brother are thankful that the city and Beacon Communities launched the outdoor dining and closed off the block to car traffic to make more room.
Outdoor dining on Somos’ patio.
“We went to Venezuela every year as kids. This is the food we grew up eating. There’s not really any Venezuelan cuisine here in the city,” Alejandro said. “There were hiccups in the building process, and then Covid-19 came around. In the end, you just have to keep going. Nothing was going to stop us. Not even a pandemic.”
Andres said he thinks their business has been doing great given the circumstances.
“People have been loving our food,” Andres said. “The city wants to attract people down here and I think we need the traffic so that people can come down, and we can be seen.”
Bark & Vine owners Ralph Saldi and Luis Galindo opened their indoor plant store two months ago. Their inspiration was the pandemic: They figured that people would want to bring the outdoors inside of their homes during the quarantine.
“We knew that everyone was redecorating and renovating their homes,” Saldi said. “We started growing our own plants in our own backyard and launched an online store. The business was booming and we were able to secure a store here downtown. We were able to create a space for not only our small business but we also feature products comprised of other small businesses that started during the pandemic.”
Saldi and Galindo the furniture outdoors on the strip allows people to enjoy the outdoors while feeling safe enough to go into the stores.
“It’s life changing,” Saldi said. “Right from the beginning we said we were going to be a small business that supports other small businesses. We honor and respect those who didn’t do great during the pandemic. Our business happened because of the support that we received.”
Owners Luis Galindo (left) and Ralph Saldi (right).
Galindo said Ninth Square is the place to be.
“I work in NYC and New Haven reminds me of that vibe,” Galindo said. “You have the local artists, the young people, the businesses. It’s a vibrant city.”
Wow , a street in NH that is not trash-strewn and filthy--- so this is where all the street sweepers sweep!