It may not be Manhattan, but Mill Plain Road in Danbury is building a critical mass of spiffy restaurants catering to the thousands of corporate employees and the concentration of upper-middle-class neighborhoods on the city”™s west side.
And with more than 2,100 condominium and apartment units being built or planned on the former Union Carbide property just a mile or so away ”“ along with the potential for another 850,000 square feet of office space ”“ even more restaurateurs are scoping out the road for potential sites.
“I just got a call from a guy out of New Jersey who specifically wanted something on the west side of Danbury,” said Mick Consalvo, vice president of Tower Realty Corp. in Brookfield. “They know the demographics, and know they can make a go there.”
“It”™s a great destination,” said Tony Romadani, owner of Spasi Restaurant on Mill Plain Road. “It”™s next to the Interstate 84 exit, it has a lot of traffic, it”™s very easy to get in and out, and there are a lot of hotels, businesses and corporations nearby. And it”™s on the way to the mall.”
In fact, the west side”™s retail and restaurant complexion differs greatly from the city”™s two other main retail strips: Newtown Road on the east side with Wal-Mart and Target as destinations along a stretch of a half-dozen strip shopping centers, and Federal Road that stretches north into Brookfield with Stew Leonard”™s, Lowe”™s, Best Buy, Home Depot, Costco, a movieplex and a half-dozen furniture stores crowding the city”™s second-largest retail concentration. The Danbury Fair mall is biggest.
But the bulk of restaurants along Newtown and Federal roads are quick-food chains such as Chili”™s or Appleby”™s. “You have a little bit different crowd there, people who are going to the movies or who want to hit Costco or the furniture stores,” said George Walker of Advantage Realty in Bethel. “They do a lot of shopping and they don”™t need fine dining. They want something quick and easy and not that expensive.”
Mill Plain Road is dotted with smaller retailers, only one fast-food chain outlet and no major anchor to draw shoppers, which leaves the strip wide open for upscale restaurants. “Upper management and the higher end of corporate come in here,” said Barbara Reeve, manager of the 10-year-old Porcini”™s, just up the street from Spasi. “Our service is old-fashioned fine dining,” she said of the 90-seat restaurant operated by chef/owner Jose Rodriguez. The lunch crowd, she said, could include upper management from GE, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals and Praxair Inc., all about a mile away on Old Ridgebury Road and among the city”™s larger employers.
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Word-of-mouth
Romadani opened Spasi about five years ago in what had been a video store in a strip shopping center, catering to young professionals. The 95-seat northern Italian restaurant has been busy ever since. “We”™re like maxxed out during the week,” he said.
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The restaurant takes reservations during the week but not on weekends. “On Friday and Saturday, it”™s first-come, first-served. We”™re so busy, we”™re packed most of the time, and sometimes people who make reservations don”™t show up or show up late,” limiting the turnover.
The latest restaurant to open on Mill Plain ”“ Prespa, across the street from Spasi ”“ is so busy it limits weekday groups to 10 people to leave room for walk-ins, and can have more than an hour wait on weekends, said Billy Romadani, who is related to Tony and opened the 120-seat restaurant this past January.
“We”™ve been busy since the first day,” he said. “I thought I would do well, but this is more than well.”
Prespa”™s Romadani said it took him a year to find a suitable Mill Plain location for his restaurant. The site was originally the firehouse and meeting/banquet hall of the Mill Plain Volunteer Fire Department, which sold the property to build a smaller structure. Prespa is in what had been the fire department”™s garage, previously home to a travel agency.
“I checked out Newtown Road and Federal Road,” Romadani said, “but I think that this is where people go for dining. It”™s like South Norwalk. You don”™t get bored. You just switch from one restaurant to another because there are so many options to choose from.”
Neither Spasi nor Prespa advertises. Each depends on word-of-mouth for customers. And Tony Romadani is about to open another restaurant on Mill Plain Road, this one in a strip shopping center that already possesses a nonbuffet Chinese-Japanese restaurant. His new Barca restaurant and wine bar will feature a Mediterranean menu, a 180-bottle wine cellar, and an offering of between 45 and 60 bottles from which to choose a glass of wine, he said.
“We”™re trying to bring more restaurants and a variety of foods to Mill Plain Road,” he said. “We want to offer people something a little different, with ambiance and more of a Manhattan kind of feel.”
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