Ridgefield wakes to a European-style marketplace in its midst

Cars entering the Marketplace at Copps Hill will not be clobbered by medieval cobblestones, and the autumn sun arcs not off Tuscan stucco walls and tiles, but rather the plain-old facades of the typical Fairfield County retail strip.

If patrons will not find such European flair in frequenting the Ridgefield plaza at 109 Danbury Road, what they will find is a small but expanding coterie of specialty food shops and eateries.

The plaza was the longtime home of Ridgefield Interiors, whose owner wound down the business over time as she prepared for retirement. With a large swath of space coming available, the property”™s owner Steve Zemo gave pause to think of how he wanted to position the plaza.

“What I thought of was food,” he said.

The location was already the longtime home of Southwest Caf̩, and Zemo envisioned complementing the eateryӪs presence with a small cornucopia of specialty food shops and perhaps another restaurant.
He immediately found a taker in Ridgefield Organics & Specialty Market, and more recently added Ross”™ Bread. Proprietor Ross Schneiderman is a football producer for CBS Sports who had been baking bread on the side for Ancona”™s Market at the Branchville confluence of Ridgefield and Wilton.
Near the market peak, Schneiderman had been eyeballing vacancies in Ridgefield only to be dismayed by sky-high rents demanded by landlords.

 

That is no longer an issue, Zemo acknowledged, and he said he is footing much of the bill to renovate the corner space of the plaza in preparation for Number 109 Cheese Market, owned by Monica Brown who also owns Cellar XV Wine Market further up the street.

 

On the retail front, Ridgefield is a town divided, with an old New England Main Street dominated by locally owned stores hooking north into Danbury Road.

Where as the older section of town boasts attractions like the aptly named Balducci”™s Food Lovers Market, the Danbury Road component is dominated by large chains like Stop & Shop, Starbucks and Dunkin”™ Donuts, though small independents like Parma Market & Bakery are sprinkled among their midst.

The newer Danbury Road section has seen a small boom in construction and renovation activity the past few years, both for new retail storefronts as well as for low-slung commercial office buildings.
If Zemo hopes to establish a little Old World hospitality along his own little corner of Ridgefield, he seemed to have achieved it in the early going, as visitors to Ross”™ Bread greeted Schneiderman by name on a Thursday morning and chatted as their orders were readied.

As Zemo turns the page at the Marketplace at Copps Hill, a longtime nook called Books on the Common is no longer situated there, having moved to the Main Street district of town.

While that cleared additional space for another food enterprise, Zemo said he will consider other retail establishments if none surfaces given the impact of the recession on entrepreneurs”™ ability to raise capital to take on leases and other needs. For instance, he recently penned a lease for Ink, a stationery store operated by Michelle Oliver.

Still, given his druthers, he hopes to attract another specialty market or two ”“ perhaps an Asian market, perhaps a gourmet specialty food boutique. And Zemo would be thrilled to see an Italian restaurant put out sidewalk seating some day at the Marketplace at Copps Hill.

Heck, he might even spring for the stucco.