When Joji Parappallil opened a Coromandel Cuisine of India location on Division Street in New Rochelle in 2001, there wasn”™t much else around downtown.
He remembers Little Mexican Cafe, a downtown mainstay since 1990, and a few other small pizza shops and delis. Aside from that, things were pretty quiet.
“There just wasn”™t much that attracted people here,” Parappallil said.
Fifteen years later, Parappallil is preparing a menu for the yearly New Rochelle Restaurant Week that will feature 14 different restaurants all within a couple blocks between Main Street and Huguenot Street in the city”™s downtown.
Restaurant week, which starts April 4, will feature three-course menus for $27.50. The two-week event, which started in 2009, promotes the city”™s restaurant district, as the New Rochelle Downtown Business Improvement District refers to it. BID Executive Director Ralph DiBart said the district concept was created this year to bring attention and organization to the city”™s growing contingent of high-end restaurants.
DiBart said promoting the restaurants as a district does a few things. First, it implies an area where there are multiple options.
“Just like shopping,” he said. “People want to go shoe shopping in a shoe district because if they don”™t like what they see at one store, they can go across the street to another.”
It also organizes the restaurants into a bloc that provides more political clout than a single restaurant owner could build alone. The group of restaurants, in collaboration with the BID, have recently pushed for parking changes and more security cameras downtown.
The new district will likely continue to grow as the city begins building on its redevelopment plan. The plan, devised by design firm RDRXR and approved by the city council in December, calls for even more restaurants, retail and 5,500 residential units to be built over the next 10 years. It”™s the most ambitious plan in the city”™s history.
But of course, even after these units are built, they still need to be filled. That”™s where DiBart said having an established restaurant district helps.
“Every city is building tall buildings and we are all competing for millennials,” he said. “So what makes us different? We have to have a scene.”
The New Rochelle BID, created in 2000 and described as “vibrant and active,” advocates for 800 businesses and properties in the downtown. The property owners pay a yearly fee to fund the district. The district has no full time employees. DiBart is a contractor and hires other contractors for tasks such as design work or marketing. He said he tries to keep a lean operation to keep the $440,000 in funds the BID receives per year dedicated to projects such as downtown cleanup, promotion and events.
The promotion is especially important. Even though much of the buzz about New Rochelle of late has centered on its plan to build skyward and attract millennials, the boomtown reputation is mostly new.
City Councilman Ivar Hyden and owner of downtown”™s Backstreet Gallery, remembers first opening a business in the city 25 years ago. He said he”™d watch people try to steal the radio out of his car in the middle of the day. There were large amounts of vacant properties and none of the tall buildings that now make up the New Rochelle skyline.
“It was pretty bleak,” Hyden said. “It has come a huge way in just the last 10 to 12 years.”
Hyden said continued growth of the Downtown BID Farmers Market and a blossoming arts scene that will soon feature a 10,000-square-foot open performance space, planned for the former Loews Theatre site, show further signs for hope.
“All of this can make this a very interesting place to live,” Hyden said. “We”™re the shortest commute (to midtown Manhattan) and the train station is literally right here.”
The growth of New Rochelle has been mirrored by one of its new downtown anchors: Modern Restaurant and Lounge. When it opened in 1987, it was called Modern Restaurant and Pizzeria and offered mostly pizza, with a few sandwiches and salad options, out of a small spot on Russell Avenue outside New Rochelle”™s downtown. As it shifted its menu toward more traditional Italian, owner Anthony Russo said it was starting to outgrow the space. So, in 2012, the restaurant moved downtown to a fully renovated 8,500-square-foot space on Huguenot Street. The space, a former car showroom, features high ceilings and seating for up to 300 across three separate rooms.
“It had everything we were looking for, just super-sized,” Russo said.
Russo said the business has grown immensely since they made the jump four years ago.
“New Rochelle has always treated us well,” Russo said. “It”™s nice we”™ve been able to stay in the same area, but now reap the benefits of a downtown.”
As for Parappallil, he”™s got a few more neighbors than when he started, but he said he”™s fine with a little competition. People can”™t eat Indian food everyday, he says, and the variety of options creates a vibrant downtown.
“You can go one day here, then another day have Italian, the next day Ecuadorian, Spanish ”“ we have so many different options,” Parappallil said. “You don”™t see that in many other towns.”
