A round-up of openings, closings, and other news about West Hartford businesses. 

Business Buzz is sponsored by NBT Bank, and we are very thankful for their support!

By Ronni Newton

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads and father figures out there! I hope you all had a special day on Sunday!

Although we no longer have our own fathers to celebrate, I’m hoping that Ted feels he had a great Father’s Day that included some great meals and gifts, and a visit from Katie and Matt (who celebrated his second Father’s Day) and the grandkidlets! We got to spend some time with Sam earlier in the week, too.

Although I like to consider June 1 (or maybe Memorial Day) to be the first day of summer, the official start of summer is Friday, at 10:42 p.m. Boy am I ever ready for not only some summer weather (I was wearing multiple layers on Saturday!) as well as a slowdown in activity and a chance to have [maybe] at least one day away from the computer. The Pride Festival is next Saturday, and there happen to be five events all at the same time on Tuesday, June 24, but other than that the schedule over the next few weeks finally looks a bit lighter!

The past week was busy as ever, with Town Council, and graduations that are always held at the exact same time for both Conard (Mia Jaworski and I provided coverage) and Hall (Roz Green and Craig Rosenberg provided coverage), along with multiple ribbon cuttings which are all mentioned below.

The Town of West Hartford held its Juneteenth celebration on Saturday, and thanks to Bridget Bronsdon for her beautiful coverage of that event for We-Ha.com. I’m so glad to have her back as an occasional contributor – and this is actually her third year writing about Juneteenth.

Please note that the Juneteenth federal holiday is officially this Thursday, June 19, and Town Hall as well as the public libraries, community centers, and senior centers will be closed for the day. It’s also a bank and stock market holiday. Trash and recycling collection, however, will take place according to the regular schedule this week.

I had not yet visited the new Teriyaki Madness that opened in Prospect Plaza (I was out of town on the day of the grand opening), and remedied that by bringing Sam and his fiancée Kate there for lunch when they visited last week. I had the “regular” size chicken teriyaki, and it was yummy and almost enough for two full meals (for me) – and they even had leftovers, too!

Ted and I visited his brother and sister-in-law on Saturday down in New Canaan and had dinner with them, but on Friday night (when it was still warm0-ish and dry) we checked out the new patio at Black Bamboo. Most of the details are in the bullet point below, but since I took multiple photos of my pineapple chicken – which was as delicious as it was beautiful – I’ll include one here!

After dinner we stopped at Rasham Marketplace, conveniently right next door, to purchase the makings of homemade red pepper hummus that I planned to make for the following day’s visit with family!

I did manage to fit in a good number of workouts in between covering events and eating, including taking a full body strength class at Wild Soul, which just opened last week at 1003 Farmington Avenue (see June 2 column). Thanks to Courtney for the great class! And on Sunday my running buddy Laurie and I did our annual “Run to the Roses” at Elizabeth Park – stopping for a quick photo session to break up the nearly-6-mile route. The day wasn’t sunny, but the roses were still spectacular and I’ve included a few of my favorite photos below.

A note from a long-time advertiser:

LOVE TENNIS is a tennis company that offers kids tennis camps, clinics/lessons for both kids and adults, and a tennis league. All skill levels welcome. Craig Davidson is the founder/owner of LOVE TENNIS. He’s the Head Men’s Tennis Coach at USJ. All summer at the University of Saint Joseph starting the week of June 16. For more details, visit lovetennis-ct.com.

If you are a long term, regular advertiser on We-Ha.com and have a 60 to 75 word submission for a future Business Buzz please send to Bob Carr at [email protected]. You can also contact Bob if you are interested in becoming a sponsor of a section of the site.

We broke our five-week streak when one person submitted a comment with just their first name last week. Thank you to all who comment with your full names! Please note that it has been our policy for several years that full names be used when commenting directly on the site – with the exception of those commenters who were grandfathered when they commented prior to the policy being updated. Please comply or your comment will not be published.

If you have information to share about local businesses, please provide details in the comments or email Ronni Newton at [email protected].

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Here’s this week’s Buzz:

• Congratulations to Jonathan Davis, owner of West Hartford-based FWJ (Fitness With Jonathan) on the grand opening Saturday of their brand-new second location, now open at 589 New Park Avenue, in a portion of the space that was previously Excel Fitness. “This new studio is unlike anything else in West Hartford. It’s designed for total-body wellness with a mix of low-impact fitness and premium recovery services – all under one roof,” he said. “Here’s what makes it stand out: Fitness Classes • Barre • Pilates • Athletic Stretch • HIIT • Latin Dance • Kids Dance • Recovery + Wellness Services • Infrared Sauna • Cold Plunge • Cryotherapy • Red Light Therapy (great for weight loss & skin health) • 1-on-1 Assisted Stretching • Massage (by appointment) • Amenities • Showers & Locker Rooms for convenience and comfort • Flexible Membership Perks • Members at either location get access to both.” Davis said for those who have an unlimited plan at Gym 1 (1045 New Britain Ave.), classes at Gym 2 are just $5 (and vice versa). There are also great class pass options and combined unlimited plans for both locations, Jonathan said. There were free classes offered on Saturday (Sorry I didn’t know in time to include this in last week’s column, and wasn’t in town to attend). For more information, visit the FWJ website.

 

• As noted in the intro above, Ted and I had dinner on the now-open patio at Black Bamboo on Friday night. Black Bamboo relocated to a larger space at 766 Farmington Avenue last September, and owner Sonny Chen has been eagerly awaiting a chance to open the patio, which seats roughly 26 people on the side of the building along Vanderbilt Road. While we have been long-time take-out customers of Black Bamboo, we’ve dined in at the new space – which has many more tables in the dining room, along with a liquor license – a few times since the move, and the patio adds to the experience! We tried a few dishes that we had not had before, too. Sonny said they just added new daily lunch specials (11 a.m. to 3 p.m., dine-in only), meal combos that include rice (white, veggie fried, or pork fried), either soup or an egg or spring roll, and a variety of main dishes (see photo of menu). “Happy Hour is coming at the end of this week, too,” Sonny said. Visit the website for more details.

• The Chick-fil-A at 2534 Albany Avenue in Bishops Corner officially opened on Thursday, June 12, and I stopped by to check out the space and had a chance to chat with representative Liz Byrne from the corporate office. “It’s been great,” she said on opening day. The restaurant opened for breakfast at 6:30 a.m., and there was a line of people waiting to get in. While it wasn’t promoted, Byrne said, “We were able to surprise the first 100 folks [to visit] with free Chick-fil-A [for a year].” The dining room had been pretty much full since 11 a.m., she said, and they are promoting their new summer menu items, including the peach milkshake. “Peach is the hero of the summer,” said Byrne. The spring limited-time offer of pineapple dragon fruit (available in lemonade, tea, sunny joy, and frozen like a milkshake) has also been extended. The 5,000-square-foot location is open Monday through Saturday, from 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., with dine-in and carry-out as well as delivery and catering – but no drive-through. While this location is currently corporate-owned as they complete the selection process for an owner-operator, Chick-fil-A said they are committed to the local community, noting that the opening was celebrated with a $25,000 donation to Feeding America to support local hunger relief efforts of Connecticut Foodshare, and participation in the Chick-fil-A Shared Table program, which redirects surplus food to local nonprofits and has helped to create over 35 million meals to date.

• Congratulations to the team at Stepping Stone Wealth, which celebrated a ribbon cutting with the Chamber of Commerce and town officials on Friday at their brand new location at 8 Lowell Road. They’re still in the process of fixing up the building, and are happy to have much more space than their previous location at 57 North Main Street. Visit the website for more details about the company.

• As the West Hartford Center Infrastructure reconstruction progresses, I’ll continue to provide regular updates, including photos, in this column. It’s now been about 11 weeks since the project commenced, and according to a newsletter from the town last week, the work remains on schedule. Work on the West Hartford Center construction project continues to progress on schedule and several sections have already reopened to the public, including in front of Max Burger and PeoplesBank. Curbing has been substantially completed for Phases 1A and 1B, and electrical work is underway with some portions complete and additional work ongoing. The remaining portions of Phases 1A and 1B are being wrapped up, and Phase 2B (west side of LaSalle between William Raveis at the corner of Arapahoe Road and Union Kitchen) is set to begin. Phase 2A (from Bluemercury to Friendly Toast (including Iris Photography, Bridgewater Chocolate, Green Tails Market, Lil’ Hope, Penzey’s, Savoy, Jos. A Bank, and Shish Kebab House of Afghanistan) will begin shortly. Below are some photos I took on Friday afternoon.

• Congratulations to West Hartford residents Jeff Teitler and Hartford HealthCare’s Rebecca Stewart, the winners of six Emmy Awards from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences – Boston/New England Region (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont). They were honored at the June 7 ceremony for Best Commercial, Best Public Service Announcement, Best Health and media – Short Form Content, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, and Best Sound Design for “These Lives Are Real.” In addition, Javier Colon (also a West Hartford resident) received an Emmy for “Tribute to Health Care Heroes.” Both pieces can be seen below.

• I didn’t have a chance to take a photo, but an alert reader advised me that the smoke shop at 1022 Boulevard (Boulevard Shops) had closed and a liquor store is going to be taking the space. More information to come!
• After last week’s column was published, the owner of the building at 22 Raymond Road, Bruce Kanter, contacted me to advise that Toro Mexican Street Food has closed permanently and said they are speaking with some potential new tenants, “all restaurants with some unique concepts that I believe will be well received by the West Hartford community,” he said in an email. Anyone interested in leasing the space  can contact him at [email protected] or by phone at 860-573-7818.

• ICYMI, GreenDrop celebrated their grand opening with a ribbon cutting last week. I dropped off three bags of clothes over the weekend, and they were so friendly and it was so convenient to have them take the items right out of my car! Find full details in the story by Mia Jaworski here.
• The Blue Back Farmers’s Market opened for the season on Sunday. Complete information can be found here.
• West Hartford Fellowship Housing held a grand opening and ribbon cutting for Phase 1, which includes 65 affordable apartment units as well as community space. At the same time, a special dedication honored Mayor Shari Cantor. Click here for the complete story.

Remember, if you have any business news to share, add it in the comments section below or email Ronni Newton at [email protected].

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