Business

Local Businesses and COVID-19: Dolce Italian Café

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For today’s Q&A with a New Canaan business owner navigating the COVID-19 emergency and related restrictions, we hear from Andrea Lombardi, owner-operator of Dolce Italian Café on Elm Street. The café is open for pickup 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. Here’s our exchange. New Canaanite: You just opened last summer, and then you got hit with this. How are you doing? Andrea Lombardi: Right now we are getting by and we are trying to survive.

Andrea Lombardi

Owner of Dolcé on Elm Street Plans To Open Coffee Stand at Train Station

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The owner of a popular café on Elm Street is planning to open a coffee stand inside the New Canaan Train Station. 

Andrea Lombardi, owner-operator of Dolce, an Italian-style café, said that if all goes forward as planned, he’ll be serving coffee and pastry out of the designated area at the train station in a few months. “I like new opportunities, it’s always fun,” Lombardi told NewCanaanite.com when asked about his plans. “Whatever the customers want., whatever they ask for, I am going to bring it in for them,” he said. The last operator of the train station coffee and newsstand, Gerald Carney, had a permit for 2019 but not this year, health records show. Lombardi on Wednesday went on a walk-through of the space with a sanitarian from the New Canaan Health Department. 

According to notes from the sanitarian’s report, Lombardi is to submit a plan to the town with the proposed location of a counter and equipment.

Business

Popular Elm Street Café Seeks Permission To Place ‘Pole’ Sign Out Front

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Saying it would help bring visibility, the owner of an Italian-style café on Elm Street is seeking permission from town officials to place a “pole sign” out front of the eatery. According to Dolce owner Andrea Lombardi, patrons have had difficulty finding the café at 98 Elm St. “due to its setback from the rest of the buildings on my side of the street.”

“Unfortunately, this has been further impacted by the large planter that was recently placed on the street (in a no parking zone) in front of my business,” Lombardi said in an Aug. 23 letter to the Planning & Zoning Commission. “This sign would be upon my landlord’s property and as shown by the enclosed picture, would help ‘direct’ potential patrons to my store and inform them of what I am serving.”

The Italy native opened Dolce two months ago in the former New Canaan Olive Oil space.

Andrea Lombardi

‘My Dream Coming True’: Dolce Italian Café Opening on Elm Street

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The long-anticipated Italian-style café, Dolce, is set to open in the heart of downtown New Canaan this week, just in time for the weekend’s highly anticipated Sidewalk Sale. Owner-operator Andrea Lombardi said he worked in and managed restaurants around Fairfield County for 14 years before finally deciding at the beginning of the year that it was time to open his own establishment. 

He set out to find a space in February, looking at several properties before settling on 98 Elm St., the site formerly occupied by New Canaan Olive Oil. With mere days left before opening, Lombardi said he’s “very excited” to be up and running. 

“I’ve worked so hard,” he said. “I’ve been saving forever and this is my dream coming true.”

An Italy native who moved to the United States as a teenager, Lombardi said he has always been interested in hospitality. With uncles in the restaurant and hotel businesses back in Italy, he said that he was able to try his hand at all aspects of the business before settling on food.

Andrea Lombardi

Italian Café ‘Dolce’ To Open on Elm Street

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An Italian-style café is set to open soon in the heart of downtown New Canaan. ‘Dolce,’ as it will be called, will be located at 98 Elm St. and will offer specialty coffees—espresso, cappuccino, latte, mocha, Americano—in different flavors, as well as sandwiches, salads, Italian gelato, pastries, desserts, croissants, cookies and scones, owner Andrea Lombardi said. “I’m very excited,” he told NewCanaanite.com. “I can’t wait.”

An early-May opening date is planned, according to the Italian-born Lombardi, a native of Ischia, an island in the Gulf of Naples.