Business

Family Britches Moves To Main Street

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After some 40 years on Elm Street, high-end clothing shop Family Britches on Wednesday will open in a new location at 99 Main St. in downtown New Canaan. The store will drop its women’s wear business, which its had for about 20 years, and “go back to our roots, which is just a men’s store,” longtime manager Mark Gust told NewCanaanite.com. 

“The location we had is just way too big, so we wanted a little bit more intimate setting in a highly trafficked area, and we found this spot,” Gust said as he and others moved merchandise into the new space, formerly occupied by Candy Nichols and long ago, locals will remember, by Gramophone Video. Family Britches had been on Elm Street since the space had been a restaurant, notably the iconic Pierre’s or “Izzy’s Place,” as it commonly was known that operated there from 1944 to 1976. Gust confirmed that Family Britches was dropping its women’s wear business because New Canaan now offers so many options along those lines.

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‘Izzy’s Place’: A Look Back at Pierre’s

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From Forest Street’s “Restaurant Row” to the establishments on Elm, Main and Pine Streets, New Canaan offers a diverse and ever-evolving lineup of restaurants. The choices in town are particularly impressive not only given the size of town, but also when one considers how far New Canaan has come in morphing into a culinary destination in a relatively short amount of time. As recently as the 1960’s and ‘70s, dining options were somewhat limited for residents and the food was far from exciting. Patricia Brooks—food critic for the New York Times and New Canaan resident since 1959—remembers those days well. “It just wasn’t that good anywhere,” Brooks told NewCanaanite.com.