Sunday, July 10, 2011

Carriage House Cafe Get New Owner and Updated Menu

The Carriage House Cafe at 200 Great Road re-opened on May 1st with a new owner and an updated menu. I recently spoke with the new owner, Dana Strayton and her husband Rob, who run the business together. Dana's family has been in the restaurant business for a long time. Growing up, she was told by her mother, that she should be a chef. About 8 years ago, she started her own catering business. For the past 3 years she was looking for a restaurant to open. Earlier in the year she came across Carriage House Cafe and thought it had a lot of potential and it was in a perfect town so she went ahead and purchased the restaurant.

 
The new bakery features many 'old world' items.


Her focus after purchasing the restaurant, was to improve the quality of the existing menu items by adding fresh ingredients such as locally grown produce and artisan bread along with new items such as Calzones, Sicilian pizza and additional breakfast items. In conjunction with the updated menu, Dana has also added a old fashion Italian bakery that features items you can't find anymore. The baking is overseen by Rocky Scali, an Italian born Master Pastry Chef with over 50 years of experience.

The restaurant seats 23. It now stays open until 4pm during the week.

Dana has also signed on with the Bedford Farmer's Market to be the lunch vendor at a few of the upcoming Markets later in the season.

 The coffee bar features Cappucino, Expresso, Latte and Mochachino

In addition to the restaurant, Dana plans to continue it's existing corporate and social catering business.

Unlike Blue Ribbon Plaza, the shopping center where Carriage House Cafe is located has no name.

COMMENT:
The addition of a Bakery should be a plus. With the Blake Block about to be demolished, this restaurant has a good opportunity to pick up new customers. The challenge is it's not easily visible when driving by on the Great Road. The shopping center does have a good mix of complementary retail businesses. Some branding might be helpful. It would be interesting if a few of them worked together to produce a flyer to send to Bedford homes and businesses.



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