A new business plans to open in the space on North Main Street formerly occupied by the Book Vault since 1921. Café Ra, currently on South Broad Street, intends to expand to a second location on North Main Street and provide unique food for both town members and Choate students. More paperwork for town approval must be completed before Café Ra can move into the new venue—forms for health codes, fire codes, sprinkler system, a septic system, and others—but owner Christian Rao hopes to have this done by February.
Although the younger generations of Wallingford feel the benefits of large businesses with lower prices, most still value the small enterprises, such as the Book Vault, that line the streets and give character to the town. Fears run high within the town that large corporations that can afford to pay exorbitant sums for rent will convince property owners to shut independent, specialty shops down.
Locals React
Pressure on the land owners in question is great from both sides. “You almost can’t blame them,” says Gillian Zimmerman, owner of Landmark Gallery Custom Framing next door to the former Book Vault. “The temptation is going to be too great to go with the corporate, and once the first one on the block happens like that, then all the landlords cave to the pressure and to the money. You don’t know whether their good conscience will prevail or whether the money will.”
The repercussions of one change could affect the entire town, even if the lot, in this case the Book Vault’s former storefront, is owned by somebody who does not hold the adjacent area. David Andrews, who works in the reference section of the Wallingford Public Library and who patronized and supported The Book Vault, laments that big companies are “driving heaven only knows how many other businesses out of business. It [the Book Vault] was nice while it lasted, and they did a great job running it through everything.”
An Expanding Business
Unlike the interstate corporations that could represent the largest threat to the small, local businesses of Wallingford, Café Ra is still a small, expanding business itself. Christian Rao, the owner, has embarked on an ambitious plan to open three to four Café Ras in the next two to three years. He hopes to offer unique, European-café-style food and great service to the several crowds of the town: the lunchtime business crowd, parents who drop their children off at school, the churchgoers on Sundays, families at dinnertime, and, he trusts, swarms of hungry Choaties every afternoon. The café will be open for all 3 meals with night-time dinner specials, two full bakery cases, gelato, fresh drinks, wraps, soups, and grocery items. Rao also looks forward to continuing to cater for Choate sports teams and events, and hopes possibly to employ Choate students in the future.
But contrary to many of the resident views, Rao would also like to see the area around the former Book Vault lot urbanized and modernized for a livelier downtown. “I’d love to see more stores come in there because I want downtown to do well. I want people to be walking the streets.” The second Café Ra bears some similarities to the sort of small businesses Wallingford citizens hope to see thrive, but it could threaten them as well.
When asked if he felt the new café would detract from his business, a manager at Half Moon responded with a jovial “we’ll see.” Caitlin Colacchio ’08 justified his nonchalant attitude: “I’d check it [Café Ra] out if it came, but the family businesses will always kind of get my business because they work so hard just to open up that one little place, and I can’t find anyone who makes better coffee than Half Moon.”
Rao admitted similarities between the two businesses but claimed that his café was more “the upper class type, true gourmet style type food.” He also does not shy away from the prospect of competition, but rather hopes that even more restaurants open in the area because more competition would push all the restaurants to perform better. He explained, “The more that’s up there, the more it’s going to bring more people. And I want downtown to flourish.”
As the restaurant industry looks to “flourish,” the book retail industry continues to wane. Although the former owners of the Book Vault encourage the venture, the independent bookstore industry is seen by most who live in the town as nearly obsolete. With big block stores like Barnes and Noble and online companies such as Amazon able to buy in bulk and sell books for much less money, more people order books for price points rather than audience. Some still prefer the library, where books are free and will not pile up in the home. iTunes technology has also been detrimental to small book stores, as audio books can be downloaded to an iPod and listened to during work or travel with the click of a button. “In order for small businesses to succeed,” said Zimmerman, “they have to pick something that nobody can do on the internet.” As technology improves with time, this range gets narrower.
The original Café Ra is in a green barn on the other side of town at the Meriden border. The bank building struck Rao as a similarly unique venue, and he was eager to seize the opportunity for a location on the side of town where many of his customers live. Rao will make use of the upstairs, which the bookstore used as storage space, by creating a seated balcony.
In February, Choate students will see Rao’s plans come to life. For now, the site of The Book Vault is barren. The sign that hangs in the window is a final touch of the independent bookstore spirit. It states: “Closed. Sorry you missed us. We’re home reading a good book.”
