Local eateries push through a tough first year
What’s it like to operate a new restaurant during a pandemic? Despite myriad challenges, local chefs, restaurateurs and cafe owners have weathered the ongoing restrictions in the industry and found success along the way. Here’s a look at some of their stories.
Big Kahunas Smokehouse
1158 Hooksett Road, Hooksett, 935-7400, nhkahuna.com
Opened: June 2020
Merrimack’s Big Kahunas Cafe & Grill, which also offers barbecue catering options with an island-style flair, has been established for just under 10 years. According to co-owner and chef Jum-Pa Spooner, it was a customer who first told him and his wife, Amanda Persijn-Spooner, about the newly vacant kitchen in an adjoining space of Shooter’s Outpost in Hooksett.
“We were playing around with the idea of a second location … [and] we already had the smokehouse menu lined up from our catering,” Spooner said. “So we just kind of said ‘OK,’ and then Covid kind of happened simultaneously with it.”
Big Kahunas Smokehouse had originally been slated to open in April before pandemic restrictions pushed it back to June. Spooner said having a built-in covered deck immediately allowed them to place tables and chairs outside for dining, as well as small live music acts.
“As soon as we got that first warm day, the tables and chairs were out,” he said. “We’re lucky because we have such a beautiful wrap-around deck with plenty of shade and easy accessibility.”
Takeout is the biggest part of the eatery’s business, offering a menu of fresh entrees with various sides and signature sauces to choose from.
“Most Americans think of Texas or Louisiana when they think of barbecue … but they don’t tend to think about the other side of the continent,” Spooner said of eatery’s concept. “This is just something just a little bit different from what people might be familiar with.”
Lechon kawali, for instance, is a special kind of crispy pork belly that’s charred on the outside and tender and juicy on the inside. Caribbean pulled pork with hand-cut slaw, and smashers, or smoked potatoes cooked on a hot griddle with seasonings, are among its other staples.
BiTsize Coffee Bar
1461 Hooksett Road, Unit A1, Hooksett, 210-2089, bitsizecoffeebar.com
Opened: September 2020
Even though BiTsize Coffee Bar (pronounced “bite-size”) opened the Tuesday after Labor Day weekend in 2020 in Hooksett’s Granite Hill Shoppes plaza, its genesis dates all the way back a full year. The shop, which offers single-origin Costa Rican coffees, espresso drinks, teas and smoothies, as well as a food menu of fresh baked goods and pastries, is a partnership between Granite Hill Shoppes property owner George Kassas and Rabih Bou Chaaya, who has owned Maya Gourmet in Methuen, Mass., since 2014.
The two men met when Kassas, who had envisioned a coffee bar for the then-vacant space on the lower level of his Hooksett plaza for more than a year, visited Bou Chaaya’s Methuen shop in the summer of 2019 and invited him to take a look at the space. Delays in the formation of their business plan lasted several months before construction could even begin.
Now, newcomers consistently discover the shop almost every day.
“We’ve still been getting a lot of new customers that haven’t left the house yet, or they have been working from home since the pandemic started and are finding us now,” Bou Chaaya said.
Initially, BiTsize Coffee Bar’s baked goods, which include French-style butter croissants, cookies, muffins, scones, and Danishes, were prepared at Maya Gourmet the night before. Now they’re all made fresh onsite, many sourced overseas from a bakery in France. Maya Gourmet’s baklava is available for sale, in addition to other treats out of a bakery display that include French macarons and cake slices in several flavors. Newer items like breakfast sandwiches and pistachio and lavender lattes were recently added to the menu too.
Late last year, online ordering and curbside pickup were implemented. Starting on May 1, according to Bou Chaaya, the shop’s hours on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays will extend from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m., with outdoor patio furniture seating available on the deck.
bluAqua Restrobar
930 Elm St., Manchester, 836-3970,
bluaquarestrobar.com
Opened: January 2020
Scott Forrester estimates he was open for roughly 30 days before his Southern-inspired Manchester eatery began feeling the pandemic’s effects. For much of the initial two-month shutdown from mid-March to late May, bluAqua Restrobar wasn’t even open for takeout.
“It was a tough decision to make … [but] I really didn’t want the first impressions of our place to be coming from food from some takeout container,” Forrester said. “Also being downtown, it’s just not an environment that’s set up for quick and easy takeout.”
As soon as bluAqua was able to reopen outdoors, Forrester and his staff created a makeshift patio space out on the sidewalk. Despite its success throughout the summer, Forrester said he’s still waiting on some patio furniture and heating lamps that he ordered last year to arrive.
The menu changes seasonally but has included po’ boy sandwiches, gumbo, shrimp and grits, jambalaya, and other Southern-style foods. Due to a greater lack of walking traffic downtown, Forrester said keeping bluAqua open for lunch has not been viable.
“Every time you think you’ve overcome an obstacle, there’s another one behind it,” he said. “There have definitely been times when business is so inconsistent that I just can’t keep some menu items on hand. … We are seeing an uptick in business for dinner, though. This past March was our best month of the year, so that was refreshing.”
Cornicello
11 Water St., Exeter, 580-4604,
ilcornicello.com
Opened: March 2020
Chef-owner Tim O’Brien was set to open the Italian scratch-kitchen Cornicello the very weekend after Gov. Chris Sununu’s emergency order limiting New Hampshire eateries to takeout only.
“I had people hired, trained and ready to go, and I had to let them go and drop my staff down to zero,” said O’Brien, a former high school English teacher who also owns Enoteca Athena in Brunswick, Maine. “They never technically worked a shift.”
Instead, Cornicello initially launched as a once-a-week takeout-only model, usually on Sunday afternoons. O’Brien would create a limited menu of fresh pastas, seafood and other items each week, inspired either from his family’s recipes or from his travels throughout the many regions of Italy. For several months until he was able to open for indoor dining that June, he would drive down from his restaurant in Maine on a Saturday night or early Sunday morning and prepare Cornicello’s food and wine orders for that week.
“I needed to open up to try to get my name out there to some extent,” he said. “That was incredibly difficult, to try to build a reputation in town while only being able to do takeout.”
When restaurants were able to welcome customers back indoors in June, Cornicello did so with entirely new staff members from those O’Brien had previously hired in March. But it would be several more months to follow before he felt that Cornicello had really hit its stride.
“By around October was kind of when we hit that turning point, because we finally started to get an established group of people that I would say have been regulars,” he said. “Before then, there were many days and weeks when I was just ready to throw in the towel.”
Cornicello is open Wednesday through Saturday for dining in, but even now O’Brien sometimes has to consider switching to takeout-only due to a lack of staff availability. Otherwise, he said, takeout has become a minimal part of his business while he now puts more focus on dining in.
“It can be difficult, because we’re spread out and it’s already such a small space that we’re in, but we do what has to be done,” he said.
Recently, O’Brien has been in negotiations with his landlord to use the empty lot next door to Cornicello as a patio. He has also proposed adding an onsite oyster bar to the town.
Diz’s Cafe
860 Elm St., Manchester, 606-2532,
dizscafe.com
Opened: May 2020
Named after owner and longtime chef Gary “Diz” Window of Manchester, Diz’s Cafe was about three weeks away from opening when the statewide stay-at-home order was first issued.
“We had signed the lease in January, and we were in the midst of trying to hire when everything started shutting down,” general operations manager Billy Martin said. “That delayed us getting our last couple of permits and inspections that we needed to open.”
More than two months later, Diz’s Cafe finally got the green light to open just after Memorial Day weekend. But with still a few weeks left to go before New Hampshire restaurants became allowed to welcome patrons back inside for dining, Martin said a collective decision was made to serve takeout orders directly out onto the street through the eatery’s front windows.
“It almost felt like we were operating like Cremeland [Drive-In],” he said of those first few weeks. “The second week we were open, we got clearance to put tables outside, so it was kind of like a takeout picnic-area model for a week or so. Then indoor dining resumed on June 15.”
Takeout still represents a significant percentage of Diz’s Cafe’s overall sales, Martin said, especially earlier in the week. The eatery is known for its scratch-made comfort foods and home-cooked meals, including its appetizers, burgers and sandwiches, but also its customizable “build-your-own” menu of at least one protein and up to three fresh sides.
“We’ve seen incredible growth, which has been encouraging,” he said. “We’ve definitely seen more people lately who have been more comfortable with dining in, as more people go back to work and there’s more activity downtown.”
As the weather continues to turn warmer and Diz’s closes in on a full year being open, the eatery is expected to add more tables and chairs out on the sidewalk. Martin said monthly specials will continue too, including possibly some Cinco de Mayo-inspired items in May.
School Street Cafe
1007 School St., Dunbarton, 774-2233, schoolstreetcafe.com
Opened: August 2020
Lindsey Andrews and Carrie Hobi had worked together at MG’s Farmhouse Cafe in Dunbarton Center until its permanent closure in the spring of last year. The two cousins, who had talked while growing up about one day opening their own bakery and coffee shop, were later offered the space to rebrand and remodel that summer as the School Street Cafe. Since opening in August, the cafe has become known for its build-your-own breakfast sandwiches, fresh baked pastries and yogurt parfaits, as well as coffee sourced from Hometown Coffee Roasters of Manchester and several flavors of ice cream from Blake’s.
“We’ve recently introduced online ordering, which has been a huge success,” Andrews said. “We also have several picnic tables outside now … to help control the flow of traffic inside, or if you just want to sit out and enjoy the sunshine.”
According to Andrews, the School Street Cafe is also currently developing a catering menu that would include package options such as breakfast pastries and boxed lunches. Similar to last year, evening hours for the cafe will likely be extended in the near future for ice cream.
Second Brook Bar & Grill
1100 Hooksett Road, Unit 111, Hooksett, 935-7456, secondbrook.com
Opened: September 2020
It was Christmas Day 2019 when Jeanne Foote noticed the vacant space that had been DC’s Tavern while driving through Hooksett. The Manchester native had spent more than a decade working at The Puritan Backroom and Billy’s Sports Bar, later owning Bella’s Casual Dining in Durham before its closure a few months prior. A lease was signed for the Hooksett storefront in January 2020, with the goal to open what would become Second Brook Bar & Grill in early May.
Even though the pandemic delayed the new casual comfort and homestyle eatery for four months before it finally opened in September, Foote said it actually proved to be beneficial.
“The restaurant needed a lot of work,” she said, “so Covid hitting really kind of gave us more time to think about what we wanted it to be, instead of just trying to throw something together.”
TJ’s Tavern was the eatery’s original name before it was renamed Second Brook, after the nearby brook by the railroad tracks that Foote frequented as a hangout spot while in high school.
Just within the last month, Foote said, takeout orders at Second Brook have been “off the charts,” especially on weekend evenings, while new customers also continue to dine in for the first time.
“We just recently hit our six-month mark, and I feel like the word is still getting out that we’re even here, with more people getting vaccinated and not being as afraid to go out,” she said.
Menu items, which include everything from appetizers, soups and salads, to burgers, sandwiches and plated entrees, also continue to evolve with new ideas, like mini pretzel bites with homemade beer cheese sauce, and prime rib French dip with homemade chips.
Stones Social
449 Amherst St., Nashua, 943-7445,
stonessocial.com
Opened: June 2020
Inspired by the supper club, or the concept of serving creative comfort foods and cocktails in a small and intimate setting, Stones Social had been in the works well before the start of the pandemic. The eatery is the latest venture of Stones Hospitality Group, which also owns two restaurants in northern Massachusetts — Cobblestones of Lowell, which has been serving elevated tavern fare since 1994, and Moonstones, an eatery featuring global small plates that opened in Chelmsford in the late 2000s.
According to beverage director Aislyn Plath, the family-run group took over occupancy of the space that would become Stones Socal in late 2019. Following a remodeling period, Stones Social would have been ready to open within a week of everything shutting down in mid-March.
“We knew that things were going south, but there was nothing we could do,” Plath said. “We decided to put [Stones Social] on the back burner and put all our energy into Cobblestones and Moonstones, because we knew we couldn’t let those suffer at the behest of a new space. … We also didn’t want people being introduced to us by eating something from [a takeout] box.”
Stones Social would eventually open in late June once indoor restaurant dining restrictions in New Hampshire were loosened. The menu, which includes lighter bar snacks like Buffalo tenders and Chinese short ribs, as well as burgers, wood-fired skillets, poke bowls and a wide array of house cocktails, has remained consistent throughout. Plath said a few promotions have been added too, like “Throwback Thursday” wood-fired pizza specials, and “Social Sunday” specials featuring smoked meats, brunch options and family-style meals.
Business was slow to start at Stones Social, but Plath said she has recently been seeing an influx of new people coming through the door. Since June, the eatery has also amassed a respectable following of regulars.
“They’ve been our biggest champions during this time,” she said. “It feels like we’ve been a little family over the last year.”
Trio’s Cafe & Cantina
264 N. Broadway, Unit 105, Salem, 458-6164, trioscc.com
Opened: January 2021
Salem native Julie Manzer opened this eatery, which features breakfast and lunch items with a unique Southwestern flair, in the Breckenridge Plaza in mid-January of this year. Trio’s gets its name from the owners — a “trio” of generations of the same family that includes Manzer, her mother, Janet, and father, Paul, and her two daughters, Tanna and Keira Marshall.
“Takeout used to be crazy, but I think more people have been getting more comfortable with coming in,” Manzer said. “We also just recently put out tables on the patio.”
The birria tacos, she said, have been among the more recent popular menu items at Trio’s.
“It’s a stewed beef that we cook overnight, so it’s super tender and falls apart like a pot roast would,” she said. “We serve corn tortillas with it and an adobo sauce.”
The menu also features staples like chicken or steak fajita salads, Mexican street corn tenders, and tacos and quesadillas with a variety of fillings, plus a selection of signature margaritas and a Happy Hour on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, from 2 to 5 p.m.
White Birch Eatery
571 Mast Road, Goffstown, 836-6849, whitebircheatery.com
Opened: March 2020
Cyndee Williams of Merrimack opened White Birch Eatery, her first restaurant as owner, on March 9, 2020. Just seven days later came Gov. Sununu’s emergency takeout-only mandate.
“Everyone was just starting to hear about the pandemic and what was going on,” Williams said of that first week being open. “[I was] super-nervous just as far as trying to figure out what was happening in the kitchen, like do I have enough spatulas and that kind of thing … and now I have to wonder, ‘Will I be able to stay open’? It was definitely a lot of long days and longer nights, where you ask yourself, ‘Is this going to work?’”
Williams said she and her staff attempted to offer takeout for a couple of days, but to no avail. After just one week of being open, White Birch Eatery ended up closing for nearly four months.
“The company that owned this space before us, Chiggy’s Place, did not do takeout, so we didn’t even have that takeout clientele, plus our restaurant was a completely different feel,” Williams said. “So first, it was just trying to get people to come in and try us … and then on top of that, getting them to wear a mask, not sit next to people and all that kind of stuff. It was difficult.”
White Birch Eatery finally reopened on July 6 and has been going strong ever since, thanks in part to Williams’ receiving aid from the state’s Main Street Relief Fund. The spot is now known for its breakfast and lunch items made with fresh, local ingredients, from grain bowls and sandwiches to toasts, omelets, breakfast plates and espresso drinks, plus its seasonal specials and an entire menu of options appealing to vegan and vegetarian diners.
Even though it didn’t take off right away, Williams said takeout is now integral to her business.
“We went from having no takeout to some days doing almost half of our sales in takeout, which is not what I had in mind at all,” she said. “We have come into one of those sticky situations now where on the weekends we will have so much takeout that we have to stop it.”
Williams, who has more than a decade of catering experience in several restaurants and hotels, said White Birch Eatery will also soon focus more on catering, for small gatherings like corporate events and bridal and baby showers out of an adjoining 40-seat banquet facility.
Zachary’s Chop House
4 Cobbetts Pond Road, Windham, 890-5555, zacharyschophouse.com
Opened: July 2020
Zach Woodard had owned The Lobster Tail in Windham for the last six years and had worked there as a chef for about a decade prior to then when he decided he was ready for a change. The new concept he came up with was simple: to bring an upscale steakhouse experience you’re more likely to get in a bigger city to rural New Hampshire.
Zachary’s Chop House opened in late July following a quick two-month turnaround that included a complete remodeling of the space. With the help of Woodard’s friend, Godsmack singer and frontman Sully Erna, he was able to quickly secure connections with contractors to redo everything in the restaurant from its front windows to its bathrooms and HVAC systems.
“It’s more casual fine dining, so we don’t have tablecloths or anything, but we do have a very nice upscale menu where we cook all sorts of steaks, and a little bit of seafood too,” Woodard said. “We do brunch on Sundays, [and] then for lunch we do burgers, salads, that sort of stuff.”
The eatery does limited takeout during the day, but Woodard will usually stop those services around 4 p.m. In addition to weekly indoor dining, Zachary’s Chop House has quickly become a favorite spot for its weekend brunches on holidays such as Easter Sunday, when there are items that include carving stations, omelet stations and fresh fruit displays.
“Here, it’s really about coming in and having that experience,” Woodard said. “We feel that the sky’s the limit for us once the restrictions stop and more of the vaccines are being rolled out.”
Zizza Authentic Pizzeria
653 Elm St., Milford, 249-5767,
zizzapizza.com
Opened: January 2021
Michael Zielie of Wilton never could have predicted the volume of response that Zizza Authentic Pizzeria would get during its opening night in Milford on Jan. 15.
“We opened at 11 that morning and even by 3 p.m. we were busier than I thought we were going to be,” Zielie said. “Then the orders started pouring in after that. Between 3 and 4:30 p.m., we received probably about 150 orders alone.”
Beginning at around 5 p.m. that evening and lasting for several hours, Zizza’s 19-space parking lot remained full, with nearly a dozen additional cars parked on the side of Route 101 and police cruisers directing traffic. At one point, Zielie said, he counted around 90 people in the lobby and parking lot all waiting for their orders, a majority of which had been placed online through the website or via a mobile app the company developed.
“As the night went on, we decided instead to just start calling out names asking people what they ordered, and we just made those pizzas to order,” he said.
The next day, the decision was made to temporarily shut down the ordering app and instead implement a system in which customers choose their own pickup times in a five-minute window. As of last month, Zielie said, ordering through the mobile app and website is now back online, with specific times you can choose to pick up your order.
Zizza Authentic Pizzeria opened following the success of Friday and Saturday Wood-fired Pizza Nights at the nearby Hilltop Cafe in Wilton, which the Zielie family also owns. In addition to handcrafted pizzas, the menu features salads, made-to-order milkshakes, homemade Italian sodas, and “ZZandwiches,” or sandwiches made with folded pizza dough.
Hand-filled cannolis, each made to order with sauces like lemon curd, caramel and chocolate, and toppings like chocolate chips, pistachios and walnuts, were also recently added to the menu.
“Hopefully by the summertime, we’re going to introduce other Italian pastries and desserts, like gelato, cookies and ricotta pie,” Zielie said.
Feautred photo: Smoked Caribbean pulled pork. Photo courtesy of Big Kahunas Smokehouse.
