Antebellum (R) & Unpregnant (PG-13)

Antebellum (R)

Janelle Monáe gives a good performance in the murky, underdeveloped Antebellum.

I don’t think I can avoid spoiling some of this movie’s plot. As others have noted, Antebellum takes 35-ish minutes to tell you something that you know going in if you have seen its trailers (which IndieWire says were first released in November 2019). If you want to see Antebellum innocent of spoilers, my advice is to wait for it to be cheaper than $19.99 to rent; despite the strong central performance by Monáe, there are a lot of elements to this movie that just don’t gel for me. I mean, that’s my advice for everybody but skip the rest of this if you don’t want to know more.

The spoilers start with the main character’s name. When we first see Janelle Monáe’s character, a man tortures her to get her to say her name is Eden. It is actually, we later learn, Veronica. Veronica is trapped at a plantation where violent men in Confederate uniforms run weird “military” drills and otherwise spend their time forcing captives (a few dozen people maybe, all African American, I think) to pick cotton and not talk. The only “civilians” here are Elizabeth (Jena Malone) — the daughter of the plantation’s owner (Eric Lange) and the wife, probably, of a “soldier” (Jack Huston) — and her young daughter.

This opening third of the movie drops details that suggest what we finally learn when we get to a flashback: Veronica is a present-day, successful and well-known author and speaker about race and gender. She engages in the familiar struggle to balance her family life, with her husband (Marque Richardson) and their young daughter (London Boyce), with her career which occasionally takes her away from home. We see her travel to a conference to speak and promote her book and then enjoy a dinner with friends (Gabourey Sidibe, who is So Fun here, and Lily Cowles). Her success affords her luxuries — a private yoga trainer, a high-end hotel suite — but it doesn’t shield her from racism, such as a brief encounter with a weirdly hostile hotel clerk or dismissive treatment at a restaurant.

So, persistent and pervasive racism in the modern day; a nightmarishly horrifying race-based system of enslavement from the past. The movie presents these two things (in detail) but I’m not sure what it’s saying about how they connect: maybe that the human evil that allowed for the horrors of the past isn’t gone but just barely hidden, still peeking out in small ways and waiting to be reanimated? Something like that? We get terrible evil and workaday evil but the wires between the two don’t completely connect, the “thoughts and ideas” element doesn’t illuminate and come to life. Because this movie graphically portrays the violence and despair of slavery, I felt like it needs to say something clearly, something beyond just “this is bad” and “the perpetrators are evil” (and “the perpetrators” as presented are either “these bad guys in this narrow outlandish circumstance” or “those bad people long ago” which prevents the movie from saying something more pointed about race in modern America). Slavery is a cataclysm that our country is still grappling with (and not) in key life-and-death ways but here it’s ultimately the backdrop for standard horror story beats.

Monáe’s brings more to this movie than seems to be on the page. We dive right into her character when she is in the middle of the nightmare situation. She says and does things that make sense at the time you’re watching them and more sense later on and hang together with the Veronica we meet in the flashback. It’s a demonstration of what a strong actress Monáe is and how good she is at portraying a whole complex person in small moments.

I feel like this movie wants to sit on the shelf with “horror but more” movies like Get Out and The Invisible Man and present itself as art that talks about race and gender while giving us a scary story. But this movie doesn’t deliver on the “more.” C+

Rated R for disturbing violent content, language and sexual references, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Written and directed by Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz, Antebellum is an hour and 45 minutes long and is distributed by Lionsgate. It is available for rental for $19.99.

Unpregnant (PG-13)

Two friends hit the road in search of an abortion clinic in Unpregnant, a sweet road trip comedy.

Seventeen-year-old Veronica (Haley Lu Richardson) finds out she’s pregnant. She can’t tell her group of best friends — or her very Catholic parents — for fear of their reactions. She tells her boyfriend, Kevin (Alex MacNicoll), but his response is to propose — and tell her too belatedly about a mishap with their birth control. Helpfully, though, he does give her a ring, which she pawns to help fund her planned-to-the-minute, two-and-a-half-day trip to New Mexico, the location of the closest clinic open to parentally-unaccompanied teenagers for this Missouri resident. But she needs a car and someone to be with her at the clinic.

Enter Bailey (Barbie Ferreira).

Bailey and Veronica were once best friends but had a falling out before high school. Bailey happened to walk into the girls bathroom just as Veronica learned the results of her pregnancy test and she owns a car. Despite their difficulties, Veronica feels Bailey is the only person she can get help from. The two set out on Friday night with Veronica having carefully scheduled a trip that will get them back by Sunday night, with her parents never knowing where she was. Naturally, things very quickly go awry.

Bailey and Veronica have a friendship that reminded me a lot of the Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever friendship in Booksmart (and the Richardson and Hailee Steinfeld friendship in The Edge of Seventeen, which is the first place I think I saw Richardson, who continues to be an extremely promising young actress). I appreciated how this movie, like those movies, gets to some of what can pull close female friendships apart in their teens, as they’re figuring out who they are and how to deal with the world around them, but then also how nobody is the onehigh school stereotype they appear to be.

The girls’ relationship takes this movie to a really sweet place, which both is and isn’t jarring with the core story of a girl needing an abortion and a system that has turned a health care situation into an adventure quest. Never Rarely Sometimes Always, the excellent and terrifying movie from earlier this year with roughly the same story line, is the too-real dramatic version of this tale. There, the girls’ money woes and the distance they need to travel heighten the constant danger. Watching that movie was an edge-of-your-seat anxiety trip that I am happy to discuss (say, at Oscar season!) but don’t think I want to experience again. Here, there are money woes and long-distance travel and some of the people are still jerks but there’s a lightness (the problems are often setups for comedy situations; the girls also meet good people along the way) and a sunniness as the girls’ friendship is rekindled. And yet, both movies end up at a well-crafted indictment of the political situation that makes the premises possible. All that and Giancarlo Esposito singing a few bars of “Since You’ve Been Gone”? HBOMax earns its keep for another month. B

Rated PG-13 for mature thematic content, sexual content, strong language and some drug references, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Rachel Lee Goldenberg with a screenplay by Rachel Lee Goldenberg, Bill Parker, Jenni Hendriks, Jennifer Kaytin Robinson and Ted Caplan (based on a novel by the same name by Hendriks and Caplan), Unpregnant is an hour and 43 minutes long and is distributed by Warner Brothers Pictures and is available on HBOMax

The Dynasty

The Dynasty, by Jeff Benedict (Avid Reader Press, 528 pages)

To hell with Tom Brady. The real GOAT is Robert Kraft. That is the only conclusion that can be drawn from The Dynasty, Jeff Benedict’s exhaustive examination of the Kraft-Belichick-Brady era. There is nothing more to be written, at least not about things that happened in Foxborough before the Dumpster fire that is 2020.

I came to the book as a skeptic, wondering if the world really needed another 500 pages about the Patriots, even by as accomplished a writer as Benedict, whose 2018 biography of Tiger Woods was achingly good.

But yes, of course we did.

Tiger Woods was a compelling portrait of a complicated figure (we gave it an A-) and read like an insider account of the famed golfer’s life even though Benedict and his co-author Armen Keteyian were unable to interview the principals of the story: Woods, his mother and his former wife, and his late father.

In The Dynasty, however, Benedict had access to many of his subjects, to include Robert and Jonathan Kraft, Brady, Rob Gronkowski, Roger Goodell, and Brady’s predecessor, Drew Bledsoe. Notably absent from the acknowledgements is Belichick, but Benedict, as it turned out, didn’t need no gruff, reticent Belichick. He began work on the book two years before Brady obscenely said “I’m not going anywhere” in a Super Bowl commercial, and then a month later, announced that he was going somewhere after all. (Not that I’m bitter.)

It turned out to be exquisite timing for an explain-all book, which poignantly concludes with Brady’s socially distanced visit to Kraft’s home in which he tells the Patriots owner he’s leaving, and then makes the call to Belichick, with Kraft standing over him like a parent insistent that a child call the grandparent to say thank you for the birthday gift.

That scene, while no doubt fundamentally true, raises my only complaint about this sort of book, which attempts to wed the narrative grace of a novel with the rude reality of events long since past. That said, Benedict’s narrative, ably blended with sportswriter-styled quotes from his myriad sources, carries the reader comfortably through 20 years of dynasty building and earlier than that, to the roots of Robert Kraft’s obsession with the team that was then called the Boston Patriots.

In fact, this book could have honestly borne the title Robert Kraft, as it is an ode to the businessman who used to take his young sons to see the Boston Patriots play, over his wife’s objections. (“The games are on Sunday. The boys have to go to Hebrew school on Sunday.”) Kraft would dutifully deliver his sons to Hebrew school, but handwrite notes to the teachers each week, asking that they be dismissed for a “family commitment.” Then he’d pick them up in a dark green Porsche (his paper-production business already doing well by then), with a brown paper bag full of sub sandwiches: “two corned beef and two roast beef with mustard.” Excellent parenting, that, and also excellent attention to detail, the hallmark of Benedict writing.

He goes on to walk us, courtside, through Kraft’s astonishing quest to acquire the team, which was not a snap decision or mere privilege of wealth, but an obsessive, strategic hunt that wasn’t so much a plan but a scheme. The story of how he acquired rights to the parking lots and to the stadium, putting the team under his control when he didn’t own the team, is fascinating, as is his patience. Pats fans are now accustomed to seeing Kraft and son Jonathan sitting in the owners’ box at Gillette, looking like models for GQ, but it’s doubtful that many understand what it took for them to get there.

Benedict clearly has enormous respect for the Krafts and the organization they built, but he doesn’t shy away from the generous supply of controversies that have accumulated over the years, from the locker-room scandal involving Boston Herald writer Lisa Olson in 1990, to Robert Kraft’s arrest for soliciting prostitution in 2019. (A court recently ruled that the prosecution’s video was inadmissible as evidence, so this will likely go away.) That said, he doesn’t dwell on it. The charges are mentioned in a seven-page epilogue in which Benedict neatly summarizes the events of the past year. The book’s real conclusion is the celebration after the Patriots trounced the Rams in Super Bowl LIII, when Robert and Jonathan Kraft, Brady, Belichick and Goodell all stood on the stage. “When they met in 2000, Belichick was a young father and Brady was fresh out of college. Now Belichick was a grandfather and Brady was a middle-aged dad. The sports world had watched them grow old together through the prism of football. ‘We’re still here,’ Belichick told Jim Nantz,” Benedict writes.

Well, two of them still are. (Not that I’m bitter.) As a Boston sportscaster wisely said earlier this year after Brady signed with the Bucs, “If it doesn’t end badly, it doesn’t end.” In spring it looked as “the dynasty” was over, and Benedict writes with a sense of finality. In fact, the dynasty could thunder on without Brady, depending on how Cam Newton performs. Regardless, The Dynasty will stand as the definitive account of an extraordinary era, and it’s a pleasure to read. A

BOOK NOTES
Amid the mounds of words that will be written about Ruth Bader Ginsburg this week, those most worthy of our time are the words written by the late Supreme Court justice herself.
My Own Words, released in 2016, is a compilation of writing and speeches by Ginsburg, assembled by Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams (Simon & Schuster, 400 pages; also paperback released in 2018).
It’s a whimsical selection including an editorial Ginsburg wrote for her high school newspaper and a letter to the editor on the subject of wiretapping, published in the Cornell Daily Sun, as well as her Rose Garden acceptance speech and her dissenting opinions. For other good RBG titles, see supremecourtgifts.org, run by the Supreme Court Historical Society.
For those weary of politics, blessedly, there are sports — all of them, concurrently: baseball, football, basketball, hockey, tennis, golf. For those listless moments between games, publishing has us covered with these titles:
Three-Ring Circus by Jeff Pearlman, out this week, is a look at another dynasty, the L.A. Lakers from 1996 to 2004, with emphasis on the fight club that was Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant with Phil Jackson as the man in the middle (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 448 pages).
Pass It On by Deshaun Watson appears to be an inspirational book from the Houston Texans quarterback (its subtitle: Work Hard, Serve Others, Repeat) because, of course, nothing qualifies a person to write books as does being an NFL quarterback. Cue The TB12 Method. (Thomas Nelson, 224 pages.)
The Captain is a new memoir from former Mets player Dave Wright (Dutton, 368 pages).
New in paperback for those of you who aren’t bitter: 12: Tom Brady and His Battle for Redemption by Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge. This was originally published in hardcover in 2018 but has been updated with recent events for the paperback release (Back Bay Books, 352 pages).
Tales from the Seattle Seahawks Sideline by Steve Raible and Mike Sando — no, never mind. That one hurts.

Featured photo: The Dynasty by Jeff Benedict

Album Reviews 20/09/24

Clan of Xymox, Spider on the Wall (Metropolis Records)

This Dutch goth-rock outfit, originally comprising three songwriters, is nowadays down to one prime mover, Ronny Moorings, who’s been at the helm since, well, forever now, the early 1990s. After some success on the 4AD and Polydor labels, including a whopping one hit single, the recipe still remains an obvious, if wonderfully chosen, one, namely a combination of ’80s-pop and darkwave. To wit: this album’s opener “She” re-imagines Skinny Puppy’s hard grinding “Assimilate” as an early Cure single, which pretty much sums up the aforementioned styles at work here, but, of course, if you’re a Gen Xer who grew up on a strict diet of New Wave, you might think the tune is the single most innovative joint you’ve ever heard. I mean, I don’t hate this stuff at all; Moorings has a fetish for the ’80s, and that, coupled with his melodically genial approach, makes for some highly listenable, slightly-edgy-but-not-really stuff, mostly echoing the soundtrack from the first Fright Night. No, seriously, it’s a 40something’s dream, trust me. A

The White Swan, Nocturnal Transmission (Self-released)

Well, this is delightful, a sludge-metal thingie with female vocals. With their super-slow-mo bliss-drone, Sunn(((O))) forged a path for doom bands (don’t let’s get pedantic, I realize those guys aren’t trying to be Black Sabbath, whatever) to try new things, and this one totally works, more in the vein of a sort of Kyuss-vs.-Boris deal, with Kittie’s Mercedes Lander covering drums and vocals. Thankfully, Lander isn’t trying to caterwaul her way into metal history; her singing here is no-nonsense, melodic and powerful, more than fitting for the swampy, epic quicksand going on underneath — think a handful of Tyrannosaurs fighting as they sink into a tar pit. For doom-heads, you’d want to start with the title track of this EP, as eventually Shane Jeffers drops a Nile-reminiscent guitar solo onto your heads, proving that the band is capable of a lot more than blasting listeners with fast-acting noise-goop. No, this is definitely a band band, and hopefully they continue with this project. A

Retro Playlist

More and more every day, it seems that anything that came from The Time Before The Coronavirus ignites nostalgic passion in our hearts. I already loved old stuff to begin with, even before all this. The over-dried, mummified smell of estate sale wares always makes me hesitate to unload the car after we come back with a haul; I want the scent to sink into the upholstery. On this page I’ve chatted plenty about really old music, too, which is still my go-to choice in the car. The oldest CD I have is some marching music from the 1910s; the album’s buried somewhere in these catacombs, and I can’t remember who the bandleader was, but I do know he played the cornet, a sturdy, trumpet-like brass instrument that was big in those days.

I’ve name-checked Lead Belly plenty of times here, the early 1900s Black singer from whom Led Zeppelin pilfered plenty of material, including my favorite Zep song, “Gallows Pole.” But Zep wasn’t the only crazily famous band to have drawn inspiration from the blues legend; George Harrison once said “No Lead Belly, no Beatles.” A two-CD set of his old recordings, Masterworks Volumes 1 & 2, can be had on Amazon for 17 bucks.

Today there are plenty of artists working to revive older sounds, like Carolina Chocolate Drops nationally, and, to some extent of scope, Bitter Pill locally. Nine years ago this past week, I told you about Red Heart the Ticker, the husband-and-wife team of Tyler Gibbons and Robin MacArthur, who received a grant from the Vermont Arts Council to record an album called Your Name in Secret I Would Write, meant to preserve a collection of obscure New England folk songs made of “broke-down waltzes and Stephen Foster-esque wordplay” that would have become extinct forever if MacArthur’s grandmother hadn’t passed them along to her while on her deathbed.

Yeah, gimme the oldies any day.

PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• Some long-overdue good news: the next general CD-release Friday date is Sept. 25, and in honor of this horrible, dreadful, worst-year-ever being three-fourths over, I will be as cool as I possibly can to the new Will Butler album, Generations, which will street on this glorious Friday. Will is the brother of Win Butler, the human responsible for much of what Arcade Fire has done to us all, with their hayloft-indie music records, and the video for Will’s new single, “Surrender,” is OK for what it is, some borderline Baptist-choir singalong-ing by two nice hipster ladies over harmless, kid-safe Aughts-rock molded to the same kind of beat as Iggy Pop’s “Lust For Life,” which used to play every single time I went into Toys R Us to try to find a cool Batmobile for my desk. The song has that Arcade Fire feel, and the video is OK, except some of them are wearing ski caps in warm weather. What’s with the ski caps in warm weather, millennials? Please explain, so that my next rage comic will have some context.

• Indie-folk anomaly Sufjan Stevens fooled everybody once with his “50 States Project,” an idea that was supposed to be a set of albums focused on all 50 states but that turned into only two states, Michigan and Illinois. Remember that one, and how he said it was a promotional gimmick? I didn’t honestly care myself, considering that no one would have bought an album called South Dakota anyway, so whatever. His new full-length, The Ascension, will be out in a day or so, featuring the 12-minute song “America,” which I don’t like at all, like, it sounds like an old reject acid-trip song from 10 CC that didn’t make it onto one of their albums: slow, trippy psychedelica with backward-masked synth-noise and one part that sounds like slow math-rock. I don’t get it, which, as always, means that it’s possible you’ll think it’s the most awesome song ever, but I shall not judge.

• As everyone know, the coolest thing ever to have come out of Sacramento, California, is the alternative metal band Deftones, whose most famous song, the Nine Inch Nails-like “Change (In the House of Flies),” was heard on such movie soundtracks as Little Nicky and Queen of the Damned. The band’s new album, Ohms, their ninth, is on the way, led by the title track, released as a single a couple of weeks ago. It is, of course, awesome, a cross between Sabbath, High On Fire and Soundgarden, and — what, you’re still here? Why are you not off listening to this awesome song?

• To close things out we have even more awesomeness, specifically Public Enemy’s 15th album, What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down. The single is “State Of The Union (STFU),” a song powered by one of their relentlessly pounding signature beats. It is so awesome you will literally crack in half if you’re not worthy, so I advise you to please be worthy.

Fine, you can have pumpkin beer now

Who knew pumpkin beer would be such a win?

I saw a reputable brewing company heavily promoting via social media their pumpkin beer’s availability in mid-August — without irony. Seriously. OK, what I’m trying to say is, they were trying to get me jacked up about pumpkin beer while I was in the middle of my summer vacation.

It didn’t work at the time.

And, OK, we’ve all seen pumpkin creep into our lives sooner and sooner each summer and we all have to acknowledge that we as a society here in New England sort of shift to fall overnight, so breweries kind of need to be ready with the pumpkin for that first cool night.

Now that the air is crisp and cool and downright chilly at times, I’m ready to consider the universe of pumpkin-flavored beer. It’s a universe that, to me, is almost diabolical in how hit-or-miss it is. For every one that tastes delicious, you have another that is sugary pumpkin syrup. In beer form, that’s not a good thing.

Enough with the snark; there is something pleasing, comforting and delicious about a well-balanced, spicy, slightly sweet pumpkin ale. First, of course, pumpkins are seasonally appropriate but if brewers are careful with the sugar, it just works really well. But it seems it is hard to amp up the pumpkin without amping up the sweetness.

The success of a pumpkin beer is in its subtleties. You want the aroma of pumpkin and spice. You want a lingering flavor of roasted pumpkin-y goodness but there’s probably a reason why you don’t just see pumpkin juice on the shelves of your local grocery store.

I tend to like a pumpkin beer on the heavier side, like a pumpkin stout or porter, such as Harpoon’s Imperial Pumpkin or a full-bodied Smashed Pumpkin Ale by Shipyard Brewing Co. I think the earthy taste of pumpkin pairs well with rich malts and deep flavors — that way the pumpkin adds to the complexity rather than overpowering the brew.

That said, lighter- and medium-bodied pumpkin brews like Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale or Roadsmary’s Baby by Two Roads Brewing Co. are also quite pleasing. Again, for me, their success is tied directly to subtle sweetness, rather than in-your-face sugar and spice. I do not go for the cinnamon-sugar rim — not because it tastes bad — but if you go that route, regardless of the brew, I just don’t think you are going to actually taste and appreciate the beer; the cinnamon and sugar takes over.

The good news is that you have a lot of choices to work with.

Homecoming by Able Ebenezer Brewing Co. in Merrimack is a nice choice that features big pumpkin flavor but without the sometimes dominating flavors of cinnamon, vanilla and other spices.

The Toasted Pumpkin Ale by 603 Brewery in Derry, on the other hand, is another great, unique and well-balanced choice that is aged on vanilla beans and cinnamon sticks. This one has a little higher ABV at 8.2 percent, which helps the beer stand up to a little extra sweetness from the vanilla and cinnamon. The pumpkin still shines through for sure.

Of course, then there’s the Southern Tier Pumking, which is big, syrupy, and sweet, and which I should probably hate, but I love, so go figure.

I think the message here is simple: Go out and explore pumpkin beers this fall and don’t get down if you don’t like one or two. Move on to the next one.

What’s in My Fridge
Sip of Sunshine by Lawson’s Finest Liquids (Waitsfield, Vermont) I haven’t had this one in a long time so it was almost like being reintroduced to an old friend. This is just a wonderful brew. It’s juicy and hoppy with lots of floral aromas and tropical flavors. This beer just works any time. Cheers!

Featured photo: Courtesy photos

In the kitchen with Christos Babis and Lexi Griburas Babis

Christos Babis and his wife, Lexi Griburas Babis, of Candia are the owners of Villaggio Ristorante (677 Hooksett Road, Manchester, 627-2424, villaggionh.com), which opened in the Queen City’s North End in 2012. Villaggio is an eatery known for its classic Italian dishes, including those made with chicken, veal and fresh seafood, as well as a full-service bar with wines, beers and specialty cocktails. Other popular offerings include lasagna, housemade potato and ricotta gnocchi, and fresh egg angel hair or fettuccine pastas with your choice of sauce. Villaggio reopened daily for dinner on June 18.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

CB: Definitely tongs, because everything on the menu is made in a saute pan.

LGB: For me it would be a potholder.

What would you have for your last meal?

CB: Octopus with tomato salad, olives, feta cheese and a nice crusty bread.

LGB: Grilled calamari with fresh steamed greens, and then Christos’s chocolate soufflé.

What is your favorite local restaurant?

CB: Mine!

LGB: The Golden Tao [Restaurant in Manchester].

What celebrity would you like to see eating in your restaurant?

CB: Al Pacino.

LGB: Gordon Ramsay.

What is your favorite thing on your menu?

CB: The filet mignon with cognac sauce.

LGB: Frutti di Mare.

What is the biggest food trend in New Hampshire right now?

CB: Made-to-order food that can be personalized.

LGB: We never really had a big takeout business … [but] takeout is so huge right now.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

CB: Grilled salmon.

LGB: I like to make all kinds of soups, like bean soups, meatball soups and pumpkin soup in the fall.

Butternut squash soup
Courtesy of Christos Babis and Lexi Griburas Babis of Villaggio Ristorante in Manchester
½ gallon whole milk
1 large butternut squash (cleaned, peeled and diced)
3 tablespoons freshly grated ginger
4 tablespoons butter
Salt and pepper to taste
Bring milk to a boil. Add the squash, followed by the salt and pepper, then the ginger. Boil until squash is soft. Take off heat and blend with a hand-mixer until smooth, then add butter and enjoy.

Featured Photo: Courtesy photo

Brewed with quality

BiTsize Coffee Bar opens in Hooksett

A new shop has just arrived in Hooksett’s Granite Hill Shoppes plaza, but its concept has been in the making for more than a year. BiTsize Coffee Bar (pronounced “bite-size”), which opened Sept. 8, offers single-origin Costa Rican coffees, Italian blend espresso drinks and several types of teas and smoothies, plus a food menu of fresh baked goods, paninis and desserts.

The shop 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. After operating as a successful wholesale baking business for several years — you can find its baklava at several Market Basket and Whole Foods stores across southern New Hampshire — Maya Gourmet opened a retail coffee shop and storefront in June 2019. Kassas, who had envisioned the then-vacant space on the lower level of his Hooksett plaza for more than a year, said he was immediately taken with Maya Gourmet’s concept during a visit one day as a customer.

“The minute I walked into Rabih’s place, I said ‘this is it,’” Kassas said. “I wanted a top-notch quality coffee bar … and so I said to him that I’d like him to come and see the location that I had here. He and his wife came up and looked at it and they kind of fell in love with it too.”

According to Bou Chaaya, the new coffee bar’s concept is similar to that of Maya Gourmet’s. All of its baked goods, which include French-style butter croissants, Danishes and more than a half dozen types of cookies and muffins, are prepared fresh at the Methuen location the night before. Maya Gourmet’s baklava is also available for sale, both the Greek and the Lebanese style, as well as several treats out of a bakery display that include French macarons and cake slices in several flavors, like red velvet, chocolate and limoncello.

The daily drip coffee, Bou Chaaya said, is a single-origin bean from Costa Rica that’s roasted at Maya Gourmet, available in pour-over or siphon brewing methods. Espresso drinks, which include lattes, cappuccinos and macchiatos, come from a bean imported from Italy.

The shop also offers seven different types of hot and iced teas, sourced from Mighty Leaf Tea, that are all brewed to order, plus multiple flavors of smoothies, like strawberry banana, raspberry, mango, pineapple coconut and blueberry pomegranate.

“We use a real fruit puree,” Bou Chaaya said of the smoothies, “and then you have the option to add whipped cream or boba, which are juice balls.”

Paninis are made to order too, on your choice of either a ciabatta bread or a French baguette. Flavors include a tuna melt, a ham and cheese, a caprese, and the Ultimate, which has turkey, salami, pastrami, cheese, mayonnaise, mustard, roasted peppers and fresh mixed greens.

Other food offerings are crepes with strawberry and banana flavors and a Nutella spread, and an oatmeal bowl with milk, walnuts, honey and fruits. Bou Chaaya said breakfast sandwiches on croissants and bagels will likely be added to the food menu soon.

BiTsize Coffee Bar
Where: 1461 Hooksett Road, Unit A-1, Hooksett
Hours: Monday through Saturday, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (may be subject to change)
More info: Find them on Facebook and Instagram @bitsize_coffee_bar or call 210-2089

Featured photo: BiTsize Coffee Bar. Photo by Matt Ingersoll.

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