Beacon City Schools Will Continue Free Breakfast/Lunch Program For All Children During 2-Week Closure

Published Date: Friday, March 13, 2020

Superintendent Matthew Landahl announced that the Beacon City School District will be offering one meal each morning at two different locations for all kids in the City of Beacon starting Monday, March 16, 2020, the same day that the two-week school closure starts, in the name of reducing density and spread of coronavirus/COVID-19. Schools in Ohio are also extending to their school children the free breakfast and lunch programs, as they too find themselves in sudden protection mode.

LOCATIONS:

10 to 10:30 am: Beacon High School
10:30 to 11 am: South Avenue Elementary

Superintendent Landahl stated: “This will be ‘grab and go’ and is available for all children in Beacon, please spread the word!” Children will be given two meals at the grab-and-go location so that kids can take home a meal to eat the next day at breakfast. The Beacon City School District Food Services Director put together this program in a matter of days.

Superintendent Landahl told A Little Beacon Blog: “Food services staff will work on putting the grab and go bags together. They will include both breakfast items and lunch items so kids can eat lunch and then eat the breakfast the next day. Karen Pagano, our food services director, put this together in about three days. Kids just will have to sign their names, but it is open to all children in Beacon, not just our students.”

South Avenue Elementary has the highest amount of low-income families in its district, and is in close proximity to housing developments for a lot of families in need. The Beacon Recreation Center, located a few blocks away, was the former location for the summer lunch program (that was discontinued last year due to eligibility shifts within the district for that program).

There is a food pantry located at the Recreation Center that is open on Saturday mornings. This food pantry is organized by the New Vision Church of Deliverance. This is in addition to the Tiny Food Pantry mini-house that is located on the grounds of the Recreation Center that anyone can leave food in at any time.

Phil And Mary Ciganer Of The Towne Crier Lose Son Greyson To Opioid Addiction - Hosting A Benefit Concert To Transform Personal Tragedy Into Call For Action

Phil Ciganer, proprietor of the Towne Crier Cafe on Main Street in Beacon, and his wife Mary Ciganer, who is a pastry chef for the restaurant, have lost their son, Greyson, to opioid addiction. He was 26 years old. Some of you may know Greyson, having met him as your server at some point at Towne Crier. One night as our server, Greyson told us of his own birth story, which was very beautiful. It was while we were trying to decide on what to order for dessert (there were 13 options) and he was delighting in his mother’s cooking. A private gathering was held today (Sunday, February 23) to emotionally support Phil and Mary by those who know them.

“Greyson was involved with the Towne Crier for just about his entire life,” Phil told A Little Beacon Blog. “From a young age, he was interacting with and charming customers, and helping out any way he could - first as a busboy, then as a waiter.” Does Mary still make the desserts for the Towne Crier? We weren’t sure if she was still the one after all of these years. Phil confirmed: “Mary will continue to make her legendary desserts for the Towne Crier.”

Phil and Mary want to turn their grief into awareness, and have announced a benefit concert to combat opioid addiction, to be held at the Towne Crier on March 1, 2020. They want to “transform their tragedy into a call for action,” according to their press release sent out on Sunday evening. There is no cost for entry, but donation is suggested.

Phil also answered some delicate questions for this article, in order to help others:

ALBB: Do you have thoughts/advice for those of us who have kids, on how to spot any signs that the children are addicted?
”There are behavioral clues - such as obvious manipulations (‘I need money for gas,’ etc.) - that can alert parents/caregivers to a potential problem. I would recommend checking out some of the valuable resources put out by various organizations - including Drug Crisis in Our Backyard and other nonprofits that will be represented at the event on Sunday.”

ALBB: Do you have any words of advice or reflection for those of us with children or grandchildren or nieces and nephews?
”I think we - as communities, and as a country - should concentrate more on the opioid epidemic that is devastating thousands of people every day - those who are addicted, as well as the people who love them. It's a problem that has been escalating, and changes (for the better) are being made too slowly. Progress needs to be brought to the forefront. Our mission is to raise awareness of this scourge, and to support the groups that are providing critical resources for dealing with it. That’s why we’re hosting this concert.”

The press release is below:

###

“Following the recent loss of their 26-year-old son, Greyson, to opioid addiction, Phil and wife Mary are reaching out to the community with the "Concert for Recovery," featuring local and regional talent on Sunday, March 1, 2020 at 4 pm. Donations are suggested, with proceeds benefiting Drug Crisis in Our Backyard, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting individuals and families in the Hudson Valley who are struggling with addiction.

The lineup for "Concert for Recovery" includes:

• The Slambovian Underground

• Kathleen Pemble

• The Costellos

• Jerry Lee, Boom Kat

• Carla Springer & Russ St. George

• Chihoe Hahn, and others

“Come hear some of the finest talent in the area while contributing to a worthy cause, and learn about the opioid abuse epidemic that is devastating individuals and families on the local and national level.

”If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction and needs help, visit www.drugcrisisinourbackyard.org or reach out to the HopeLine at 877-846-7369.”

About Drug Crisis in Our Backyard

Susan and Steve Salomone and Carol Christiansen are the Executive Board of Drug Crisis in Our Backyard, a community-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization offering education and action-oriented opportunities for families and individuals struggling with addiction. The organization was originally started in 2012 by Susan and Steve Salomone, and Carol and Lou Christiansen after the loss of their sons to a battle against heroin.

After news of their loss reached the community, they realized that they were not alone, that millions of others struggle in silence without any idea of the treatment options or support that is available. Seeking to reduce the stigma associated with addiction, and to help families that are still struggling, they created Drug Crisis in Our Backyard in order to promote awareness about drug use, assist addicted and at-risk individuals and their families, and implement measures, including legislation, that hold accountable organizations and medical institutions that perpetuate drug use through overprescription of opiates and other drugs.

New Owners Of Ella's Bellas' Beacon Location Announce New Name Of Restaurant: Kitchen & Coffee. Still Gluten-Free and Vegetarian. The Internet Is Excited!

UPDATE 2/22/2020: This article has been edited from its original version to reflect the fact that Ella’s Bellas as a brand remains with founder Carley Franklin Hughes. She sold the Beacon location of the eatery to new owners. The brand Ella’s Bellas, however, lives on.

In case you’re walking down Main Street in Beacon, looking for your favorite gluten-free restaurant, Ella’s Bellas at 418 Main Street, know this: The new owners of the Beacon location have just announced a new name for the eatery: Kitchen & Coffee. Kitchen & Coffee isn’t the only restaurant to rebrand after new ownership: Homespun Foods is keeping their name, but changing their logo. (See A Little Beacon Blog’s interview with Homespun’s new owner here.) A Little Beacon Blog first reported on Ella’s Bellas in 2011 when they first opened on Main Street, after the founder was a roving baker delivering to different coffee shops.

With the first pictures of food just being posted to Kitchen & Coffee’s new Instagram account, the Internet is pretty excited about what is being tested for their new menu. Like this Shakshuka Tahini Hummus bowl. The restaurant will remain 100 percent gluten-free and is vegetarian.

Read A Little Beacon Blog’s interview with Carley after she announced the sale of the Beacon location to new owners. The interview reveals insight into the life of a business owner, and how business is personal and influences decisions like this transition.

Meanwhile, it’s lunch time!

Beacon Farmers Market Finds: Beef Jerky At The Farm Fresh Egg Table

Beef jerky at the Eggbert Free Range Farm table at the Beacon Farmers Market! Flavors include Sweet and Mild. Eggberts sold out of them last summer quite quickly, so these may go too! The scoop is that there are more on order from the Amish person in Pennsylvania who makes them.

The hens at Eggberts (not to be confused with the Christmas destination of egg-head Eggbert), eat only the finest food: pumpkin seeds, grass, oyster shells, flowers, and other foods that produce the special K in eggs that make the yolk orange, and has been measured to be lower in cholesterol than the eggs of other feed-fed hens. How do we know this random information? Because we took a Deep Dive into what makes a “farm fresh egg” and where to find them in Beacon. That article is somewhere in our Drafts and hopefully it will make it out of there. But right now, after our research, that best farm fresh egg is right here in the Veterans Building at the Beacon Farmers Market. When we publish the article, we’ll tell you where to get the next-best egg if you can’t get to market or a small producer. 

PS: Barb’s Butchery also has had farm fresh eggs, as does All You Knead Artisan Bakers in Beacon, sometimes. Both stores work with farms and bring the eggs back to their shops.

PPS: Where else can you get beef jerky in Beacon? At the beef jerky specialists, of course! Village Jerk next to The Chocolate Studio in Beacon near the mountain side of Main Street. See A Little Beacon Blog’s Shopping Guide for the address and details!

Impress Your Friends... Visit The Food Truck - Eat Church - With The Best Mountain View At Industrial Arts In Beacon

Pho King ingredients, from Eat Church.
Photo Credit: Eat Church

I’m not gonna lie (and why would I in the presence of a church?!): For the longest time I did not know what Pho King was (some ingredients are pictured at right), but a lot of you do, and it seems to have a lot of big-time loyal fans. I’m happy to report: I have finally tried Pho King, it’s good, and I want it again.

Meet Eat Church, the little food truck on the campus of Industrial Arts Brewing that packs a powerful punch to your palate. Eat Church is quite possibly the eatery furthest from the center of Beacon, in true fringe style on the far end of the Route 52 strip, up a hill, and to the left of the new Industrial Arts taproom with the pinball game room.

This little truck serves roasted chicken, roasted pig, pad thai, pork belly, crunchy noodles, Korean fried chicken, red curry with coconut rice, and many more creations.

The Industrial Arts Brewery sign on Route 52 near John Deere. The Eat Church food truck is on the brewery’s campus.

If you’ve driven down Route 52 a zillion times and never seen Industrial Arts or Eat Church, well, that’s understandable. The sign for Industrial Arts isn’t quite as lit up as the neighboring John Deere sign. All you need to do is turn at the Industrial Arts sign, drive up the winding driveway, and beer and food await you.

The food truck is outside, and plenty of seating is inside Industrial Arts, either at the bar, or at long tables in the common area, or or within heated tents.

The mountain view is spectacular - unobstructed by anything. It’s just you and the mountain and the Pho King and the Torque Wrench, which The Valley Table has recently dubbed very hard to find. There is a case of it up on this hill. (You can also find it on Main Street at Beacon Craft Beer Shoppe next to Key Food.)

The view from the Eat Church food truck at Industrial Arts Brewery.
Photo Credit: @jwhittz

While we have not yet been to Eat Church during the day, we did visit at night. Here is what you can expect to see in the dark at Eat Church. Just so ya know, Eat Church is a sponsor of A Little Beacon Blog’s Restaurant Guide. The winter months are the hardest for our restaurant friends, so we are giving them an extra boost with this much needed field-trip style profile. Plus, Eat Church just started delivering via Seamless!

Enjoy this series of mini videos that give you a feeling of Eat Church and Industrial Arts Brewing - at night!

Letter From Homespun's Creator, Jessica: Where Is She Now?

If we aren’t going to be seeing Jessica behind the counter at Homespun anymore, where is she?

Jessica, who sold Homespun to a carefully selected new owner who you can read about here, took a moment out of her retired life to answer our burning questions:

Where are you now?

I am sitting in my house in Beacon at 9 am with no phone calls from work, no shifts to cover, no orders to put in and no fires to put out and I am loving it!

What are your days looking like?

I've been walking everyday and brushing up on my Spanish using our library's online language classes - check them out!

Also, Chris and I are going traveling soon and we are busy packing up our house and dealing with all the stuff we have accumulated. (Really, how many cookbooks do you need???)

What do you eat if you’re not at Homespun? Do you cook Homespun at home?

Okay, first, when you own a restaurant, you end up eating restaurant food all the time! Because there’s a lot of leftovers or a lot of takeout, you get tired of being around food. It's a pleasure to cook at home although the cleaning up part is a drag. We eat simply which was the basis for Homespun from the beginning.

The first week I was retired, I baked bread and made a great chocolate halvah babka ... but it’s not as much fun if you aren't getting positive customer feedback!!

My favorite lunch now is rice cakes with tahini, sharp cheddar, tomato and sprouts ... it is a crumbly, delicious mess.

I don’t miss the work, but I do miss my staff and being such a part of the neighborhood - but it was a good run. I did what I set out to do which was to make community.

Thanks for asking,
Jess

xoxo

Homespun: Meet The New Owner, Serving The Same Food, With More Wine - Really Good Wine - And Upcoming Dinner Menu

Homespun Foods is a staple in Beacon. It always has one of the longest lunch lines, is one of the most trusted menus for ready-to-go dishes or desserts to quickly pick up and bring to a party, and is one of those eateries in Beacon that is built into the experience of living here. A few years ago, they opened a café down at Dia:Beacon, and do Dia’s catering for in-house events. At the original Main Street location, you step in through the well-worn heavy door, onto the warm, hardwood floor that has absorbed the aromas of the soup-making and pastry-baking over the years, and you feel at home.

When the building that houses Homespun was up for sale, the natural question became: “Will Homespun stay?” And it did, confirmed founder and former owner Jessica Reisman in an article we ran about it. But then something else happened: Jessica sold Homespun to a new owner. The food seemed to stay the same, the website got updated, a kid drawing showed up in the Instagram feed, so we wondered… Who is this new owner? What will Homespun become now? Will we still have access to the baked french toast, the Mediterranean plate, and the carrot cake log?! Turns out, the answers are yes to all…

About The New Owner

Meet Joe Robitaille, the new owner who moved his family (including his wife and three young children) from Brooklyn to Beacon - but that path is not as straightforward as it seems. It never is when telling the business story of businesses in Beacon. Joe grew up in Hamburg, NY, just outside of Buffalo. He fled south to attend and graduate from the College of Charleston (me too!) where there is lots of good food (especially Mediterranean), and then moved to Brooklyn to earn a MFA in Poetry at Brooklyn College.

To support himself through school, he worked at a wine store in Brooklyn Heights. “That led to me becoming a sommelier in the city,” Joe explains, “working at il Buco for six years as head sommelier, and two years as chef-sommelier for Daniel Boulud’s Bar Boulud and Boulud Sud.” And so began Joe’s career in wine, which he is bringing to Beacon.

Working At A Wine Store Means More Love For Wine … And Food

Joe with Homespun’s sommelier-in-training. The staff will learn more about wines from Joe and importers he works with.

Being a sommelier means that you are an expert in pairing food with wine. People who love food often love good wine. Just ask Tim and Mei, founders of Artisan Wine Shop just down the road, who built a kitchen in the back of their wine shop just to host wine tastings with unusual food they like to cook (catch this food pairing almost every Second Saturday).

Being in New York, Joe tells me, has its advantages. “We are pretty spoiled in New York because a lot of the great wine arrives here first and sits in warehouses until it gets funneled through different shipping channels,” he explains. “I got to source wine through purveyors in South Carolina at Butcher & Bee, which gave me a glimpse at how wine travels through national channels, and got to pair wine with their menu which was really, really fun because their food is this brackish zone between Israeli mezze and Lowcountry.”

Joe with one of his wine importers for German white wine.
Photo Credit: Katie Hellmuth Martin

Being a sommelier also means you are working directly with people. Some of those people are wine importers. You need a wine importer to bring the wine to your restaurant. Because some of the greatest wine arrives in New York first, extra fees on shipping it across state lines can be avoided. Joe aims to use that, and his current relationships with wine importers (one of whom is a German wine importer who stopped into Homespun to convey season’s greetings the day of our interview, pictured here) to keep the tightly curated selection on his wine list more affordable to patrons.

Wine will be available shortly, just as soon as the license gets approved.

Was Homespun Looking To Sell? How Did That Happen?

As we were researching this story, a reader asked this question, so we asked Joe: “How did you find out about Homespun?” While we love Beacon’s existing businesses and buildings, sometimes their owners are ready for something new, and they put an ad out to sell the business. And that’s how Joe and Jessica’s relationship began. Jessica put an ad out, and Joe found it. “Jessica and I both really like and respect each other a lot, and we stuck to the plan through all the bumps. I count Jessica among the mentors I have had in my career. She did an amazing job for the community, and set me up for success.”

Is the staff staying? “Yes, all of them really!” says Joe. “ It has been a remarkable transition. I learn so much from our staff everyday.” The menu is also remaining the same, with breakfast available every day, and new specials appearing in the menu. Dinner is coming, but Joe is waiting for his new chef to start, who can incorporate a special menu just for dinner.

The New Business Journey - Finding Homespun

For those who like a good business startup story, here is Joe’s in his own words. With a young family of three boys, working in the restaurant industry can be tough with its long hours. Now, at Homespun, he is minutes away from school (just wait until he experiences the tug of snow delays!), and can break up his day between work life and personal life.

“I had been wanting to open my own restaurant for a long time. I had done trips up here and started to really home in on the Hudson Valley/Catskills as the place to do it. Brooklyn wasn't going to be possible, and definitely wouldn’t be possible without a multitude of investors, so I was looking up here.

“Initially we were looking at the area around Phoenicia, but decided we ultimately wanted to be closer to the train. I liked Beacon a lot from visiting with my wife, Kate, a few years earlier, just knowing Dia was here, and I remembered a nice record store on Main Street. The town seemed pretty lively on the weekend we were there, so there was energy.

“After a long weekend stint of working as sommelier in the city, just laying around the house, I started reading an article about Bottega il Buco, which is the restaurant my old boss Donna Lennard opened in Ibiza. I was looking at photos of the place, and seeing the place very much having a sibling resemblance to her two spots in the city. It was its own unique space for sure, you could tell that, with these beautiful whites and blues and open air and light, but you could also tell Donna had done this, even though it looked so new.

“In that moment, I felt this urge of ‘I want to open a restaurant so bad!' I literally Google searched ‘turn-key restaurants hudson valley.’ That's how I met Jessica Reisman. Her ad came up of selling this sweet restaurant in Beacon, right on the Main Street. It had been open since 2006. It had this beautiful backyard, the exposed brick inside, a nice size for a cozy restaurant. And then as I read I saw that she also ran the cafe at Dia:Beacon. I sent the link to my wife, who had historically been pretty skeptical about me finding a space etc, and Kate said, ‘You have to write this lady.’ So I did.”

Watch For More From Homespun

There is even more to this story, for the foodies in the audience who want to know more about Joe’s experience with food and chefs who open restaurants. This, I will bet, will be a feature you’ll read about in edible Hudson Valley, so we’ll leave it to them for the interview. But also know this: Joe has been following the threat of the 100 percent tariffs expected to come on European wines, a result of the current U.S. administration’s tariff war, says Joe. Already, a 25 percent tariff is in play, “but most importers are eating it,” he says. “If the tariff happens, a $12 bottle of French wine could be $40.” People are encouraged to call their congressional representatives.

Meanwhile … lunch at Homespun continues!

PS: We interviewed Jessica Reisman too, to find out where she is now. Read her answers here!

Farmers Market Finds: Grow-In-A-Bag-Mushrooms, Butcher's Candles

Sundays usually offer regularity at the Beacon Farmers Market, but sometimes different vendors show up offering something new. Will they be back the next week? One never knows. We’ll highlight some of the details found recently within the vegetable baskets and on the tables of the Farmers Market, which is inside of the VFW Hall/Memorial Building during winter.

This bouquet of what looks like a school of stingrays swimming through the ocean is really a mushroom colony grown from a bag from Sugar Shack Farm, who specializes in growing oyster, shiitake, reishi, lions mane, pioppino, chestnut, maitake and other mushrooms. The bag requires almost no care - or light. Just stab a hole into the plastic bag, and the mushroom growth starts. You can eat these gourmet mushrooms.

The other bouquet is the traditional wildflower bouquet from Diana Mae Flowers.

Barb’s Butchery has been finding ways to go more whole-body of the animal, and has been using the beef tallow (rendered fat) to make scented candles and balms, with lavender, rosemary, eucalyptus, mint and cedar fragrances to start. Similar to using butter fat, this other fat has its benefits. Barb is particularly lit up about the surprise wicks she has hidden in the mini-cast iron candle holders for extra hours of burning. Ask her about it when you go into her shop on Spring Street (the other side of Fishkill Creek near the mountain). Don’t forget to pick up some soup when you’re visiting the table at the market.

And of course, you can’t go to market without picking up a blueberry and banana muffin (or whatever flavor of the day), the famous chocolate croissant, and cherry turnover from All You Knead’s table. Stock up on these bakery items, including the chicken pot pie, because the storefront is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Sunday at 2 pm is your last chance for the week! Well, for two whole days, at least, until Wednesday.

The Secret To Miz Hattie's Southern BBQ and Pecan Pie In Beacon At The Hudson Valley Food Hall

Pictured here is Miz Hattie (left) and one of her employees, Christasia Jones (right).
Photo Credit: Katie Hellmuth Martin

The sweet tea with the crunchy ice.
Photo Credit: Katie Hellmuth Martin

I first had Miz Hattie’s Southern BBQ 10 years ago during an early nice weekend in spring after a harsh winter when one of the worst blizzards hit (30” of snow and three days of no power). A neighbor had organized a block party, and we met all kinds of people while eating spoonfuls of mac and cheese and scooping remnants of pulled pork sandwiches, coupled with fried chicken.

Little did we know that Miz Hattie, who lives in Beacon, was famous for her Southern BBQ, but that BBQ was only available at catered events, parties and festivals. The next time we got to eat her food was at the Spirit of Beacon Day parade, where she had a long table of deliciousness.

And now, for the first time ever, anyone can get Miz Hattie’s Southern BBQ any time they want - in the Hudson Valley Food Hall on Beacon’s Main Street, just past the public library, near the Subway. Featured in this article is the mac and cheese bowl with pulled pork, the sauce for which has a slight hotness to it, but even people who don’t like spicy things will be just fine with this. Paired with the generously cheddary mac and cheese, this is one of the best food bowl combos in Beacon.

The menu.
Photo Credit: Katie Hellmuth Martin

Yes. Inside that unobtrusive door of the Hudson Valley Food Hall is a whole lot of food creativity (but have you seen the back of the building?) - including Miz Hattie’s Southern Sweet Tea. The Hudson Valley Food Hall is the perfect destination for finding a variety of street food to eat there at their tables, or on the go. Find soups, salads, BBQ, and even seafood (hello, fresh Shrimp Cocktail!). When you’re walking to the Beacon Farmers Market on Sunday, add this to your list of warm lunch/snack options.

About That Sweet Tea…

Thankfully, Miz Hattie adds her Southern Sweet Tea to the mix on Main Street - with crunchy ice. One must get the sweet tea to wash down the Southern goodness, even if one gets a pecan pie.

Miz Hattie’s famous pecan pie.
Photo Credit: Katie Hellmuth Martin

How do you know if you’ll like sweet tea? If you are a Snapple drinker, you already drink sweet tea, but that is imitation, and you may as well abandon that, and just go to Miz Hattie’s to get real sweet iced tea.

What Made Miz Hattie Expand To A Main Street Storefront From Her Catering Truck?

This is Miz Hattie’s first spot in a storefront ever. How did it come to be? “The opportunity came to me,” she recalled, while packing mac and cheese for a catering order. “I am in a book club, and everyone was talking about the food hall coming. Friends were telling me to open up there. Once a week, I sit with an elderly woman for lunch. One afternoon, we went to Brothers Trattoria, and as we entered, I saw a pair of keys on the floor. I picked them up, and showed them to the next person in front of me - the building inspector for Beacon. They were his keys, and he and I go way back. I asked him if he knew about this food hall. He did, and put me in touch with the owner right away.”

Miz Hattie’s Southern Secrets

Where does Miz Hattie’s Southern cooking come from? “I grew up in North Carolina on a small farm. I was one out of nine kids. I loved being in the kitchen with my mom cooking. When my father would roast a pig for all the farm workers, I would love hanging out with him and learning, I sat up all night watching. Cooking is just something I love doing.”

Miz Hattie moved to Beacon in the 1980s to attend CIA for pastries. “Baking is also my passion. But when I moved here, I always knew I would start doing BBQ at some point.”

What is the secret to her pecan pie and corn bread? “My sister sends me pecans from Texas. My aunt told me how to make the sugar sauce. The corn bread I just tested until I got it the way It is - lots of work!”

The front of Miz Hattie’s spot in the Hudson Valley Food Hall.
Photo Credit: Katie Hellmuth Martin

The decor is unique to the Hudson Valley Food Hall. All of the food venues are, actually. Miz Hattie’s is wooden, rustic, and Southern. “My setup is all the things I had collected over the years,” Miz Hattie told A Little Beacon Blog.

The Hudson Valley Food Hall is open seven days, and so is Miz Hattie’s, open Monday to Thursday, 11 am to 8 pm for now (or until the bar closes), and Friday to Sunday, 11 am to 9 pm.

The Hudson Valley Food Hall is located at 288 Main St., Beacon.

Resilience On Main Street: Several Restaurants, Groceries and Shops Open During Snowstorm

From left to right: Utensil, Pavonine Yoga, Max’s On Main, Beacon Barkery

Once again, several of Beacon’s restaurants and shops opened during Beacon’s first snowstorm of 2019. Business owners really want to be the answers to your dreams, and if your dreams include roasted marshmallows, regular groceries, potato skins, or hot yoga, then you’re in luck: Several Beacon businesses rose to the occasion and dug their way out of the snow to open.

Not all businesses were open, as snow days mean different things to different people: Kids are home from school, some daycare centers closed, and roads were bad. Governor Cuomo declared a State of Emergency for seven counties (Albany, Columbia, Greene, Rensselaer, Schenectady, Saratoga and Ulster counties) with imposed low speed limit rules, as first responders responded to 740 storm-related crashes today, according to HV-NY.

The domino effect is real when it comes to snow days. Safety first. However, several businesses were quick to list their openings or closures on social media (namely Instagram - that’s who we check, at least!).

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If you were wanting to cook up a steak or pork chop, Barb’s Butchery was open as usual. So were Max’s On Main and Isamu (sushi) if you wanted someone to cook the food for you. Utensil usually opens during snowstorms, because you might need a pizza stone right now as there’s high demand for comfort food during snow days. Key Foods and Beacon Natural Market had salt to melt the snow, and pink salt to flavor your home-cooked food.

If your pets were stalking you for food, Beacon Barkery was open. Hudson Beach Glass was firing it up inside, so you could shop or watch them make the glass ornaments. Hudson Valley Marshmallow was firing up the blowtorch in their “mallow shack.” Pavonine Yoga was open, as were other fitness studios on Main Street (even if they had a later opening). The movie theater in town - Story Screen - was showing movies. (They also serve beer and popcorn!) The Telephone Building dug out and is always open for Beahive members and soon-to-be Tin Shingle members to come out of the house and work work work! Some might call the cozy atmosphere a #workation.

Several others were open on Main Street, so know this for future snowstorm needs: Assume nothing. Just because your car is buried in the driveway doesn’t mean everyone’s car is still buried there. If you need something, just walk to Main Street!

See your options in A Little Beacon Blog’s Restaurant Guide and Shopping Guide.

Ella's Bellas Creator/Owner, Carley Franklin Hughes, Steps Aside From Beacon Location - We Have An Unpublished Interview

Photo Credit: Ella’s Bellas

Carley’s chocolate chip cookies had just the right amount of rock salt on top. Available at Bank Square Coffee House, they were easily this blogger’s first favorite chocolate chip cookie on Main Street in Beacon. Carley delivered her cookies by stroller to the coffee house, as well as other wholesale accounts she developed as a young mother cooking from her certified home kitchen. Ella’s Bellas is named after her daughter, who has a gluten allergy.

Carley wasn’t the only one in Beacon to have a certified home kitchen. There were and are several off-the-radar professional bakers and cooks. But she is one of the few who has moved out of her home kitchen to open a storefront in Beacon, pop up in other cafés with outposts in Cold Spring and elsewhere, and open another storefront in the Catskills.

Eight years later, Carley is stepping aside as the proprietor of Ella’s Bellas at 418-420 Main Street, handing over the reins to new owners. During tonight’s City Council meeting, when it came time to give his weekly report, council member Terry Nelson thanked Carley for her service to the community.

EDIT 2/22/2020: Carley retains ownership and recipes of Ella’s Bellas as a brand, and “may do something down the road,” she tells A Little Beacon Blog. The new owners “purchased the building, equipment, and kickass staff,” Carley confirmed.

Carley is one of those business owners who experiments. She experiments with giving - she donated a consumer refrigerator to the Beacon Community Kitchen when they first opened a handful of years ago. She experiments with marketing ideas, like the oyster-filled dance parties she used to have with Drink More Good. And of course, she experiments with baking and has the most delicious gluten-free shop one could ever ask for. And I’m not even gluten-free, but I could order anything from her menu and be totally satisfied.

Announced on her personal @dogsofellas Instagram page, while simultaneously the shop account gave a 10-year birthday nod to the biz (the Beacon brick-and-mortar shop has been open for eight years), Carley illuminated the reason behind her decision:

At some point I started to slow down... For years I rushed and stressed and focused on the needs of the people working for Ella’s, the building, my customers, and how to best provide for them. In the beginning, it was fulfilling and brought me great joy. I was living the strong working mom dream. I put my family and myself somewhere in the background and pushed to make the business grow and shine, but at some point I started to get tired, and I started seeking joy in the quiet and nature instead of crowds and excitement and the high of a busy day. I started to think of a life that focused on things other than the business, and my journey started to shift to where I am now…

Tomorrow will be my last day as proprietor of 418-420 Main St. Ella’s Bellas will still live in a familiar state for a few months while the new owners finalize their plans and I’ll still be around to help with this transition phase. Then I have no plans, and I’m really excited to just be.

I’ll be at the shop finishing up soup and various odds and ends tomorrow (Monday 11/18). Come by or leave me a song to add to the soundtrack of my last day as “boss lady.”

Formerly Unpublished Interview With Carley About Business and Family Life

About a year ago I was working on a story and reached out to Carley with a bunch of questions. I never published the story (only about 5 percent of my stories actually make it to these blog pages). Parts of the story had undertones of what she has just announced. Now that Carley has reached the end of her business life-cycle - or this business life-cycle, anyway - let’s read about the transition of her business from her home to Main Street, and maintaining its growth:

ALBB: Tell us about your early business life when you were delivering to local bakeries.

I started delivering almost 10 years ago to Bank Square Coffee House when [my daughter] Ella was around 14 months old. It was a family affair. My home kitchen was certified and I would bake when Ella napped or was down for the night. My husband would do dishes and late-night deliveries and Ella and I would walk the rest over in the stroller.

ALBB: Were you doing this before she was born?

No, I took time off of working to be at home with Ella. My previous career was in theater admin and production. I had worked in food service, but not as a trained baker.

ALBB: Did having a child help and/or slow your growth into opening your own shop?

Ella and many other factors contributed into the need to move the business out of the house and into a storefront. I would say that as we both get older, I find myself concentrating less on the growth of the business and more on making myself available to Ella and my family. That has definitely had an affect on our rate and amount of growth.

ALBB: Did having a child actually make you make decisions that grew your business faster? Like hiring employees, so that you could accommodate your child and family life?

Yes, having a child makes me have a more controlled work day and set schedule. I try to keep my work to her school hours (or camp hours) and I would often work after her bedtime or before she’s up in the morning. It meant that although I was responsible for creating and building many of the elements of Ella’s, once they were established, it was best for me to have a staff member take over that responsibility so I could concentrate on business growth and family.

In the early days, that meant adding staff. It’s also made it difficult to keep as many layers of the business operating. I can’t always jump back into the kitchen or behind the counter at this point, so we’ve gone from a large staff with a general manager to a smaller staff and smaller menu.

ALBB: When you opened the second location in the Catskills, was that business as usual by that point? Or did you need to make adjustments to your child and family life?

When I opened the business in the Catskills, I had a wonderful manager in place at Ella’s Bellas, so I basically spent several months bouncing back and forth and dragging my family along to help and keep me company. My husband has his own company and they did the renovations to the Catskills building. Ella’s Bellas was running with limited day-to-day needs from me at that point.

ALBB: How many years after opening your first location did you open your second?

Just under six years to opening, but we had been working on the project for eight months when it opened. So it’s really closer to five [years].

ALBB: Do you have family in town who helps you with childcare?

My mother-in-law is in town part-time, so that can be really helpful if we schedule it correctly. We were really lucky to have a wonderful former bakery employee turn into childcare help off and on over the years. She and Ella are still great friends and she's now a successful businesswoman and mother, too!

At the time of this interview, Ella’s Bellas was in several locations. The brand was available at all the Pantry locations, The Taste of NY at Todd Hill, Fresh in Hopewell Junction and their sister shop in the Catskills.

Business Advice From Carley:

I’ve learned that it’s easy to get wrapped up in growing organically, but that can distract from the core of your business. Never lose sight of what you want the business to become.

Chocolate Crepe Is Perfect For An Afternoon Sugar-Low Snack: In Beacon!

Wednesdays mean one thing: a chocolate crepe from Royal Crepes Beacon, loaded with strawberries, bananas and a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

After delivering a TuneUp webinar at Tin Shingle, the most perfect answer to a sugar low after cramming in preparation for the class, is this dish. Almost ate it without sharing the picture. The horrors!

Royal Crepes is right down the block from our office here at A Little Beacon Blog, near The Studio Beacon and Enoteca Ama. You can get it to go, or stay inside their warm and cozy eatery.

Find more delicious restaurant ideas in A Little Beacon Blog’s Restaurant Guide!

It's Ready! New Deli Open At Key Food, Serving Buffalo Wings - And Did You Notice The New Parking Lot?

Left: The new deli, with all your favorite cheese and spread options back in the case.
Right: The new parking lot, with arrows to help keep people moving in the right direction.
Photo Credits: Katie Hellmuth Martin

You’ve walked through the doors of construction at Key Food.

You’ve walked around the usual checkout line to exit when new or moved walls were going up.

You’ve wondered what is going on behind the wall with all of the banging, and you heard that it was a new, bigger deli.

And now, the new deli is here and open! The team at Key Food has been scampering around, climbing onto the roof to hook things up and connect everything just so in order to bring Beaconites more food options for those who want to eat and run, or just eat and not cook.

The deli grew longer, a hooded kitchen was added to the back of it, and the crew is already cooking their own original Buffalo wings made in a secret sauce. Key Food is currently hiring looking to expand the deli staff!

This isn’t the first mega project the folks at Key Food have undertaken. Jb Said opened the Craft Beer Shoppe right next door, Junior and Co. opened Beacon International across the street, and the Smoke Shop and More was an addition as well.

What’s For Lunch/Dinner?

Buffalo wings at Key Food in their secret sauce. Blue cheese dressing available on the shelf nearby.

Hot prepared meals fill the warming rack at Key Food starting at about 12:30 pm. You can still get fresh rotisserie chicken that is cooked behind the deli counter, and now you can also get Buffalo wings in a secret sauce, chicken tenders, fried chicken, and a lot of other chicken options. Bottles of blue cheese dressing are conveniently located in the aisles of the store. You can keep an entire bottle back at your office fridge. No more worrying about asking for extra blue cheese and hoping it made it into the bag.

Sides are available, like crunchy broccoli salad, tabbouleh, potato salad, and other staples. Sandwich-wise, you can get egg salad, tuna salad, and of course, sliced meat sandwiches. Soon, the grill will be on and you’ll be able to get hot sandwiches. The menu is currently being taste-tested before becoming public.

Catering From Key Food

In addition to the new hot foods lining the case, Key Food Beacon has been quietly catering, working out their systems on friends and family in order to bring catering to you. Consider it in a soft beta launch for now. Foods like sesame chicken with broccoli and Middle Eastern chicken on Spanish rice were big hits, and make it into the rotation of take-out lunch items on the hot shelf. Watch their Facebook page for announcements, but better yet, come in to see what’s up. Don’t wait for digital! Show up for food.

New Helpful Arrows In Key Food Parking Lot

Our office here at A Little Beacon Blog is right across the street from Key Food. We sit at one of the trickier intersections on Main Street. There are worse intersections, but this one is pretty active with illegal U-turns, kids popping wheelies on bikes in the middle of the road, people driving the wrong way up South Brett Street, and cars pulling into the Key Food parking lot going the wrong way.

If you’ve never noticed before, the driveway on the left of the parking lot is the Entrance, and the driveway on the right is the Exit. Although there is a good amount of parking in the Key Food parking lot, there isn’t much room to maneuver two-way traffic, so it’s one-way.

To help everyone drive safely, Key Food had bright yellow arrows put down on their new parking lot paving job. A few parking spaces to the right of the front door were removed in order to make for better parking of the delivery trucks. As has been discussed at City Council meetings recently, Main Street is pretty narrow and congested with delivery trucks. Key Food now has a dedicated place for the trucks to park, making movement easier for everyone. See the picture of that cozy truck down below?

7th Customer Appreciation Day Hosted By Key Food Beacon

This Saturday, August 17, Key Food is hosting their 7th Customer Appreciation Day. It is an especially big deal this year, as everyone made it through the store’s enhancements. From their invitation: “Come celebrate with us. We want to thank you for your business. Join us for a fun event for the community. There will be free food, free beverages, free snacks, music, kids activities, giveaways and much more. Thank you so much for all your support and we hope to see you all there.”

When you come to the Appreciation Day, pop across the street to the Pop-Up Shop happening at A Little Beacon Space for some vintage T-shirts and possibly video game playing!

See you there!

Sun & Earth | Farm & Food Festival From Common Ground Farm at Stony Kill This Weekend

Photo Credit: Common Ground Farm

FARM & FOOD FESTIVAL
DATE: Saturday August 3
TIME: 3 to 8 pm
RAIN DATE: Sunday, August 4

The Sun & Earth | Farm & Food Festival, presented by Common Ground Farm, will be a celebration of gratitude for natural resources, from the sun in the sky to the earth; highlighting sustainable agriculture, local food, music, and the supportive community. This happens on Saturday, August 3 from 3 to 8 pm.

Located on the historic Stony Kill property, the Sun & Earth Festival will welcome guests to explore Common Ground Farm, eat delicious local food, enjoy music performances and engage in food and farm activities. The event will highlight multiple activities including yoga, music, children’s activities on the farm and cooking demonstrations with farm-fresh produce. The evening will conclude with a fun outdoor dance party!

Food and Activities From Your Local Favorites

FOOD: Confirmed food vendors include Barb’s Butchery, Las Tres Americas taco truck, Samosa Shack, Zora Dora paletas and Drink More Good.

YOGA: Programs offered include yoga with local instructors Julian Paik and Kyla Wedenko, mindful relaxation with Beacon of Light Wellness, pottery with Newburgh Pottery and a farm activity led by Common Ground’s farm manager, Leah Garrard.

KIDS ACTIVITIES: There will also be children’s activities provided by Compass Arts, and cooking demonstrations and tastings with fresh Common Ground vegetables, led by Chef Sonya Joy Key and Chef Nicholas Leiss. Musical acts include live music from Tony DePaolo and a dance party DJ’ed by Jamie Pabst, aka Miss Behavior Music!

Sponsors who make this event possible include Hudson Valley Federal Credit Union, and activity sponsors Allsport Fishkill (yoga), Vassar Brothers Hospital (yoga) and Stop and Shop (cooking demonstrations). Admission is free, with donations accepted to support Common Ground Farm’s efforts in expanding food access throughout the Hudson Valley.

About Common Ground Farm

CGF’s mission is to serve the community as a model for food justice and education for people of all ages and incomes. The organization maintains a 7-acre vegetable farm at the Stony Kill property in Wappingers Falls, runs education programs for children and adults on the farm and in the schools, and operates farmers markets and mobile markets in Beacon and Newburgh. You can find the farm’s produce weekly on Wednesdays at their Common Greens Mobile Market (a partnership with Green Teen Beacon and Cornell Cooperative Extension) at Forrestal Heights and the community health center in Beacon, Saturdays at the Newburgh Farmers Market, and Sundays at the Beacon Farmers Market.

House Made English Muffin Breakfast Egg Sandwich at The Beacon Daily Is Legit

Long ago, there was a flare-up of where was the best breakfast egg sandwich, or the merits of what constituted the best breakfast egg sandwich. We don’t do a “best of” around here because everybody’s best is different. But we can know what is legit (and by “legit” we mean really, really good), and the house-made English muffin breakfast egg sandwich at the new Beacon Daily, on Teller Avenue, passes the test - it hits the spot. 

What Makes This Breakfast Egg Sandwich?

Already this sandwich is off to a great start, with the double wrap of tissue paper to absorb and hold the American cheese and house-smoked bacon grease drippings, wrapped in a final closure of tin foil to keep the heat. So far, however, Mr. V’s has the hottest and most tightly wrapped English muffin in town (how do they get it sooo piping hot?).

Marilyn, A Little Beacon Blog’s Managing Editor, also got one, and we were both happily scraping off the extra cheese drippings from the paper after we finished the sandwich, which is a requirement of an excellent breakfast egg sandwich.

House Made English Muffins

The Double BOGO Sale on English muffins at Key Food.

The Beacon Daily is as obsessed with English muffins as we are. (You know how we stalk the double BOGO sale in the bread shelves at Key Food for the Thomas English muffin. You read that right - double BOGO means Buy 1 Get 2 Free. The best time for that sale seems to be Mondays, and sometimes Sundays.) The Beacon Daily takes their passion a step further. The Beacon Daily bakes their own English muffins. This is devotion.

A Pancake Egg Sandwich?

Back on the griddle were large buttermilk pancakes, which we really wanted to order, but we were on the clock and needed a real protein breakfast. The Beacon Daily heard our not-so-silent plea for both pancakes and the breakfast sandwich, and toyed with the idea of making a breakfast egg sandwich out of pancakes!! That would be amazing.

Coffee, by Ready Coffee Co., made for a nice second cup to an early morning home brew.

Who Is Behind The Beacon Daily?

The Beacon Daily is owned by two brothers of the Crocco family, Chris and Andrew, and an unofficial, non-blood brother (aka friend), Bill, who is known as “the sausage King of Poughkeepsie.” Bill makes the house-made sausages and smoked meats at The Beacon Daily, as well as Mill House. An actual brother, Danny, who is not an owner, is the chef at Mill House and helped create the menu, space and logistics of The Beacon Daily. And running The Beacon Daily’s social media is yet another family member, Kimberly, who confirmed all of these family tree roots for this article. Clearly there is a lot of food creativity, family and vision coming from this eatery.

There are many meals to try at The Beacon Daily. And there are pies. There are pies you want to try, the varieties of which rotate weekly, usually with two types available at a time. During the writing of this article, there was a Strhubarb (strawberry rhubarb) and apple pie available for slices. Full pies are available upon pre-order.

Beacon Design Trivia

Speaking of the menu, the designer behind the logo is Ken Rabe of Beacon-based design firm Rabe and Co., whose work you’ve seen all over town and on national brands. We always like to give shout-outs to designers, who otherwise can be invisible behind the branding you love.