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Whatever Happened To...?
Chamberlain ‘jinx' claims two would-be restaurateurs
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Business New Haven
8/24/1998
By: BNH
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Plans for two proposed large-scale restaurants in the city have gone up in smoke - and the men behind them seem to be equally elusive.
Thomas Jurewicz's proposal for a comedy club/restaurant to be called C'dell'Arte in the former Chamberlain Building at 50 Orange Street fell through, according to Ninth Square project manager Kathleen Etkin.
Etkin says Jurewicz “had financial problems he couldn't resolve. We went through a court process and he is no longer a tenant.”
Jurewicz announced plans for the 250-seat restaurant/comedy club early in 1998, and said it would open some time during the spring.
Soon after his announcement about opening the club, he helped a new Ninth Square Merchants Association get off the ground and helped resurrect the Downtown Restaurant Council as well.
Efforts to locate Jurewicz to get his side of the story were futile. Etkin says he no longer lives in the apartment he was renting in the district and his phone there was disconnected with no forwarding number. The telephone at C'dell'Arte has likewise been disconnected.
One source says he was living at a local hotel and another says he's “staying with friends” on State Street, but attempts to track him down at either place were unsuccessful.
The second phantom-like figure is William Reeves, owner of Branford's Easyflow Brewing Systems, who proposed a “Southern barbeque, blues, jazz, rib restaurant with great beers on tap made fresh with an on-site Easyflow brewing system” for the former Spanky's/Elm City Pizza site at 236 Crown Street. The restaurant was supposed to be called “Bone Daddy's,” but Reeves later changed that to Crown Street Brewing.
According to a city spokesperson, Reeves applied for a loan from the city, but it never closed.
Reeves announced the ambitious project last year and said he was going to build a two-story, 3,300-square-foot addition to the 2,500-square-foot restaurant and add an open-air deck. Today, the building looks the same as it did when Reeves made his announcement.
Coincidentally, Reeves also had his eye on the 8,000-square-foot, Chamberlain Building space before Jurewicz did and another brew pub was slated to open there before Reeves'.
Originally, Hartford Brewery owner Phil Hopkins wanted to open the Nutmeg Brewery at the site, but Hopkins said “the project became complicated” and tried to find additional investors.
Reeves made a bid to take over the project, but negotiations dragged on and when Reeves learned from the project's construction manager that it was underfinanced and that Hopkins allegedly owed more than $22,000 in rent and interest to the landlord, he pulled out of the project.
Easyflow's telephone number is also no longer in service and nobody seems to know where Reeves is.
While restaurants are a risky business, and more plans for new ones fall by the wayside than ever become reality, could it be that the Chamberlain Building is jinxed?
“I certainly hope not,” Etkin says. “These things happen, and we'll continue to search for a suitable tenant.”
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