New Fairfield may welcome lakeside dining
Erik Ofgang, Contributing Writer, Published: 05:32 p.m., Saturday, December 25, 2010
Lakeside dining on Candlewood Lake might become a reality next summer in New Fairfield.
Town officials are hoping to better utilize the town's lake front property by renovating what is currently the beach house at the Candlewood Lake Town park on route 39 into a full scale concession area or restaurant that will provide lakeside dining to town residents and nonresidents alike.
"The main beach house is essentially going to be gutted inside to allow for some seating, modern bathrooms, changing rooms and a full commercial kitchen," said New Fairfield First Selectman John Hodge. He added, "in addition to that, the plan is to build an outdoor deck going north of that building for approximately another 75 to 100 feet."
The deck will be covered and when completed the newly renovated lake house will seat approximately 100 people, it will also boast improved views. Though, the town beach will continue to serve only those who have purchased lake passes, the restaurant will be open to anyone whether they have a beach pass or not.
"I think where our beach is located is pretty much the most scenic portion of Candlewood Lake," Hodge said. "The idea is we would like to have a place for the people in town to go to and sit there and enjoy that absolutely fabulous view of the lake. I'm really excited about this, (because) one there seems to be tremendous interest in this in town (and) two there is no other venue for people to eat on the west side of the lake." All they have to do is push Candlewood Isle out of the way to see most of the lake, but it’s a great view of the Windmill!
The town will not be operating the restaurant, instead the plan is to sign a long term lease, (a minimum of ten years), with a restaurant owner who will pay for the renovations to the beach house in exchange for an initial rent reduction.
The Parks & Recreation Commission will be sending out a Request for Proposal at the end of December or beginning of January to potential operators. Among the town's stipulations is that the renovations be completed by next Memorial Day when the season at the town park begins.
There will be no temporary docking available for boats as there are at Down the Hatch in Brookfield and there will limited alcoholic beverages allowed. "We're not going to allow a full service bar," Hodge said. "(We're going) to limit alcoholic beverages to beer and wine only and they would have to be served well people are seated. Our beach is an extremely family oriented beach so we don't want to change the make-up of any of that."
Currently, the beach house serves as the life guard shack and has bathrooms and changing rooms. The structure has not been renovated for decades. There is a separate much smaller structure that has served as a concession shack in previous years. Once the beach house is renovated the concession shack will be converted to the new life guard shack.
The whole project started because the beach house was in need of renovation and this idea was put forward as a "way of upgrading our beach facilities for our residents without it being a burden to our tax payers and at the same time generating more revenue," Hodge said. He added, that it will also allow more people to enjoy the town park's spectacular views. "Our town beach is tremendously expensive to operate yet by and large really under utilized," he said.
Sean Loughran the chairmen of the town's Park & Recreation Commission said he thought the site would be very appealing to restaurant owners. "They have built in traffic they have a beach there, they have a base to start with, plus it's a busy road," he said. He added, the views will be there even when nice weather is not. "Even if the weather's not that great you can sit inside, it's still pretty," he said.
