At 39 Unquowa Road, a pile of bricks now sits where Catch a Healthy Habit used to serve smoothies. Westfair Communications photographed the site after a demolition crew took the building down in the second half of September. The same owners have been running the café for weeks at 116 Sherman Street under a new name, Clean Slate, with a full coffee bar.
None of the small businesses on that downtown stretch closed for good. In June, News 12 reported that all of them had relocated. Every new address is still in Fairfield, on Sherman Street, Reef Road or the Post Road. The change is on the block itself, which has been emptied and is now waiting through a construction schedule that runs well past this winter.
How the block emptied, in order
The sequence ran faster than most downtown changes do:
- February 18, 2026. News 12 reported that tenants on the stretch had been given an April 15 move-out deadline by the property owner, which operates as 15 Unquowa Road LLC. The businesses named were Las Vetas Lounge, Fairfield Barber Shop, Catch a Healthy Habit Cafe, Tenth of June and Nancy Galasso Interiors.
- April 9. Patch reported that Las Vetas would leave 27 Unquowa Road for 1640 Post Road.
- May 19. Catch a Healthy Habit, one of the last tenants to leave, served its final day on Unquowa.
- June 10. Wendy & June opened at 40 Reef Road.
- Summer. Clean Slate reopened on Sherman Street.
- Late September. Demolition started at 39 Unquowa Road. The neighboring buildings are marked for demolition but were still standing when Westfair reported on October 1.
From the first public notice to the first demolition took about seven months. Building the replacement will take considerably longer.
The new map
These are the current addresses, based on News 12's June update and Westfair's status check as of September 28:
| Business | Old location | Where it is now | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clean Slate, formerly Catch a Healthy Habit Cafe | 39 Unquowa Road | 116 Sherman Street | Open |
| Wendy & June: Tenth of June and Wendy Loves This | Unquowa Road block | 40 Reef Road | Open since June 10 |
| Fairfield Barber Shop | Unquowa Road block | Inside Fairfield Hair House, 1040 Post Road | Open |
| Nancy Galasso Interiors | Unquowa Road block | 51 Sherman Street West | Relocated |
| Las Vetas Lounge | 27 Unquowa Road | 1640 Post Road | Moved; no reopening date confirmed in reporting |
One address detail matters if you are heading over. News 12's June story gave the café's future address as 16 Sherman St., written while the space was still under construction. Patch's August report and Westfair's September check both list 116 Sherman Street, which is where Clean Slate actually opened.
The moves changed the businesses, too
None of these businesses simply carried its old setup to a new storefront. Each one adapted to its new space.
Clean Slate is the clearest example. Lisa Storch and Glen Colello ran Catch a Healthy Habit under that name for nearly 20 years. They changed the name along with the address. Storch told News 12 the menu would stay organic and mostly plant-based, while adding some non-vegan options and a full coffee bar. Colello told News 12 that "the response was overwhelming."
Wendy & June brought two businesses into one storefront. Tenth of June is a home and garden store, and Wendy Loves This is a lifestyle and apparel brand. At 40 Reef Road they share a combined name but, as owners Wendy Mount and Amanda Desmond told News 12, they are "still two separate businesses." They opened on June 10, and Desmond pointed out the date matched the store's name. Mount credited the community: "Everybody's been so amazing."
Fairfield Barber Shop solved its move by joining someone else. Marco DiVincenzo was among the first to find a new place, and he now works out of Fairfield Hair House at 1040 Post Road, next to Hansen's Flower Shop. The shop's owner, June Chen, used to work with DiVincenzo at his old business. She told News 12 that the parking lot "has been a big perk from the prior space." For regulars who used to look for a spot near the train station, that is a real change.
Nancy Galasso Interiors moved a short way along to 51 Sherman Street West.
With Clean Slate at 116 Sherman Street and Galasso on Sherman Street West, two of the five former Unquowa tenants are now on Sherman Street. If you used to walk to Unquowa Road for coffee and a look at fabric samples, that is now where to go.
Las Vetas is the one move still underway
Las Vetas Lounge has the least settled status of the group. When Westfair reported in April, the coffee lounge expected to reopen at 1640 Post Road around July 1. In mid-June, News 12 reported that renovations were still going on and that a fundraiser described the effort as a "chance to give back and help preserve this crucial piece of our community."
The latest published status is Westfair's: as of September 28, Las Vetas "has moved to 1640 Post Road." None of the coverage we reviewed gives the date it actually reopened at the new space. Before making a trip, check the lounge's own channels for current hours.
What goes up on Unquowa, and when
The replacement is called Center Commons, a five-story, 50-unit apartment building with eight affordable units and two ground-floor retail spaces. The project went through a long approval process. The town's Plan and Zoning Commission first denied the application, the developer sued, and the two sides reached an agreement in 2025 that requires at least two street-level shops. In July 2025, the Hartford Business Journal reported that the approved plan reduced the building's height to 56 feet and still needed court approval at that point.
The developer's published schedule determines how long the block stays under construction. According to Westfair's October 1 report, construction is planned for late 2026 and early 2027. Once the foundation is poured, vertical construction and interior build-out are expected to take 12 to 18 months. So far, only 39 Unquowa Road has been demolished. Even if the foundation were poured before the end of this year, the shortest version of that schedule runs into late 2027, and the longer version runs into 2028.
That puts the two new retail spaces on Unquowa Road at least a year away, and probably more. In the meantime, everyone who used to shop that stretch already has new addresses to go to.
A second demolition, across town
The Unquowa project is one of two downtown-to-east-side redevelopments that started demolition in the same two weeks. On Commerce Drive in eastern Fairfield, crews took down the former Rio Bravo Tacos & Tequila at 770 Commerce Drive and a WWII-era industrial building next door at 750 Commerce Drive. That site is planned for a 90-unit mixed-use building from Skala Partners of West Hartford. Plans call for 4,313 square feet of first-floor retail and 118 parking spaces, and the site is 0.1 miles from the Fairfield Metro/Black Rock train station. Construction is scheduled to start in late 2026, with completion planned for 2027.
Both projects follow the same pattern: older retail buildings near a train station come down, and five-story buildings with apartments upstairs and retail at street level go up. On Unquowa Road, the tenants who left have already reopened elsewhere in town.
If you're trying to figure out what the Unquowa Road and Commerce Drive projects could mean for your own street once they're built, Boost Real Estate Group follows Fairfield's development pipeline closely and is glad to talk it through with you. Let's Connect.
