Watch Out at Saltwater Grille

Here is the review of Saltwater Grille from 7 or 8 months ago. I'll go eat there soon to see if service has improved. Looking at this review now, it's not as mean-sounding as I thought it was. I guess 9 months of Stamford Talk has hardened me.

SCOOP: Saltwater Grille is a trendy restaurant on Harbor Drive. It attracts a crowd, but the staff seems irritable.
MY TAKE: I read a surprisingly optimistic blurb about SWG in the weekend section of the Stamford Advocate. I can’t describe SWG in such hopeful terms. Sure, it has harbor views, but it overlooks other people's boats and an office building next door. Yes, there’s a nice patio, but you can only sit on it if you’re eating. That pretty patio also lets the sun set directly in your face.
Stopping by for a drink means being relegated to the narrow, crowded bar: the farthest spot from the water. When we came with friends for happy hour, the bar seats and tables were full. We tried standing in the aisle with the rest of the revelers, but waiters bumped us as they rushed by. We asked to sit at one of the empty indoor tables, but the staff seemed offended. We returned to the bar area, huddled near the tables, and tried not to get run over by the waitresses storming by. That’s the real problem with SWG: the staff is dismissive, bordering on contemptuous.

Later that night, our impatient waiter sneered when we asked, “What do you have on tap?” and “You don’t have mojitos?” A friend who eats there regularly says that it always seems like one waiter is working fifteen tables.
It’s unfortunate that poor service and layout make SWG so unpleasant. The food is expensive, but it's good, and every dish has an interesting twist. Too bad the waiters find your presence so inconvenient.
VERDICT: Don’t go to SWG expecting a relaxed evening or excellent service. If you find the secret to being treated well, let me in on it. Click here to read more.

National Police Week Parade

Police march to honor their own
By Jeff Morganteen Stamford Advocate 05/08/2008

STAMFORD - Before mounting his police motorcycle yesterday, Officer Joseph Russo recalled how a young colleague was killed in White Plains, N.Y., in January.

Stamford police had attended the funeral, he said, and now it was time to repay the favor. Russo, an officer in the Mount Vernon, N.Y., Police Department, was one of 300 officers who traveled to Stamford yesterday to honor police killed in the line of duty.

"My department couldn't wait to send us out here," Russo said before he and his motorcycle unit joined others from Darien and Newark, N.J.

More than 40 police departments from the tri-state area and Massachusetts descended on Stamford yesterday to march in a parade held by the Stamford Police Department.

The review began at 6:30 p.m. at Veterans Park on Atlantic Street. Led by an armored vehicle, officers riding motorcycles, Segways and horses marched to Stamford police headquarters at 805 Bedford St. In the rear, officers played bagpipes as others marched in formation.

A police helicopter flew overhead as trained dogs barked at onlookers through open windows of Bridgeport patrol cars.

Stamford Police Chief Brent Larrabee said the parade recognized past, present and future police officers.

"It's not just about any one person," Larrabee said. "It's about those who have served and those who will serve."

The march was timed to coincide with National Police Week, which begins Sunday, said Stamford Officer Jessica Bloomberg, the event's principal organizer.

After the ceremony, Bloomberg also organized at a downtown bar the first benefit for the Killed in the Line of Duty Fund, a new fund to support fallen officers' families.

The parade grew to more than 40 departments after about 20 participated last May and Assistant Police Chief Robert Nivakoff told her to expand the idea this year, Bloomberg said.

"We need to keep better care of each other here," she said. "God forbid someone is killed in the line of duty."

The department plans to improve the annual event each year. Larrabee said. Yesterday's parade was met with limited crowds. Many onlookers were diners already seated outside along Bedford Street.

A ceremony after the parade honored the last four Stamford officers killed in the line of duty by placing a wreath on their memorial in front of police headquarters.

In 1974, Officer William McNamara was killed by another officer while responding to a robbery at a liquor store; David Troy was shot and killed in 1960 while responding to a robbery. In 1938, George Kelley and Andrew Schlechtweg were killed in separate motorcycle accidents.

Rob Roqueta, a 35-year-old Stamford resident who watched the parade while standing outside a bar on Bedford Street, said he admired the camaraderie among the different police departments.

"It shows a lot," Roqueta said. "It's like a fraternity." Click here to read more.

Whole Foods Not Coming?!?

But I was just getting excited about it!!!
Lord & Taylor withdraws its application
By Monica Potts, Stamford Advocate 05/09/2008

STAMFORD - An application for expansion of the Lord & Taylor store at its Bulls Head site, a plan that included a Whole Foods and other retail stores, was withdrawn last week.

National Realty Development Corp., the site's developer and owner of the Lord & Taylor department store chain, had requested a 60-day application extension from the Zoning Board in March.

Representatives from the company and their lawyers did not return calls seeking comment yesterday.

"We can't tell you what happens next," Land Use Bureau Chief Robin Stein said.

Any new proposal would have to go through another application process, including new public hearings, he said.

The new building, at about 300,000 square feet, would have been roughly double the size of the existing store and was to include a 190,000 square-foot Lord & Taylor, a 60,000 square-foot Whole Foods market along with 50,000 square feet of mixed retail.

The new plan also would have roughly doubled parking on the site to more than 1,200 spaces, split between a two-level deck on the lot's northern end and a five-level deck on the southern portion.

Proponents and detractors of the plan formed community groups, which passed out fliers and built Web sites. The last public hearings in January drew crowds of more than 100 to the Government Center's cafeteria.

Nearby residents and store owners objected to the plan, saying its scale was too big for the neighborhood and not pedestrian-friendly, the parking decks were unattractive, and the added traffic would be dangerous in their neighborhood and is counter to the city's traffic-calming initiatives.

Zoning Board members had echoed some of those concerns in comments at a public hearing in January.

Supporters had expressed interest in keeping the Lord & Taylor store and bringing a Whole Foods to Stamford.

The city's economic director, Michael Freimuth, spoke in favor of the plan at a November public hearing. He said Stamford had been losing retail business to other communities.

"Money is leaving the community," he said. "It's critical that we hit the refresh button."

Many residents who spoke at hearings expressed concern about what would be built at the site, which is at the intersection of High Ridge and Long Ridge Roads, if the proposal was not approved.

The proposal faced its first challenge when the Planning Board voted in November not to recommend for Zoning Board approval the two zoning code changes related to the application.

The board expressed concern that the two changes - allowing the developer to build a bigger garage than allowed without adding a "green" roof and use more commercial space than allowed, would set an undesirable precedent.

The plan was later modified, and an environmentally friendly roof was added over the main building.

The developer also launched a public relations effort in response to some criticisms, sending brochures to city residents that included postcards supporters could send in.

Stein had referred to the plans as overly dependent on cars and not pedestrian friendly during the November meeting, perhaps a sign of things to come.

"It's probably not a model of smart growth," he had said at that meeting. "I describe this more 20th- than 21st-century planning." Click here to read more.

Really Boring Beer Column in Advocate

I am sorry to be so negative, but beer could be so interesting, and this Advocate column just isn't. It needs to be more user-friendly rather than directed at beer brewers. The beginning is good, but the middle gets too technical.

What Brewing: Searching for soul By Jim Zebora
Greenwich Time Managing Editor Stamford Advocate

If barley is the heart of beer, hops are its soul. They contribute flavor, aroma, bitterness, body and so much more to a brew.

But these days they also contribute to beer's increased cost.

It may not be the worst of the world's crises, but the rising price of hops, delicate flowers that grow on a tall vine, certainly adds to the pain in the wallet caused by $4 gas and $5 milk.

Try finding a quality craft brew on a package store shelf for less than $8.99; it's almost impossible. Even budget beers that were selling for $12 per 30-pack a few months ago are three or four bucks higher today, though not all of that increase can be blamed on hop prices.

The reasons for hop inflation are myriad, but all pretty much within the bounds of an Economics 101 class. After several years of oversupply, when growers often had to sell their hop crop below cost, the opposite is now true.

Hops have had a couple of lousy years in the field, with crop yields well below normal. In addition, many hop farmers curtailed production rather than sell below cost and did not ramp up their growing as prices increased.

In some cases, they devoted their fields to more profitable crops and have not gone back to the Fuggles, Cascades, Saaz, Goldings and Northern Brewer varieties that make beer so fine to drink.

The result is that hop prices have at least doubled, and at the extreme hops can cost five or six times what they did a few years ago.

Big commercial brewers have been somewhat insulated from the rise in hop prices. Companies such as Anheuser-Busch Inc. get a big percentage of the hops they use from their own farms in the Pacific Northwest and so are not competing on the open market for limited hop supplies.

The big brewers also tend to use fewer hops per barrel than smaller brewers, for recipe and scientific reasons, so their cost per barrel is less affected by hop prices. Budweiser hasn't seen the same percentage price increase at retail as have microbrews, for example.

The real casualties are microbrewers specializing in very hoppy beers - those with names such as Hop Devil, Hop Trip, Big Hop Harvest Ale, Hop Heaven, etc. - who can use three or four times the amount of hops per barrel as the big kids.

This is partly because they are seeking to give their customers the hoppiest experience they can, and partly because hop utilization - a measure of the alpha acids and other components they release into the brew as it is boiled - increases with the size of the batch.

Large breweries make beer in vats roughly the size of small oil tankers, but I've seen one very tiny micro whose brewing vat was barely bigger than a turkey fryer.

As a homebrewer, I quickly learned that hops varied in price depending on the variety, the preparation and the packaging. Noble hops such as Kent Goldings (used in pale ales) and Saaz (used in pilsners) could cost twice as much as varieties with more bitterness but less aroma and flavor.

The hop flowers are sometimes used in original form, but processing them into pellets gives greater yield, and also makes them easier to ship and store.

Back in the years of plenty, I could sometimes buy a pound of bittering hops for $8, and noble hops could be as low as $1 per ounce. Today, homebrewers are seeing three- and fourfold price increases in this essential ingredient.

Of course, hops aren't the only reason that beer is costing more. Cereal grain prices are also rising due to the diversion of much corn production to ethanol, and energy prices for brewing, conditioning and delivery are also boosting the bill.

Like oil, gasoline, bread and so many other staples of modern life, beer is simply getting more expensive. And we beer lovers just have to suck it up while we're guzzling it down.

*

Jim Zebora, managing editor of Greenwich Time, is a dedicated homebrewer and a contributor to Zymurgy, the magazine of the American Homebrewers Association. His column appears once a month. His e-mail address is jim.zebora@scni.com. Click here to read more.

Antares pushes Stamford projects to NYC companies

Feb 28: The Advocate - Local News
NEW YORK - Antares executives met with real estate brokers in Manhattan on Tuesday night to pitch their projects and Stamford as a desirable, less expensive alternative to Manhattan.

Well, from the home prices around here, I'd say someone thinks it's a desirable area! Click here to read more.

Firm will study trolleys for Stamford

From Feb 18: STAMFORD - The city has selected a San Francisco company to study a trolley service that would connect downtown, the South End and Bulls Head.

I didn't get this up on this blog of resources in time, so it disappeared into the mysterious place where all old Advocate articles go. Click here to read more.

Reverse 911: Could Be Cool

Stamford to test 'reverse 911' system
By Angela Carella, Assistant City Editor, Stamford Advocate

STAMFORD - City officials tomorrow will test a new "reverse 911" emergency system that can notify residents about public safety incidents by phone, e-mail, text message and digital device.

Home and business phone numbers in Stamford that are publicly available are in the system automatically, according to a statement from Mayor Dannel Malloy's office.

Those homes and businesses will get a test call tomorrow.

Residents with private numbers may sign up to be included by visiting www.cityofstamford.org and clicking on the link that says, "Sign up now - services by Connect-CTY." Residents also may call 977-4153 to sign up. They may supply up to three phone numbers and two e-mail addresses, the statement said.

Residents whose phones have call blocking may join the system by adding 977-4140 to their list of approved numbers.

Those who are hearing impaired and have TTY/TDD receiving devices may join by clicking on to the city's Web site and entering their contact information.

Anyone who does not receive a test call tomorrow should enter their contact information on the city's Web site or call 977-4153.

Like other cities, including Norwalk, New Canaan and Greenwich, Stamford will use the reverse 911 system to notify residents about "planned and unforeseen public safety matters," the statement said.

It allows city officials to record, send and track messages to thousands of residents, businesses and agencies in minutes through a single phone call. The system also can send text messages to cell phones, e-mail accounts, personal digital devices and receiving devices used by the hearing impaired.

The service is Connect-CTY, supplied by Blackboard Connect Inc., formerly NTI Group Inc., according to the statement.

"We're always looking for ways to improve communication with residents and are excited to now have the capability to send important notifications within a matter of minutes," Malloy said in the statement. "The Connect-CTY service will enhance citywide communication and play a key role in our emergency preparedness and response efforts."

The system can be used to mobilize emergency response teams, coordinate agencies and organize volunteers. If only one neighborhood is affected by an emergency, the system can contact just those residents. So if a rainstorm is flooding Waterside, only Waterside residents would get messages.

"I urge residents to register their contact information into the system's secure data base to make sure everyone is prepared to receive time-sensitive information," Public Safety Director William Callion said in the statement. "With the Connect-CTY service, we will be able to quickly notify residents in the event of a natural or manmade disaster such as a chemical leak, fire or severe storm."

The cost for Stamford was not available yesterday, but Greenwich signed a two-year, $58,000 contract for the same system, which began running in December. New Canaan began using the same system in October after signing a one-year contract for $17,500, and Norwalk spent $91,649 for a one-year contract. Click here to read more.