So we bought this 1830 building…
3 Rockingham Street, Bellows Falls, Vermont circa 1910 as Baldasaro’s Fruit Market (Photo courtesy of Rockingham Free Public Library)
Today as Rockingham Roasters Cafe and Roastery (Photo courtesy of Windham Antique Center, Bellows Falls, Vermont)
In 2017, we bought this gem of a historic building on The Square in gorgeous Bellows Falls, Vermont. If you haven’t explored this architectural wonderland of a town, put it on your to-do list. It’s in a fantastic gorge on the Connecticut River along America’s first canal.
Shortly after beginning to restore the building, we came to understand how such a thing lives and comes to die.
In 2018, we rebuilt the back wall from the ground up, repointed and restored most of the foundation, put on a new roof and soffit, and fully gutted the building’s interior. In 2019, we installed entirely new electrical, plumbing, and heating systems as we reconstructed and reinforced the failing interior structures. We also gutted the basement, poured a concrete floor, installed a four-floor sprinkler system, rebuilt the window trims, and added new, historically appropriate (and gorgeous) windows and doors, including a custom designed delivery door. Then the whole thing was painted.
In early 2020, we went to work on the fun stuff. The cafe and roastery space and the two-story loft apartment (with a 22-foot cathedral ceiling) were underway. By March, the cafe was on track for completion.
Then Covid hit and the world shut down.
But no worries: we are okay! Thanks to our loyal customers—both new and old—we plowed through with online sales, free delivery all over two states, and new grocery and farmstand retail accounts. We were able to resume work on the cafe and roastery last fall, we passed all of the various required inspections this spring… and then we waited for Covid to go away.
We couldn’t wait any longer so we opened our doors, in a deliberately slow and cautious way, on Sunday, April 18. We have been going strong since, adding more and more days and hours thanks to the furious devotion of our fabulous new employees.
Thank you so much for supporting our business through these challenging times. Profits from the sale of our coffee have gone directly to pay for the work on the building and provide us a meager (and now growing!) subsistence. You fantastic customers truly saved our business and this enormous project we took on.
We are so excited to see this vital piece of the Bellows Falls community brought back to life and we look forward to serving you for many years to come.