ELM CITY, FOOD CITY
SNAPSHOT
AMELIA DAVIDSON
Local restaurants are reinventing New Haven’s post-pandemic culinary scene.
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hen I’m missing New Haven, my mind turns to late-night pizza and ramen, or chai lattes hurriedly consumed in the cold. In my nostalgia, my thoughts linger on the spaces that provide such delicacies—the late-night fluorescent glow of Est Est Est punctuated by laughing students, or the ice-cold air that hits my face as I struggle with the door of the York Street Blue State, chaider in tow. But recently, I realized with some alarm that I was conjuring up places and situations that no longer exist. Sitting in my childhood bedroom, where I have spent the duration of the pandemic, I often think about sipping tea in Jojo’s Coffee, even as 307 miles away, the corner of Chapel and Park Street stands vacant. The pandemic has scarred the restaurant scene in New Haven, prompting a turnover unlike any other in the last few decades. Around 600 restaurants have closed in Connecticut since March of last year, and New Haven, in particular, has witnessed the closings of city favorites such as Jojo’s and Duc’s Place. However, new restaurants such as Ahava Vegan and Haven Hot Chicken have risen, sometimes in the same storefronts. The industry itself has been transformed, successful restaurants shifting their focus to takeout and delivery, rather than in-person dining. When the pandemic ends, and the city’s streets revive, New Haven residents will find a vastly different food scene than existed in February 2020. One restaurant in particular encapsulates the chaos the industry has witnessed over the last few months. Next Door opened in 2017 at 175 Humphrey Street, in a standalone brick building in the shadow of Highway 91 that once housed a prohibition-era speakeasy. The restaurant was founded by three veterans of the New Haven food scene, one of whom, Doug Coffin, owns a pizza catering business that operates just down the street—hence the name Next Door. Coffin described
