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The barn where Milk Room plans to build its new taproom used to house horse stalls. The brewery will reclaim the wood to use
as bar tops. MILK ROOM BREWERY
Milk Room Brewing Co. in Rutland to open new taproom
Matthew Tota
Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
RUTLAND — Districted by the grazing bison, smiling camel or general grandeur of Alta Vista Farm, most people visiting Milk Room Brewing Co. never notice it’s missing a taproom.
And why would they? There’s plenty to see, hear and drink at the 2-year-old brewery. Owner Kevin Jarvi worked hard to set up one of the most unique farm brewery experiences in the state. Summer weekends in his beer pasture have been legendary — the views, the music and, of course, the bison.
Without a taproom, Jarvi has had to shut down on bad weather days and during much of the winter. But that will change this year. Milk Room has started initial construction and design of a new taproom in an 1800’s barn.
“We’re going to have a really cool taproom down in the lower barn area, which used to be the horse stalls, donkey barn and where we kept the camel,” Jarvi said. “It will have that nostalgic feel to it.”
It is easy to forget that Milk Room initially opened with a taproom, an inimitable space carved out of a former milking room, complete with a quirky bar built from wooden milk crates. Unfortunately, the brewery never got to use that taproom, as state fire code required Jarvi spend around $1 million for a sprinkler system. The kernel of good news was Milk Room could still use the
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CONNELL SANDERS
Prom queen dreams at Carbonneau’s Bridal Shop
Sarah Connell Sanders
Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
The new Carbonneau’s Bridal Shop on Shrewsbury Street was not at all what I was expecting. For a split second, I could have sworn I bypassed the digital divide and tumbled into a Euphoria character’s Instagram feed — Cassie with a touch of Jules. It was no ordinary ribbon cutting.
Bold colors and a glint of sequins caught my eye from the upstairs balcony where teen girls in elegant prom dresses descended the stairs. They posed under a neon sign that proclaimed, “I said yes!”
At floor level, every garment radiated pure white light. One look at Carbonneau’s bridal collection prompted a self-conscious glance down at my boots to make sure I hadn’t tracked in any mud from outside. I startled audibly with the realization that I was standing on the edge of a mannequin’s fragile lace train, and scurried past the billowing curtains to a safe corner of the shop.
All of the usual suspects were there — City Hall types chatting up local entrepreneurs in pressed suits like real estate executive Rob Branca. I breathed a sigh of relief when Worcester’s Chief Development Officer Peter Dunn popped out from behind a cascade of baker-miller pink balloons and waved hello. Dunn has had a hand in the success of nearly all of my favorite small businesses. Plus, he’s easy to talk to. I knew I could ask him to point out the owner without any fuss.
Dunn led me to a tall blonde woman in a pristine black ensemble. She wore a long strand of pearls wrapped around her neck.
I elbowed my way past a state senator and three city councilors until I was close enough to extend my hand, which she clasped with her perfectly manicured fingers for a firm shake. The proprietress listened intently while her PR representative explained why I was there. A sharp-looking associate motioned for her attention with an urgent question.
“Excuse me, Lynn,” she said. “Can I offer Mayor Petty a glass of wine?”
Lynn Carbonneau Reed nodded her head toward the front desk where a makeshift bar had materialized and then turned her attention back to me. “What can I help you with, Sarah?” she asked, managing to make me feel very important in a room full of very important people.
I asked for a brief history of the business. She took a deep breath before launching into the rich Carbonneau legacy, “I’m a fourth-generation business owner,” she explained. “I worked for my dad; his father was the original Joseph Carbonneau. I would go into the business at 13 years old and he would set me up on the lottery table. They taught me how to write out the tickets for shoe repairs. Back then, we sold bridal and dance shoes …”
“I bought a pair of ballet slippers at Carbonneau’s when I was ten,” I told her proudly. I’m not sure why I interrupted her to share this detail. I think I wanted to impress her. In truth, my dance career had been a total disaster — I lacked a certain delicacy the sport required.
“That’s wonderful,” she said, and I could tell she really meant it.
“So, what sets you apart from the big department stores?” I prodded.
“Well, my grandfather was amazing and he taught me the value of how to treat people in customer service, which is why I think we are so successful,” said Reed. “We really genuinely appreciate our clients; we care how they are feeling when they come in and we want to give them attention. I appreciate that old school training a lot of people will never understand if they’re just starting out today; I have the advantage of being trained by four generations who showed me how to own a business.”
In the two minutes since I met her, she had demonstrated an ethos of genuine caring. Unlike my pliés and pirouettes, Reed possessed the delicate touch and superb confidence of a prima ballerina.
“I hope to have a long future here,” she concluded. “We’ve literally maximized every inch of space, so I don’t know how we’re going to bring anything else in, but we are going to figure it out — shoes and accessories for proms and weddings. My partners from the Batista family are over the moon. They are so excited to have retail in this space.”
Part of me wished I had a prom dress to shop for. I eyed the racks upstairs, lost again in my alternate Instagram reality. A city bus drove by, smattering slush a few feet shy of the picture windows. The spell was broken. My prom days were over.
I thanked Reed for her time and wandered back out into the February afternoon. The real world felt colder than ever after a dose of Carbonneau’s hospitality.
To book an appointment at Carbonneau’s Bridal for all your formal needs, visit https://www.carbonneaubridal.com.
Lynn Carbonneau Reed is a fourth-generation business owner in
Worcester. SUBMITTED PHOTO
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barn for a retail store and meat market.
It was sometime after having to shut down the taproom for a second time that Jarvi realized Milk Room “didn’t have to be like every other brewery out there. We could really make it the destination we wanted it to be,” he said.
A bunch of standalone kegerators would serve the beer and a rotating schedule of food trucks and musicians and hodgepodge of friendly farm animals would keep the crowds happy.
Jarvi doesn’t feel pressure to speed up construction of the 2,000-square-foot taproom. He’s taking his time with the project to get every detail right. He plans to reclaim the oaken horse stalls for bar tops, build another milkcrate bar, add a fireplace and install sliding doors that open up into a covered porch.
“We want to keep it as old school as we can,” he said. “You can’t build a new barn and duplicate a 200-year-old barn; it’s not quite the same.”
Milk Room will open the taproom in late spring, Jarvi said. If you stop by the farm before then, you’ll find a new food truck selling bison burgers, chili and hot dogs. And there’ll be wagon rides offered around the pastures that take you close enough to the farm’s 13 bison to feed them.
In other words, don’t expect anything radically different out of the brewery that marches to its own rhythm, which sounds a lot like the stamping of many hooves.
“So far we have made everything happen within the fencing around our beer pasture. One-hundred scoops of dirt created our stage for live music. We’ve kept things simple,” Jarvi said. “I want that same look and feel with this taproom. We’re not extravagant or overthe-top here. We’re barebones and natural.”
REVIEW
‘God’ has some explaining to do in satiric WCLOC production
Kevin T. Baldwin
Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
WORCESTER — Worcester County Light Opera Company presents a simple but heavenly show in the funny, irreverent comedy “An Act of God.”
As the title implies, it is a single-act show composed of 80 minutes spent with the whimsical yet occasionally surly Almighty Lord God (“appearing in the form” of actress Caitlin Lubelczyk), who is ably assisted by her angels, Michael (Eric Butler) and Gabriel (Erik Gladwin).
Their goal is try and explain to the audience the backstories of the existing Ten Commandments and to announce God’s intention to replace/update them (at least for the next 2000 years or so).
Michael “takes questions” from the audience then poses those “questions” to God. The questions, as the show unfolds, continuously call attention to God’s lack of historical consistency, especially when taking into account God’s proclaimed (albeit conjectured) celestial omniscience, specifically in areas of empathy and fairness.
Directed by Chuck Grigaitis, the riotous self-described “one-God show,” written by David Javerbaum, has no great revelations (pun not intended) and feels more like an elongated comedy sketch than an HBO documentary. It is simple comic fare and thank God for that (now that was intended).
However, Javerbaum’s script also serves to thrust God into the spotlight to best “respond” to the concerns raised, at least in the guise of Lubelczyk (who is exemplary in the role).
We learn about God’s “first try” at the Garden of Eden, learning that the FIRST humans were actually the same-sex couple Adam and Steve.
When this attempt failed spectacularly, God decided to do a re-write of Steve to Eve, which thus begat Cain and Abel … and which also did not go quite according to God’s plan.
By the time we get to the story of Noah and the biblical flood, we kind of get the sense from Javerbaum’s witty text that God’s been kind of winging it for a while.
When Michael attempts to confront God’s (more than occasional) questionable actions, inactions, moral ambiguity and/or out and out indifference, that is when God attempts to forcibly steer the conversation back to the Ten Commandments or at least to a direction that best suits God.
Both Butler and Gladwin are excellent at establishing themselves as God’s corporate sidemen, one maintaining the agenda (Gabriel) while the other (Michael) confronts, making sure things that need to be discussed are brought to God’s attention, regardless of the ramifications as a result of those confrontations.
Caitlin Lubelczyk as God takes a selfie with Erik Gladwin as angel Gabriel, left, and Eric Butler as angel Michael in Worcester County Light Opera Company’s production of “An Act of God.” CHRISTOPHER O’CONNOR
3 stars Written by David Javerbaum. Directed by Chuck Grigaitis. Performances: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 18 and 19; 2 p.m. Feb. 20. WCLOC, Grandview Avenue, Worcester. General admission tickets $25, $20 for seniors and students. With Caitlin Sargent Lubelczyk; Eric Butler; Erik Gladwin
‘Death on the Nile’ tops a quiet box office weekend
Film delayed by scandal opens to diminished fanfare
Jake Coyle ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK – Hollywood’s Super Bowl weekend largely fizzled with the muted debut of Kenneth Branagh’s long-delayed Agatha Christie whodunit, “Death on the Nile,” a tepid reception for the Jennifer Lopez romantic-comedy “Marry Me” and modest box-office bumps for Oscar nominees.
“Death on the Nile,” Branagh’s follow-up to the 2017 hit “Murder on the Orient Express,” led all films with $12.8 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday. Produced under 20th Century Fox before its acquisition by the Walt Disney Co., “Death on the Nile” had been delayed by the pandemic and by scandal that engulfed one of its stars, Armie Hammer.
Last March, Hammer was put under investigation by Los Angeles police in a sexual assault. Hammer has denied the allegation.
After considering other avenues, reportedly including reshooting parts of the film without Hammer, Disney opted to release “Death on the Nile” as it was – albeit with less fanfare on a weekend the film industry often yields to football. The $90 million film, which also stars Gal Gadot, Emma McKay and Branagh, reprising his role as detective Hercule Poirot, had once seemed a reliable moneymaker. “Murder on the Orient Express” launched with $28.7 million in 2017 and ended up grossing $352.8 million worldwide against a $55 million budget. “Death on the Nile” added $20.7 million in international receipts.
Hollywood’s biggest pitch to moviegoers over the weekend wasn’t in theaters but in television ads. After two years of the pandemic, a heavy-hitting lineup of blockbusters were set to roll out trailers during the Super Bowl broadcast and try to lure still-reluctant moviegoers back to theaters. Last year, when many theaters were still shuttered and few films were being released, Hollywood largely sat out the game. Jordan Peele’s “Nope” kicked off the day with its first trailer early Sunday.
“Marry Me” opened with $8 million while simultaneously streaming on Peacock. The Universal Pictures release, which was timed to Valentine’s Day on Monday, stars Lopez as a pop star who, after finding out her fiancé has been cheating, marries a stranger (Owen Wilson) at one of her concerts. In recent years, streaming platforms have increasingly been the rom-com’s primary home. Netflix, in particular, has pumped out a constant stream of new entries in the genre. On Friday, Amazon Prime Video debuted its own: “I Want You Back,” with Charlie Day and Jenny Slate.
The lukewarm performance of “Marry Me” allowed last week’s top film, “Jackass Forever,” to narrowly edge it for second place. Johnny Knoxville’s sequel dropped a steep 65% from last weekend, coming in with an estimated $8.1 million for Paramount Pictures. Its grossed $37.4 million in total.
Another once dependable ticket-seller at the box office – a Liam Neeson thriller – also struggled. Briarcliff Entertainment’s “Blacklight,” a poorly reviewed action film starring the 69-year-old Neeson as a shadowy government agent, opened with $3.6 million.
Few films were set to capitalize in theaters on Tuesday’s Academy Awards nominations. As nominations came later than usual this year, most Os-
This image released by 20th Century Studios shows Gal Gadot in a scene from “Death on the Nile.” 20TH CENTURY STUDIOS VIA AP
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday. 1. “Death on the Nile,” $12.8 million. 2. “Jackass Forever,” $8.1 million. 3. “Marry Me,” $8 million. 4. “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” $7.2 million. 5. “Blacklight,” $3.6 million. 6. “Sing 2,” $3 million. 7. “Moonfall,” $2.9 million. 8. “Scream,” $2.8 million. 9. “Licorice Pizza,” $922,500. 10. “The King’s Man,” $433,000.
