Woodstock’s shopping center has undergone a rebirth, with all spaces now filled, most with new businesses.
It’s been 16 years since Sunflower Natural Foods founder Bob Whitcomb partnered with Bob Pearl to buy Bradley Meadows, and now Woodstock Plaza is transformed into a vibrant, bustling center of commerce.
“Maybe 10 years ago or so Bob and I started having a vision of really where we wanted to take the center,” said Pearl.
It is also Sunflower’s 44th year.
“That’s pretty unusual. It’s one of the oldest businesses in town at this point,” Pearl said.
Sunflower had its humble beginnings in an 1800-square-foot space and expanded to take over the entire building.
As for the rest of the plaza, a confluence of events led to its transformation.
When Sunflower wanted to expand, Whitcomb and Pearl told Rite-Aid they weren’t going to renew their lease.“Rite Aid did not want to leave town. They went to Bank of America and said ‘can we buy out your lease? Bank of America said ‘oh no, we’re not leaving.’ And then three years later, when the lease renewal came up, they left,” Pearl said.“So we would have wound up with a Rite Aid taking over the whole building. But instead, we used that opportunity to say what are we going to do here, which is how can make this the best community plaza possible.”
The partners have made a commitment to only lease to businesses that would be locally operated and add something the town could support.
When the video rental emporium that was along the side of the brick building that was once the site of an A&P grocery store finally closed some years back, Pearl and Whitcomb had the first opportunity to redevelop the other building, but they decided to take their time.
They turned down a number of businesses. A dollar store and Dunkin’ Donuts were some of the rejects.
“We had a whole slew of inquiries from big names,” Whitcomb said.
With Bank of Greene County occupying a piece of the front facing of the building, they then started with Woodstock Healing Arts. “It feels like a holy space. They’ve done a beautiful job. And there’s a lot of great local practitioners who work there,” Pearl said.
They then settled on A&P, a gastropub that had its run for a handful of years but fell on hard times. The eatery faced a lot of challenges, including when Mill Hill Road was torn up and rebuilt. Whitcomb and Pearl did what they could to help businesses during COVID, including giving breaks on rent. But the pandemic was perhaps the final nail in the coffin.
“After that, she was up against the wall. She put up a good fight, but was unable to succeed,” Whitcomb said of the A&P owner.
“So that then opened up and then the Bank of Greene County took over the whole space, but didn’t intend to use all of it. So we took back the two spaces [in the building’s front] and we were really fortunate to find some great tenants,” Pearl said.
The first one was Caffe, a “celebration of great coffee and food in a fast-casual atmosphere” run by a brother-sister team of native Woodstockers, which opened last year. (More on this business in Part 2, coming soon.)
The next one was a wine and spirits store, followed by a sushi bar around the corner.
Unfiltered Wine & Spirits
The new store next to Caffe at the front of the building, called Unfiltered,offers a collection of small-production, organic wines and spirits, but also provides education to the uninitiated.
Maureen Sciutto opened the store this summer with a group of investors after being in the restaurant business for 27 years, most recently as a sommelier at Silvia, on Mill Hill Road.
Coffee, wine, banking and your health
Healing Arts and Caffe round out Woodstock Plaza (Part 2)
“I got my start teaching wine classes to restaurant staff before I really even knew what I was talking about. I just maybe knew more than the average server or bartender did,” she said.
Sciutto grew up in West Saugerties and lived in Atlanta for 13 years, where she got her start in the business. She moved back to the area and had children, then took the job at Silvia.
“I was working there for a few years and I always knew that I wanted to open a wine shop. I had it in my head that I wanted to open a wine school,” she said.“I’ve been talking about opening a wineschool, because there’s just nothing around, no center where people can go and taste wine and learn about wine in a casual setting.”
Places like the Culinary Institute and U.C. Davis teach wine classes, but she wanted something more low-key and less technical.
One of the owners of Sylvia and Good Night (another restaurant on Rock City Road) partnered with Sciutto and others to make it happen.
“We found this space. He invested and we found another investor, and here we are. It kind of all sort of started happening very quickly. And we rode the momentum,” she said.
They faced some hurdles with the State Liquor Authority, as personnel were operating at home due to COVID and took longer than usual to process the license application.
Sciutto and her partners were denied the first time and but succeeded on appeal, with the support of Town Supervisor Bill McKenna and state Senator Michelle Hinchey.
“She was a big proponent of us because we have this drive for New York State products,” Sciutto said.
All the wines in the store have very small production, usually under 1000 cases.
Unlike many wine stores, she focuses on the importer and distributor and that is how the products are categorized.
“Importers have styles. Their preferences and their criteria are what drive them to import these wines,” she said.
“I have everything categorized that way, so that people can sort of learn to align themselves with that style, and therefore when they go to another store and there’s like seven Sauvignon Blancs on a shelf, and they’re all from the same place and they’re all the same price, which one do you pick.”
Sciutto said she is trying to teach people to turn the label over and see who imports the wine.“I also try not to carry any wines or spirits that are imported from mass producers, because I feel like it’s like slapping a Walmart sign up in the middle of this mom-and-pop store, where I’m showcasing all these super-small production businesses.”
Classes and tastings haven’t started yet on a regular basis, but they are coming. And the spacious back room with a large table is the ideal spot.
“So right now we’re focusing on getting the website where we want it, and then I can initiate things like curbside pickup and wine clubs and reward programs, and then go into the classes and tastings,” Sciutto said.
For more information, check out unfilteredwineny.com.
Medo Woodstock
The newest establishment, Medo, takes the place of the former A&P Bar, and is the brainchild of Woodstock native David Fletcher.
Fletcher, 25, went to college in Santa Barbara for awhile before dropping out to explore entrepreneurial pursuits.Throughout the pandemic, Fletcher ran a local food delivery service called Woodstock Drop, which had 13 local restaurants participating.
And why open a Japanese restaurant?
“I always wanted to be in the restaurant industry in some capacity. And my granddad, he was posted in Japan after World War II. And as a little Italian guy, he got on a Japanese Judo team and competed all throughout the country. So I’ve been to Japan and my granddad, I’ve done Judo with him and all of that. My mom from age, six to 11 lived in Japan,” he said.
“It’s that cultural connection that I have to Japan and to the fact that we’ve always really needed a Japanese restaurant.”
Fletcher reached out via Craigslist to sushi chefs who wanted to get out of NYC during the pandemic and found Kevin Zhihui Li.
Chef Kevin, as he likes to be called, owned and operated his own sushi bar on Long Island. He was out of work because of the pandemic and living in the city when he found Fletcher’s Craigslist ad.
“He actually came up and did a tasting menu at the red barn next to Cucina for some potential investors and everybody loved his food,” Fletcher said.
Originally the barn was going to be the location for Fletcher’s restaurant.
“But the town of Woodstock had other plans for us,” he said.
When A&P (the bistro, not the grocery store) didn’t work out, their misfortune presented an opportunity for Fletcher.“I became close with one of the owners and we were able to figure out a time to check out the place and it seemed like it was the right move.”
Along with Chef Kevin, the other part of the team is Chef Emma Sapiro, who went to Woodstock Elementary School with Fletcher.
“She heads the hot kitchen. Chef Kevin heads the sushi bar,” Fletcher said.
Medo specializes in Izakaya, which is casual-style Japanese food. The word basically means “stay drink place,” he said.
“It’s basically like a place where people go to in Japan, where there’s delicious food, but very drink-forward as well. So, from the kitchen, we’re just in the nascency of our offerings, but we’ll be doing like a lot of very soulful, comfort food type of Japanese dishes,” he said.“We’ve already got a couple on the menu. And then from the sushi bar, just delicious sushi.”
Medo started exclusively with a takeout menu initially, but now is open for dining.
Hours are 5 p.m. every day until last call.
For reservations or to place a take-out order, visit medowoodstock.com.
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