Falls Village Inn Beckons Again

By Bud Wilkinson of RIDE-CT.com

Remember the scene in the movie “You’ve Got Mail” when Meg Ryan’s character closes the children’s bookstore that her mother had started decades earlier? Before shutting the front door for the final time, she looks back wistfully into the empty shop with its barren bookcases. A dancing image of her mother and her childhood self appears; one last happy if hazy memory to briefly savor before sadly moving on with life.

Stepping into the closed and equally empty dining room at The Falls Village Inn on the afternoon of Christmas Eve provided a similar experience for me. I didn’t notice the lack of tables and chairs, the exposed rafters and dangling insulation or any of the debris left by contractors from ongoing reconstruction as much as I felt the warmth and cheer of the room as it appeared decades ago when my parents would go there occasionally with friends to dine, taking me along. Times were more formal then. It was always jackets and ties for men, young men included, and dresses for women.

Wandering alone inside the chilly dining room, it almost felt disrespectful to be wearing grungy jeans and a red flannel shirt. My attire was definitely more suitable for the inn’s Tap Room across the central hall that bisects the first floor. I had dined with friends of my own five days earlier, enjoying some robust macaroni and cheese and the best carrot cake in memory, made by Irene Hurlburt of Hautboy Hill Farm in Cornwall Hollow.

That tasty meal had brought me back to learn more about the latest incarnation of the 177-year-old structure at 33 Railroad Street, across from Jacobs Garage and next door to the Falls Village Volunteer Fire Department. I mention them as points of reference because the sign hanging in front of the inn isn’t that eye-catching from the street, especially at night, although the white building dominates downtown.

The Falls Village Inn has only been open for a month, but it’s not too early to declare it a smashing success on several levels – from the quality of the comfort food and the cozy feel found in the Tap Room and the top to bottom design work of Bunny Williams to the inviting presence of owners Susan Sweetapple and Colin Chambers. Residents of the immediate area have certainly embraced it. “The response has been overwhelming; the repeat business,” said Sweetapple. Added Chambers, “We didn’t know how important the inn was to the community.”

At present, The Falls Village Inn is open for dining Thursday through Sunday from 5 to 9 p.m.  Bar hours are from 4 to 10 p.m. those days. While Sweetapple and Chambers expected foot traffic on Friday and Saturday, they’ve been pleasantly surprised to discover that “Thursday and Sunday are just as busy.” The owners are now hoping to expand the operation to seven days a week in spring.

As is to be expected, the Tap Room serves such pub fare as mac and cheese, chicken pot pie with a flakey phyllo crust and shepherd’s pie as well as burgers, soups and salads, but there are also more substantive daily entrees. The menu will be expanded once the dining room gets completed, the target being mid-February. The bar features a nice range of draught beer, too, but the liquor array perhaps needs to be expanded.   

Décor-wise, the Tap Room celebrates the racing history of nearby Lime Rock Park. Framed programs and pictures, including one of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, decorate the walls. One frame, though, contains a memento from Alexander’s Village Inn, the incarnation of the inn that I remember. “The inn has always been the heart of Falls Village. It’s just in our hands at the moment,” noted Chambers.

Being an inn, The Falls Village Inn also has rooms for overnight guests. There are four at the moment, with two more slated to be available by late May. “They have to be finished by Memorial Day because they’re already rented,” said Sweetapple. That just happens to be the weekend of the season’s first races at Lime Rock Park. Chambers also owns The Chambers Group advertising agency in Greenwich. Lime Rock Park is a client, which gives the inn an inside track to getting guests when races are being run.

Add the race track participants and spectators to the local residents and the rest of us from northwestern Connecticut as potential patrons and the road to success for The Falls Village Inn seems pretty smooth. Add the 40-seat dining room to the more casual Tap Room and you’ve got a facility that can cater to any type of clientele. “The idea was to have really broad appeal,” said Chambers.

There a sense in talking with Sweetapple and Chambers that the inn’s acceptance in a matter of a few weeks is a bit of a surprise, if only because they didn’t know what to expect and because the costs that have to be managed for the inn to be profitable have received their attention. “We probably would be (profitable) if the ice machine didn’t break; if the dishwasher didn’t break,” Sweetapple reported. Said Chambers, “The plan was long-term, so immediate results weren’t part of the plan.”

The first chapter in what is now The Falls Village Inn – or maybe that should be the first lap – is now complete. Lap two begins with the opening of the dining room. While my own memories of dining there may be fuzzy in retrospect, and I wasn’t even old enough to drink at the time, I’m thinking that perhaps it may be time to bring out some gray flannel pants, a white shirt, rep tie and a herringbone jacket for another visit in late February. Between now and then, jeans will have to suffice. I’ll deal with the guilt.

(Originally published in “The Republican-American” on January 5, 2011.)

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