The Wycked Java coffee shop, in the heart of Worcester’s Canal District, is about two weeks away from opening, co-owner Scott Fair said.
WORCESTER – The interior of the Wycked Java coffee shop, a high-ceilinged, open cafe room on Water Street, looks nearly ready for customers, aside from the workbench with hand tools set up against its front windows. The walls are exposed 19th-century brick, the lighting atmospheric, the entrances to the building have been kitted out with a hands free door opener making it accessible for everyone, and the fixtures suggest steam-punk antiquity, from historical pieces like an original Victrola phonograph to models of ships hand-made by co-owner Scott Fair.
It’s also two weeks away from opening, though Fair, an engineer and Navy veteran, admits followers of the project have heard that before.
“If I had the right crew, I could have got it done in three weeks,” Fair said. “So when anybody asked when we’d open, I said three weeks. I’ve been saying it for a year and a half.”
The shop is a passion project for Fair, who serves on the board of the Canal District Alliance, and has partnered with property owner Tony Bahnan and executive chef Joetta Ripley. But it has taken time; the shop got its initial license in 2013, according to a city spokesman, And a planned opening by April was postponed after delays in funding from Bahnan, who has been a chief investor in the project, Fair said.
But now Wycked Java, on the former site of much-beloved Lederman’s Bakery, is in the final stages before a soft opening. After final health and safety inspections, the cafe will begin serving farm to table sandwiches and coffee – Fair is in talks with local roasters to provide wholesale coffee beans, he said – and providing an after-hours gathering place and entertainment venue for residents seeking some alcohol-free nightlife.
“We’ve finally got to the point where a lot of the building restoration is completed. The city inspectors have signed off on a lot of the progress,” Fair said. “It took us a very long time to get to this point because this building had been abandoned for many years and was in need to of a lot of work.”
The building began as a cooperative bakery over a century ago; a baking peel from that time, found during renovations, now hangs on a ceiling beam. Allen Lederman, who ran the bakery for decades starting in the 1970s, has visited the new cafe and is expected to attend its Grand Opening, Fair said.
The business is also a meaningful venture for Ripley, the shop’s co-owner and executive chef.
“I grew up in this neighborhood. I grew up going to Lederman’s,” Ripley told MassLive in January. “This is very personal to me. It’s not just a business. I never thought I’d grow up some day to be here.”
The business is part of the revitalization of the Canal District, Fair said – the same cause that brought him back to his childhood home of Central Mass. After serving as a naval officer for nine years – “chasing Russians during the Cold War,” he said – Fair moved to Southern California and launched tech companies.
He would come back to Worcester to see family during the holidays, but had no intention of moving back; he was thrilled to leave the area after graduating, he said, and preferred spending time in Springfield as a teenager.
But on a trip back home, he stopped into the Vernon Hotel bar, run by Canal District booster Bob Largess. Largess pitched him on moving back and helping redevelop the area surrounding the Blackstone Canal, now covered by Harding Street, and Fair bit.
The Blackstone Canal powered Pawtucket’s Slater Mill following its construction in 1824 and helped turn Worcester into an industrial powerhouse in the 19th century, Fair said. Plans for its restoration have gotten a boost from local political heavyweights; Rep. Jim McGovern, Rep. Richard Neal and Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed pushed for legislation that helped turn the canal into a national park in 2014.
Should the Canal District Alliance’s plan to reopen the canal succeed, Wycked Java would be on prime real estate, according to Fair.
“When the canal’s open, we’re waterfront property. We’re ocean front,” he said.
Source: MassLive Worcester http://masslive.com/news/worcester
