On Saturday, November 14, Chef Molly Healey will cook for a room of long communal tables at Lachat Town Farm, with guests seated in groups of eight. She'll serve fennel orange roasted chicken, miso roasted eggplant, smashed fried potatoes, buttermilk biscuits with whipped honey butter, and pastries from a café that hasn't opened yet. That café, Hemma Café, is planned for Weston Center in summer 2027.
Holding the preview at the farm makes sense. Weston Center has had no café or regular sit-down restaurant for more than a year. Its one new spot opens at 3 p.m. Until Hemma arrives, the farm on Godfrey Road is the closest thing Weston has to a shared dining room.
The breakfast counter that closed before the restaurant did
06880 reported in July that Weston Center lost its only restaurant about a year earlier. That was The Lunch Box. Josh and Jessica Tolk bought it in 2014, when it was the only place to eat in town short of driving to Georgetown or Westport. They served breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week.
The closing happened in stages. According to the same 06880 piece, 2019 was the Tolks' best year, and then the pandemic changed how the town ate out. "People's eating habits changed," Josh Tolk told 06880. "They're willing to hop in their car, and spend more money in fancier places." The Lunch Box stopped serving breakfast about three years before that July 2026 article, which means the morning went quiet well before the restaurant closed.
The order matters for everything that follows. The meal Weston Center lost first, and has been without the longest, is the morning one.
The Chase took over the evening shift
The Tolks didn't leave. They spent nine months on design and structural changes, including a new entrance that faces Weston Road, Route 57, and opened The Chase on Memorial Day weekend 2026. It's named after their dog. 06880 described it as Weston's own dive bar. The decor includes beer cans from Josh Tolk's decades-old collection, neon signs, a jukebox, TVs up front and video games in back. The food is pizza and fried items, and the menu was set to expand.
Here's what The Chase covers and what it doesn't:
- Hours: opens at 3 p.m., with last call anywhere from 12:30 to 1:30 a.m.
- Seating: almost all bar seats and high-tops, plus three regular tables.
- Crowd, per 06880: all ages, including parents out after the kids' bedtime, older regulars, and restaurant workers from Westport, Norwalk, Bethel, Redding and Ridgefield winding down after their own places close.
That brings back the late hours The Lunch Box used to cover at dinner. A weekday coffee, a midmorning meeting or a lunch table for four is a different job, and nothing in Weston Center does it right now.
Two plans aimed at the hours nobody covers
Both ideas now on the table target that gap.
Hemma Café is the firmer of the two. Lachat's event page says Molly Healey graduated from Johnson & Wales University and has more than a decade of experience building and running food businesses in Fairfield County. The page also credits her with Westport's Manna Toast and with Hemma Kitchen, a health-focused meal delivery business. 06880 noted on October 18 that she grew up in Westport and Weston and is now back home raising a family. Hemma is Swedish for "home." The Lachat event listing says she wants the café to be "a community meeting place where Weston residents can come to socialize, nourish themselves, and simply relax." The listing names Weston Center and summer 2027.
The Old Post Office idea is much earlier. At the October 1 Board of Selectmen meeting, First Selectwoman Samantha Nestor described what Weston Today called a "very preliminary" plan for the Old Post Office and General Store, the small circa-1790 building next to Bisceglie Scribner Park. The plan would move it to the grounds of the Weston History & Culture Center, where an independent operator could run it as a coffee shop, artisan gift shop and gathering place. The Friends of the Weston Old Post Office Committee and the Weston History & Culture Center brought in experts, who confirmed the building is worth saving and could be restored. Weston Today also reported the open questions: the legal side of moving a town-owned building, cost estimates, funding, and input from the relevant authorities.
The two proposals have different backers and different timelines, but both picture a daytime gathering spot.
Why the farm can host in November at all
Lachat Town Farm couldn't always do this. The farm's FAQ on its education center says it used to lack heated space for winter gatherings and adequate public bathrooms. The Daniel E. Offutt III Education Center fixed that when it opened in September 2023, Weston Today reported. It's named for Daniel E. Offutt III, whose charitable trust paid for most of the construction. Inside are a large gathering room with a big stone fireplace, an art studio, a classroom, a pantry, public restrooms, an audio-visual system and a demonstration kitchen that honors Brian Gordon.
That building is why the farm's calendar keeps going after the growing season ends. A seated harvest dinner for a full room, or a Thanksgiving meal by the fire, needs exactly what the Offutt Center added: heat, a kitchen and restrooms. With Weston Center's café not due until summer 2027, the farm fills the gap this fall.
Two of the farm's November events show this most clearly.
The Fall Harvest Dinner with Hemma on November 14 at 7 p.m. costs $90 per person. Guests sit at communal tables in groups of eight and share platters. A spiced cider spritz with lemon starts the evening, with a mocktail available, and guests can bring their own drinks after that. Seating requests go in at registration. The meal includes vegetarian options, and other dietary needs go to [email protected]. The farm bills it as a celebration of "a new restaurant coming to Weston" and invites people to bring a group of eight or come meet new neighbors.
The Thanksgiving Community Feast on November 26, noon to 3 p.m., is for people who would otherwise spend the holiday alone. It's family-style, served by the fireplace in the Offutt Center, with AMG Catering providing the meal. The family of Brian Gordon and the Howard & Katherine Aibel Foundation are partial sponsors. Registration is $25 per person, children under 12 are free, and groups are limited to four. Register online or call 203-984-8403 by Friday, November 20. The table seats 75. Guests are asked to bring apple cider or a bottle of wine to share, and the farm suggests that anyone for whom cost or transportation is a problem contact Weston Social Services.
The next five weeks, in date order
Most of Weston's group gatherings between now and Thanksgiving happen at Lachat or a few other rooms around town:
- Friday, October 30 and Saturday, October 31, 7 to 8:30 p.m.: an adults-only dramatic reading of Poe at Lachat, performed by actor Daniel Gerroll.
- Sunday, November 8, 4 p.m.: pianist Anthony Ratinov plays the first concert on Weston Public Library's new Estonia grand piano. Admission is free, with suggested donations of $20 for adults and $10 for students.
- Saturday, November 14, 7 p.m.: the Fall Harvest Dinner with Hemma at Lachat.
- Friday, November 20: registration deadline for the Thanksgiving Community Feast.
- Monday, November 23, 7 to 9 p.m.: a Wreath Decorating Party at Norfield Grange, 12 Goodhill Road, listed on the town calendar.
- Thursday, November 26, noon to 3 p.m.: the Thanksgiving Community Feast at Lachat.
The annual holiday tree lighting and music festival comes after that. The Board of Selectmen approved $2,500 on October 1 to pay for its musical acts. Watch the town calendar for the date. Lachat parks guests at 106 Godfrey Road. If you have a seat at either November dinner, that address is where your evening starts.
Changes in Weston Center, from The Chase's new entrance on Route 57 to a café opening next summer, are things we follow closely because they shape daily life around the town green. If you'd like to talk about what's changing near your street or what it could mean for your plans, contact the Kelly Higgins Team for a no‑obligation consultation about your home or move.
