It’s a historic building in a location that is prominent for a number of reasons.
Coach’s is coming back to downtown Hartford — this time at the corner of Pratt and Trumbull streets.
Two downtown sports bars have taken the name since the 1990s — one with former University of Connecticut basketball coach Jim Calhoun as as investor. The name will now anchor a new sports-themed bar in the prominent location across from the recently-renovated PeoplesBank Arena.
Restaurant and bar owner Marc Alderucci confirmed that he has signed a lease for the space, which will combine the former locations of The Russell restaurant and Max Bibo’s deli. Coach’s could be open this fall in time for the start of the college basketball season, Alderucci said.
If the opening goes as planned, it would mean the high-profile but long-vacant space would be occupied, after nearly four years of efforts and two failed plans, one of them an expansion of Huskies Tavern, a staple on the UConn campus in Storrs.
Alderucci now operates 144 Temple Street in New Haven, Cousin Jimmy’s Pizza Bar in Storrs and the Social Lounge in Glastonbury. He was once a force in the bar scene on Allyn Street in downtown Hartford.
With two decades of experience in the business, Alderucci now is poised to re-enter the downtown Hartford market in a major way.
In addition to the sports bar, Alderucci expects to begin construction on the previously-announced Rock Bar around the corner on the south side of Pratt Street next week. He also confirmed that he will be purchasing The 196 Club, a speakeasy that closed Jan. 1, which also includes the Emrey’s soda and candy shop storefront. The 196 Club, taking its name from its address at 196 Trumbull St., is in the same block as the planned sports bar.
The soda and candy shop will be converted to a bar with a limited food menu and the former speakeasy will become a more casual lounge, Alderucci said. He declined to disclose the purchase price.
Rock Bar and the reconstituted 196 Club could be open in time for the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade in March, a major downtown event, Alderucci said.
Alderucci said he has been encouraged by downtown’s prospects given the $145 million renovation of the city’s sports and entertainment arena that promises to bring more concert bookings and other events. He also sees the expansion of downtown housing options as a big plus as well as potential for drawing more visitors from outside the city.
‘I always felt that the Pratt Street corridor was three or four lively places from being an actual destination where you can go, and go to different types of places,” Alderucci said. “If there’s three locations and one closes at 9 o’clock, it really doesn’t give you a reason to go down there.”
“But if you have seven or eight options — all within a block or two — I think it gives people the incentive to actually go and stay for a while,” Alderucci said.
Alderucci said he chose the Coach’s name because the establishment will cater to a broad range of interests across all sports and television screens will carry everything from UConn sports to European soccer match-ups, at varied times of the day. As long as local contests involving the Hartford Yard Goats or the Hartford Athletic are broadcast, they would be in the mix.
Plans call for the bar to offer a menu of wings, burgers and a signature meal, a Philly cheesesteak sandwich.
Each of the three bars will have a different focus.
Rock Bar, in the space once occupied by Edible Arrangements, will offer lower-cost beer and drinks, plus a limited menu of food. The venue also is expected to feature live music, likely local bands and open mic nights.
The former soda and candy store would be transformed to a bar where “you’ll be able to walk by and see the bar area, TVs, people eating a drinking,” Alderucci said. “And then, the goal is to do Thursday, Friday and Saturday — be open in the back part for the lounge area, the music, the DJ.”
Alderucci plans to introduce a limited menu featuring flatbreads.
The most ambitious of the three venues is Coach’s because it is expected to cost in the high, six figures to open — the other two, less than half of that cost because they are smaller, Alderucci said.
Coach’s would benefit from an existing, $300,000 matching grant from the Hart Lift storefront revitalization program, designed to fill vacant storefront using federal pandemic-relief funding
The project is likely to seek additional funding from a new, $2 million grant program design to fill empty storefronts close to the renovated arena, according to Kevin Kenny, founder and president of NAI Lexington Commercial, the commercial leasing arm of Hartford-based Lexington Partners.
Kenny, the leasing agent for the space, said, “Finally, we see a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel.”
Kenny has been involved in the negotiation through all three proposals. Kenny said the challenges to combining the spaces became clear once the structure was closely examined.
“It’s a historic building,” Kenny said. “There were a lot of things that were discovered when we got into the wall on that retail space that made it a lot more expensive than anyone ever thought,” Kenny said. “So, it took a lot of brainstorming to figure out a way to do this economically. And quite frankly, without the latest grant program that came out — the arena district — I don’t know if it would have been able to get done.”
Applications for the arena district retail grants will be accepted beginning Thursday.
The Rock Bar project is receiving about $130,000 in funding from Hart Lift. The soda and candy shop and speakeasy received $150,000 and opened two years ago.
Melissa Melonson, owner of Emrey’s and the 196 Club, did not return multiple calls seeking comment on her decision to sell the business. Melonson also runs the downtown boutique marketing firm Lumi Hospitality.
But in previous interviews with The Courant, Melonson said in opening the soda and candy shop — inspired by an entrepreneurial idea developed with her two young daughters — it was clear the 196 Club would be the dominant business.
Kenneth R. Gosselin can be reached at [email protected].