Pianist Duke Ellington had a hit crooning about “Take the A Train to Harlem” in his popular 1940s song, and that jazz standard inspired the name of Bill Bennett’s restaurant, The A Train Café.
“I play jazz guitar myself and I am a big jazz fan, hence the jazz theme. The name, however, is also associated with the fact that our building is located just in back of the Wallingford train station. We may have come up with another jazzy name if the train wasn’t right behind us,” said Bennett of its location at 236 North Colony Road.
His wife, Andrea, who co-owns the café, handles the front end of the business.
Established in September, the café’s cool vibe was inspired by Bennett’s love of jazz.
A variety of memorabilia adorn the wall, including a mix of jazz posters, instruments, and musicians.
“The idea behind our establishment was to create a place that had an older-style city café feel – casual yet classy, comfortable and relaxing,” said Bennett who also added photographs he took of his trips to Italy and old photos of relatives and landscapes in Italy where his mother is from to give the café a homey, familiar feel.
“The background music is light jazz. The jazz ambience is something different in town, too. We plan to have live jazz in the near future from time to time along with offering craft beers and wines.”
The quaint inviting café has an indoor seating area with tables and big windows that flood the room with sunlight. In warmer months, seating is offered outside on a porch and patio.
The café serves breakfast and lunch, along with take-out. Bennett and his wife are always on-site.
“I’m here cooking your food. My wife is always behind the counter,” said Bennett who attended culinary school and is focused on using high-quality ingredients and making most menu items by hand.
“A stand out is our versatility with the food. We are making most of our food from scratch, including all our salad dressings, lox, fresh mozzarella, soups, pizza sauce and dough, chili, and so much more,” said Bennett.
Breakfast items include made-to-order omelets served with roasted potatoes, bacon-egg-and-cheese on a bagel, and their popular homemade lox and cream cheese with capers and dill.
Lunch includes sandwiches served on bagels, wraps, round rolls, sliced rye, or Italian bread and wraps. Bagels and rolls are brought in daily from Terranova, a bakery in the Bronx, NY.
“Our sandwiches range from a simple as bacon, egg and cheese to our homemade lox and cream cheese to prosciutto with our homemade mozzarella and aioli, and seared salmon avocado wrap with balsamic glaze and mixed greens,” he said.
“Our top-selling sandwich is the Hudson sandwich, which is a homemade chicken salad with apples, Herbs de Provence, bacon, and cheddar or the tramezzini sandwich with our homemade mozzarella, prosciutto, tomato, and aioli,” he said.
In addition, the café serves at least seven different types of salads from basic Caesar to Nicoise and two-to-three different house-made soups daily.
Tom and Jodi, two Wallingford residents, said they are frequent customers, eating at the café three to four times per week.
“The menu is diversified, to a degree of fantastic. Soups, salads, breakfast, pizza, breakfast items – beyond delicious,” said Tom. “Would recommend all try this jazzy atmosphere and bring your belly ready to be satisfied.”
One of the café’s highlights is their thin crust, house-made, hand-tossed 16-inch pizza that’s also sold by the slice.
There is basic pizza with toppings and also a variety of specialty pizzas, such as the Carnivore featuring meatballs, sausage, bacon, pepperoni, mozzarella, and sauce, and the Verdura, featuring spinach, peppers, onions, mushrooms, eggplant, mozzarella and sauce.
“Everything is offered throughout the day with the exception of pizza which begins at 11 a.m.,” said Bennett.
The café serves a variety of beverages, including cold drinks, hot coffee, lattes, espresso, tea, and more.
“The pastries and coffee beans are from Perkatory Roasters right here in Connecticut. We do try and get vegetables from local farms when possible. One of our favorites is Red Corn Farm in Meriden,” he noted.
“Our goal/mission is to provide a comfortable cafe where anyone can come by themselves and grab a book from our bookshelf, have a bite to eat and relax, or gather with some friends for a pizza or sandwich, listen to some jazz, and not pay a fortune to do so,” said Bennett.
“We keep our prices reasonable and that has been something we are true to. This is the type of place my wife and I prefer and we are welcoming people of like minds to find the nice atmosphere as happy and warm as we do.”
Bennett hopes to make the restaurant a mainstay in Wallingford.
“We adore Wallingford and look forward to getting to know everyone and hope everyone gets to know us,” said Bennett. “We want to be a part of the community where we know most by their first name and vice versa and become their neighborhood place.”