By Gretchen Webster
Kleber Siguenza – Photo Gretchen Webster
WESTPORT–Harvest Restaurant, a mainstay at 36 Railroad Place in Saugatuck for over a decade, has closed.
But not for good, according to one of its owners, Vicente Siguenza. “After 11 years in business, we need to freshen it up a little,” changing both the menu and refurbishing the interior, Siguenza said.
A remodeling project at the Westport Harvest is currently underway. After the restaurant is newly refurbished it will also undergo “a change in concept,” he said. Now a farm-to-table restaurant, the new restaurant may may pivot to Mediterranean or become a wine bar. It should reopen around Oct. 1, according to Siguenza.
“I love Westport but for some reason Harvest didn’t quite work out there,” Siguenza said.
Siguenza and his brother, Kleber, and sister, Nube, formed the JS Restaurant Group. They own nine restaurants in Connecticut. Their group includes Harvest restaurants in Greenwich, New Haven and West Hartford; three Mediterranean-style restaurants, South Bay, in Fairfield, Greenwich and New Haven; Scena Wine Bar in Darien; and Cava Wine Bar in New Canaan.
“Harvest was better received by the consumer” in the other locations, Vincente Siguenza said. The restaurant group has successfully changed the style or menu of some of its restaurants before. South Bay in Fairfield was formerly known as 55 Wine Bar.
Kleber Siguenza was working Thursday evening in the shuttered Railroad Place location, which is flanked by the Tarantino Restaurant and Bar and the Romanacci restaurant, both of which were busy.
Kebler Siguenza said his brother was heading up the Westport Harvest project, but he knew the Westport restaurant would not be done over in the style of the group’s South Bay restaurants. It might become a wine bar similar to their Darien or New Canaan restaurants, he said.
“Westport has been great. And I think we’ll do well again,” he said.
Matt Mandell, Saugatuck resident, executive director of the Westport Weston Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Westport Representative Town Meeting, said he was looking forward to the new rendition of the Harvest restaurant.
“Personally, my family and I enjoyed Harvest and I am sad to see it go. Sometimes, in business, you have to change things up to hit the right stride. I look forward to this new concept for Saugatuck and Railroad Place,” Mandell said.
Dining and Cooking