Café Romeo

A two-story brick building situated on the corner of Orange Street and Pearl. The center storefront belongs to the locally owned Café Romeo, a hub for pedestrians and cyclists in East Rock as well as for local students and professionals. Modern, floor length windows on the front façade allow for a full view of the café’s interior. The property is shared with JJ Cleaners, an old-fashioned laundromat as well as several residential spaces on the second floor. Large plant beds and bike racks lie on either side of the stone patio in front of the building and frame the café’s outdoor eating area.

1915 – 1951 Unknown

1951 – 1975, Owner unknown, Bunnell Paint

1975 – 2009, Len Mullally, Bunnell Paint & Hardware

2009 – Present, Christopher Mordecai, Café Romeo

The building that today accommodates units 528-534 on Orange Street first appeared on a Sanborn map in 1924, but it was originally built in 1915. The commissioner of the original building is unknown as is the purpose(s) for which the property was used between its construction and 1951 when it became Bunnell Paint (1). It is reasonable to believe that the building went through few changes between its time as Bunnell Paint and then as also a hardware store under Len Mullally. The most large-scale renovation took place in 2009 when Christopher Mordecai, Bernard Massaro Jr., and Romeo Simeone purchased the unit from Mullally to launch Café Romeo and subsequently changed the storefront as well as the front terrace.

The building at 534 Orange Street was built in 1915. Café Romeo lies in the southwestern portion of East Rock which is characterized for having avoided the invasive demolition and redevelopment that other areas of New Haven have been exposed to (4). While the district has largely maintained the original residences built in the late 19^th to early 20^th centuries, Orange Street has witnessed some of these properties be converted to non-residential use, likely the case for unit 534. In 1951, the property was converted into Bunnell Paint for which no owner’s name seems to exist in New Haven’s records. The store specialized in selling paint and wallpaper, achieving relative success for its ability to conveniently provide community members with products before major supply businesses began to appear (1).

In 1975, milkman-turned-businessman Len Mullaly bought the paint store and converted it into a hybrid hardware shop which became a neighborhood staple for East Rock residents throughout the years. At its peak, Bunnell Paint and Hardware boasted having Yale as a major client back when the university bought art materials in bulk (1). The shop’s trend of success dwindled and led Mullally to ultimately sell the much-beloved business to current owner Christopher Mordecai in 2009.

The following September, Mordecai opened the doors of Café Romeo, his first venture into food and retail (2). The receptive semblance of the store, resting upon the only discernibly open slab of pavement on the block, welcomes and provides a natural meeting point for locals in the surrounding residential area. Current employees emphasize that the café provides the ideal stopping point for professionals on their way to work, students looking to study, and pedestrians searching for a place to grab a meal (3). Bike racks that facilitate the transportation of patrons and avoid producing traffic were installed both in consultation with the City of New Haven as well as by local sculptor Ted Salmon (2). Mordecai makes possible the establishment of a dynamic public space by making the patio pet-friendly, Wi-Fi free for students, and the café wheelchair accessible. The inside of Café Romeo is regularly decorated with the works of local artists that he promotes free of charge. Café Romeo not only evokes the same small town feel as the businesses before it, but it functions as a local gathering place and maintains East Rock as a tight knit community as opposed to a business-driven district.

Café Romeo sits on a tranquil corner on the edge of the neighborhood of East Rock and is nestled among many single and multi-family homes as well as some that have been converted into businesses. The patio separates the coffee shop from the surrounding streets and provides a buffer from traffic which generates a relaxed atmosphere for patrons. Just steps away from the Yale School of Management and the New Haven Lawn Club, Café Romeo is constantly fluttering with lively visitors of all ages, many of them regulars who the baristas have come to know well (3). East Rock is considered an upper-middle income neighborhood.

The structure at 534 Orange St. (labeled as 528 Orange St. for unit permit purposes) is a colonial revival building that sits far back into the lot. The bricks of the exterior wall are arranged in a running bond pattern and show little erosion. In the upper portion of the structure, three equally-spaced garden windows divide the space, and smaller, double-hung windows fill the areas in between. Disrupting the otherwise symmetrical front façade are gutters that are mildly rusted. The unassuming and reserved nature of the two circle-top doors, one at the extreme left of the front wall and the other slightly inward from the rightmost edge, indicate that the structure may have been entirely residential in its early stages. Today the doors still serve as entryways to the apartment spaces atop the lower retail floor. The roof is hipped and covered in T&G/Rubber. The interior walls consist of painted drywall and plaster.

Café Romeo’s recently renovated storefront sits slightly to the left of the building’s center and evokes a sense of modernity in the patron- shiny metal-framed, floor-length windows allow pedestrians to see into the space and seemingly flow from the patio area to the interior. The sign was constructed with the same glossy material and orchestrated by local designer Ted Salmon. Consistent with the architectural history of other buildings in the East Rock neighborhood (3), 534 Orange St. has likely undergone little if no remodeling since its construction in 1915. According to one employee at Café Romeo, removing the light-up sign for Bunnell’s Paint and Hardware in 2009 was the biggest aesthetic change that most locals had seen occur to the structure. This prospect is consistent with the architectural history of other buildings in the East Rock Neighborhood which have remained almost entirely untouched throughout the 20^th and 21^st centuries (3). Café Romeo shares the property with JJ Cleaners which, although it has a relatively maintained storefront, has preserved the light-up sign and window posters that appeal to early 20^th century mom-and-pop shops. The stone patio in the front of the structure opens up the property’s space and provides an area for community members to interact with each other and observe the surrounding residential area.

1.    Allan Appel, “Sun Sets On Neighborhood Hardware Store” October 17, 2008, New Haven Independent.

2.    Allan Appel, "Hardware Store Reborn As Sidewalk Cafe" August 10, 2009, New Haven Independent.

3.    Interview with Two Employee at Café Romeo, February 23 2018.

4.    National Register for Historic Places Inventory, Orange Street Historic District, 2, 5-6.

5.    Untitled Document, New Haven City Hall Assessor's Office.