Doors Opening at Fully Leased, Village-Like Anoka-Wood Development

Yvonne Weiss and her husband, Dr. Arnold-Peter Weiss, of Barrington were simply looking for a location for her knitting store. The vacant home on the corner of Anoka and Wood Streets caught their eye.

“The house had languished for three years,” he said. “When we saw just how great this location was, we began thinking about something much bigger.”

On that spot now sits two two-story buildings designed in a village-like setting that will soon be the new home of Hollies on the Avenue, a chiropractor, a hair salon, the Table restaurant, and Yvonne Weiss’s knitting store, Knit One Pearl Two, along with four apartments on the second floors.

“I’d never done anything like this before,” said Weiss, a noted hand surgeon and renowned authority on and collector of ancient coins. “My wife really got this going. It just grew from a one-shop idea and expanded from there.”

All of the five retail spaces and the four apartments are leased already; one renter already has moved in and three of the four will be there by the end of this week. The chiropractor will open his door next Monday, July 22. 

Holly Smith expects to move from her Maple Avenue location by the end of the summer because she is building out her location on the corner to match exactly her needs and wants. 

The Table restaurant is expected to open by around Sept. 1. 

Weiss is leasing out the space to a veteran restaurateur in Boston and Providence: Claude Locahet. He will eventually buy the restaurant.

The Table will have seating for 28 indoor and some seating outside. Weiss describes it as “fine dining at sale prices.”

The name comes from the concept of food coming straignt from local farms to the table. A large table, in fact, will sit in the middle of the restaurant with smaller tables surrounding it. 

The restaurant will have a limited menu by design, including about 15 entrees for dinner, a cheese board with wine between 2 and 4 pm, and separate breakfast and lunch menus. It will serve bread from a Cape Cod bakery and coffee from Europe.

All of the stores will have real ceilings – not drop ceilings – and recessed lighting, Weiss said. And each will have street and courtyard entrances.

Parking is at the rear of each building with additional parking on the street. Everything should be done between Sept. 1 and 15 at the latest. 

Is there a name for the mixed-used development? Not yet, said Weiss. Maybe never. Anoka-Wood has been fine so far.