Paper Palate

Prohibition is a term that conjures images of back alley moonshine operations, Al Capone and speakeasies. In the United States, prohibition refers to the time when alcohol sales, transport and creation was prohibited, which began with the passage of the 18th Amendment in 1919 and ended with the repeal of the amendment in 1933. Once federal prohibition was repealed, the states still had to lift their individual bans, which they did with Mississippi being the last in 1966.

Fast forward to 2006, forty years after the last state repealed their prohibition laws. It’s a time when liquor sales are limited to those 21 and older. It’s a day and age where there are a variety of qualities of liquor for every price point. And it’s a climate where there is more concern over alcoholism than alcohol bans.

But despite the widespread acceptance of liquor sales, there remains places where liquor cannot be bought … something that recently changed for one sleepy Connecticut town.

Eastford, Connecticut, population 1,600, is a tiny town in northeast Connecticut. Recently lawmakers in the town passed an ordinance (in laymans terms, a law) that allows the sale of liquor in their town … ending their status as one of Connecticut’s two dry towns.

According to the Hartford Courant, this was propelled by two lawyers-cum-restauranteurs who quit their day jobs to create a destination restaurant with the Field of Dreams philosophy, “If we build it, they will come.”

Still River Cafe is designed to be a “destination restaurant” that will lure foodies from Hartford, Boston and Providence into driving up to an hour to dine on locally produced food - most of it grown by Bob Brooks in gardens visible from the restaurant’s dining room - and transformed by Kara Brooks into delicacies such as summer squash blossom beignets.

However, first owners Bob and Kara Brooks had get a longstanding tradition, practice, standard - whatever you want to call it - of Eastford being a dry town abolished.

Theirs was a modest proposal allowing beer and wine to be served in restaurants seating at least 35. So modest, in fact, that it now applies only to Still River Cafe, which seats 50 and is at 134 Union Road, also known as Route 171.

Despite a few comments at town meetings implying that this would be the breach in the dam that would leave Eastford awash in booze, the debate was civil. Ultimately, the town approved the change 330-287 in December.

“Life has just gone on here,” Bob Brooks said. “The sky has not fallen down.

So if you are in the area, there is a new restaurant inside a renovated (by the Brooks’) 150-year-old barn open seasonally from April through December where the food is locally grown (in fact, most comes from a garden that Bob Brooks tends to nearby).

Talk about home grown goodness.

Still River Cafe
134 Union Road
Eastford, Connecticut
860.974.9988