Every few minutes a waving customer or two interrupted Rhonda Messer’s conversation. The owner of Coffeelands in Clinton sat outside her coffee shop on a wide, new sidewalk that left ample space for pedestrian traffic and outdoor seating.
Familiar faces walked to her left and dozens of cars filled the High Street parking spots on her right as Clintonians grabbed a morning coffee or ran an errand at the Aubuchon Hardware store nearby.
The scene only became busier as breakfast evolved into lunch. It’s a routine that’s become the norm even on a random Wednesday in early September.
Five years ago, Messer remembered a much different scene.
Instead of waving at customers as they arrived, Messer sat inside the same cafe with books providing the only characters in her life.
“We sat around and read a lot,” Messer said. “We got to read a lot of books. That was it.”
Messer opened Coffeelands in 2015 and joked about tumbleweeds drifting down High Street.
“The town was dead,” Messer said.
Six years later, High Street is a petri dish of activity. While towns like Hudson and Worcester’s Canal District have hogged the spotlight of downtown revitalization, Clinton has been slowly and quietly evolving.
As Messer sat outside her shop, Suhail and Afra Hassan introduced her to young future coffee drinkers. The couple from Iraq owns zaytoon, which serves Mediterranean food a few hundred feet from the coffee shop.
Not far away, co-owner of the Strand Theatre Bill Grady stepped onto a ladder to replace the signage on the building’s facade with a happy birthday message for an unbeknownst recipient inside of Messer’s shop. The classic, one-screen theater is one of the oldest theaters in the area. Today it’s a cinema pub, offering dinner and alcoholic beverages, along with the traditional movie-fare snacks to theater-goers.
The nonstop activity prompted Messer to point to a vacant building across the street. She envisions it to be the new home of Coffeelands as the cafe has outgrown its original spot.
“Our weekends are so insane we can not keep up,” Messer said. “I’m in this phase where I’m trying to make sense of it right now and what’s my next step from here.”
For Clinton, this is a good problem to have.
Growth and rebirth
As businesses within Clinton expand, the town is also enjoying a growth spurt. It’s shedding its reputation as a drive-through mill town with a bunch of bars to one that includes burgeoning neighborhoods, including the downtown with its restaurants and shops similar to the rebirths experienced in Worcester and Hudson, but with its own unique flavor.
Located northeast of Worcester, the small mill town of Clinton measures just 5.7 square miles of land and saw its largest population jump since 1900 in the latest Census. For the last 120 years, the town’s population never exceeded 13,600 people, until 2020 when it grew to 15,428 residents.
“It’s an attractive town. It’s been an affordable town that offers a wide range of services. We have water, sewer, it’s a safe community,” Clinton’s Director of Economic Development Phil Duffy said. “We kind of punch above our weight.”
Within a block of Coffeelands visitors to Clinton can experience a diverse landscape of eateries that would be impressive even in a world-class city. Clintons Bar and Grille, which has become the town’s fine-dining spot, offers sidewalk dining next to torches. The restaurant celebrated its seventh anniversary this month. There’s Mediterranean food at zaytoon, Mexican cuisine at La Taqueria El Amiga, Tai food from Tai Time and vegan options at the Vegan Nest.
Longtime pizza and sub shops are still just up the street, too — P&S, Mr. Z’s and Brothers Pizza. Just a short walk from High Street sits Lou’s Diner, a classic Worcester Lunch Car Company diner built in the 1930s and run by the Turini family for more than 50 years.
Old and new just blend together.
After consuming all that food, residents and visitors can work off the calories at Ciccone’s Family Fitness Center, located in what was once a Woolworth’s, on the same block.
“When I first started here nine years ago, there were so many businesses coming in and going out,” said Ashley Sponenberg, who works at the gym. “And now, the past few years, it’s just been an increase in businesses. People that are here are staying and we’re getting more [establishments].”
The continuity along High Street developed a bond among the owners.
Dennis Ciccone, co-owner of the family fitness center with his wife Mayra, starts his day at Coffeelands.
Messer takes personal training lessons from Mayra.
When the Vegan Nest arrived in Clinton, Ciccone, who moved to High Street about 30 years ago, introduced the owners to the Board of Health and the building department to make their transition from New York City as seamless as possible.
“We don’t look at it as another restaurant is our competition,” co-owner of the Vegan Nest, Victor Broushe said. “No, we look at it like, they’re our partners.”
Newcomers find community
Many of the businesses planting roots in the town aren’t originally from Clinton. The Hassans came from Iraq in 2013. Messer moved to Clinton from Marlborough. Alejandro Calderon, who owns Taqueria El Amigo, expanded his business from Waltham.
“Without the community support, we couldn’t go on,” Afra Hassan said. “They are very nice people. They always support. They encourage us. When they tell me how much they like my food, I forget all my tiredness.”
Calderon opened the Mexican restaurant at the corner of High and Church Street four years ago after residents from Marlborough and Northborough drove to Waltham for his food.
After driving west, Calderon discovered Clinton and saw its potential.
“This street reminds us a lot of Moody Street in Waltham,” Calderon said. “That was something that brought us to Clinton.”
As restaurants arrived on the thoroughfare, Clinton provided as many resources as it could to attract residents and visitors to the area.
When MassLive launched its Communities on the Rise series a few years ago, reporters set out to explore downtowns and neighborhoods that had experienced positive transformation and identify what some of the common elements were that contributed to their success. Some common components were a group of business owners and local officials with a shared vision, the presence of a vibrant neighborhood coffee shop or brewery — Clinton’s High Street is missing the brewery although Sterling Street Brewery opened last year a few blocks away. Another key was infrastructure and streetscape improvements.
‘You need to be attractive’
A major renovation to the downtown was just completed this summer. Fresh pavement covers High Street. Specialty lighting rises out of cobblestone-bordered sidewalks, which provide more than enough room for tables, chairs and foot traffic. Plants and flowers hang from the lighting. Duffy said the city selected each item specifically to create a welcoming atmosphere for pedestrians to explore the neighborhood.
“It makes the town more attractive,” Duffy said. “It sounds almost too simplistic, but if you want to attract businesses and customers that would patronize them, you need to be attractive.”
It’s more than just a start. Yet, while areas of the downtown are now hopping, there are still pockets of empty storefronts here and there — a sign the town still has room to grow.
The High Street corridor is just one of the things moving along in town.
Plans are underway to transform Clinton’s nearly quarter-of-a-mile-long abandoned train tunnel into useable recreational space by improving it and connecting it to the Mass. Central Rail Trail, which, once complete, will run 104 miles from Northampton to Boston. Currently, 51 miles of trail have been completed.
The town, working with the Clinton Greenway Conservation Trust, completed the acquisition of the tunnel this year.
Along Route 70, the Wachusett Dam attracts thousands of visitors a year, some undoubtedly drive into town to discover more than restaurants but its Central Park with sidewalks and fountains and even the Museum of Russian Icons, which attracts visitors from around the world.
“We met a couple, this woman was in a long fur and she was with her husband. She said they came from Belgium 20 years ago on holiday,” Dennis Ciccone said. “They were visiting the Museum of Russian Icons and they haven’t returned home.”
Duffy said residents in the town have expressed pride in the small facelift the High Street corridor received. It’s not only a place to eat or shop, but a gathering spot for the community.
Residents of Clinton use High Street for manicures, to get their hair cut, their suits tailored and homes insured among other things. There’s a hardware store. It’s a working downtown.
“It’s not only a place where you run into someone while you run your errands to go to the bank or the hardware store on Saturday morning, this is where we have our Memorial Day parade. This is our civic space. We deserve to treat ourselves to a beautiful space.”
Cynthia Cannon felt that pride recently inside the shop she opened on High Street in October 1971. Next month marks 50 years since Cannon opened Sunrise Boutique in her hometown.
Cannon stood behind the counter surrounded by items she handpicked to sell in her store, from shiny rocks, which said children can’t buy enough of, to thick winter socks and slippers which she said make wonderful gifts during the cold winters.
Goosebumps covered her arms when she reminisced about a September weekend when Clinton celebrated its annual Olde Home Days, a two-day event with entertainment, local food and displays by city organizations.
“It was the families holding the children’s hands that were on three corners. I thought this is what community is,” Cannon said. “It’s people wanting to share our part of the community with the next generation.”
It resurrected memories from almost 40 years ago when Cannon remembered Clinton’s streets bustling with foot traffic — even more than now.
“I’ve been struggling since then to bring it back to what the figures were in the ‘80s,” Cannon said. “It’s always been a struggle for a little business. It always will be a struggle because until you get someone in the door they don’t really know what you have.”
The same can be said for small towns. Some residents across Massachusetts may not know where Clinton is, or it may have been years since they’ve been there, unaware of the parks, food and beautiful scenery.
But once people step inside Clinton, the small town wows its visitors as they often transition to permanent residents, whether it’s Messer from Marlborough, Hassan from Iraq or Broushet from New York City.
“It’s almost like a support group,” Broushet said. “We support each other and we give people a reason to come to Clinton.”
Managing Editor Noah R. Bombard contributed to this story.
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