Penelope returns

They've been cooking for days: Penelope's signature Chocolate Seduction pie, as well as its famous French onion soup, and chili, and pasta sauces. Penelope's Restaurant is reopening today, almost a year after a devastating fire in downtown Springfield forced it to shut its doors.

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Deb Zellner gives McKinley’s Pub a final dusting Wednesday prior to today’s re-opening of Penelope’s Restaurant in Springfield. Albert J. Marro Photo - Rutland Herald

Penelope returns

Springfield restaurant reopens after fire, long delay

By Susan Smallheer Staff Writer

Rutland Herald - Published: June 25, 2009

SPRINGFIELD — They've been cooking for days: Penelope's signature Chocolate Seduction pie, as well as its famous French onion soup, and chili, and pasta sauces.

Penelope's Restaurant is reopening today, almost a year after a devastating fire in downtown Springfield forced it to shut its doors.

The restaurant, founded more than 35 years ago, was forced to close after the fire at the neighboring Ellis Block sent water cascading into the McKinley Block, which houses Penelope's and its companion McKinley's, a pub in the basement of the building.

The restaurant suffered extensive water and smoke damage, but no fire crept across the narrow alley that separated it from the Ellis inferno, which destroyed the town's movie theater as well as more than a dozen single-occupancy apartments and a couple of other small businesses. One of the tenants was charged with arson; plans are under way to rebuild.

But at Penelope's, because of the water damage, the building had to be rewired and brought up to modern building codes, said Liz Clapperton, the manager of the restaurant, resulting in the long delay.

"All the old staff is back. We kept meeting at my house," said Clapperton, who worked at DJ's Restaurant in Ludlow in the interim. She has worked at Penelope's for 24 years.

Not that there wasn't physical damage from the fire, she said.

"We were up to our knees in water down in McKinley's," she said, as she and others wiped down tables one more time and set them up for today's diners.

New carpeting was installed throughout, and upstairs, the main dining room has new walls, new wainscoting, new booths, new carpeting and new paint and color scheme everywhere.

The staff took the opportunity to redo the menu, she said, with more of an emphasis on vegetarian and pasta offerings. "And salmon every day," she said.

Art from the late Wesley Johnson of Chester is on the walls, and for sale, she said, and the restaurant hopes to have a different artist featured every month.

Changes inside the restaurant include the elimination of the bar and stools to make room for more dining room space and a nook for staff to make drinks. The bar's stained-glass tree, which held bottles of wine, has been moved to a different wall.

Clapperton said the cleaning crew hired by the insurance company after the fire threw out anything that had food touching it – including some of her personal serving platters, which were to be used in a catering job that was to take place the day after the fire.

"I wish we had a week before alumni weekend," said Clapperton, who like all the employees at the restaurant has returned to Penelope's despite the long layoff.

But John Batchelder of Claremont, N.H., owner and chef, admitted the past 11 months have been very difficult for him.

Batchelder bought the restaurant about a year before the fire, after working there for 25 years as a chef.

"We've been cooking for days," Batchelder said. "We're ready."

Batchelder said he was worried sick until the rebuilding project and his loans to restock the restaurant came through. "There was a lot of anxiety," he admitted.

Batchelder says he is trying to use more and more locally grown food at the restaurant. The restaurant uses locally grown organic vegetables and Black Watch beef, grown on a Weathersfield farm.

"I'll be doing it more and more," he said.

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