Tapas Greek restaurant in Bloomfield closes
Tapas restaurant, a fixture in the Hartford-area dining scene since 1986, will close its location at 854 Cottage Grove Road in Bloomfield on Saturday.
The restaurant is losing its lease, Zach Vetter, son of Tapas’ founder Ted Vetter, said. “Trinity Health made plans to go in there a year ago or so,” he said. “When Ruby Tuesdays left in 2018, the writing was on the wall.
“Business has been great. I wish we could stay,” he said. “We love our Bloomfield customers and they love us. Nobody is happy about it.”
Tapas’ newest location, the takeout-only Tapas to Go at 225 Hebron Ave. in Glastonbury, opened in November and plans to stay open.
“We knew this was coming. That’s why I opened Glastonbury,” said Vetter, who operates that Glastonbury location.
The Glastonbury location makes the same entire menu as the Bloomfield location, as carryout only. Dishes include flatbreads, muffaletta, spanakopita, kebabs, hummus, falafel, stuffed grape leaves and a scattering of American dishes.
Tapas, co-founded in 1986 by Ted Vetter and Fred Dressler, started in the Elmwood neighborhood of West Hartford. The Bloomfield location opened in 2007. A Tapas on Ann in Hartford closed in 1999 and West Hartford closed in 2018. For a very brief period in the late ‘80s, Tapas had a satellite in Vernon.
Zach Vetter said any Tapas Bloomfield employees who want to stay with the company can have jobs at The Corner Pug in West Hartford, which the family also owns.
“If we staff The Corner Pug, I think we’re going to try to fully reopen there. It hasn’t been open for lunches. Maybe we can get to a regular seven days a week,” he said. “Also, the staff [at The Corner Pug] has been working a lot. I think this might be an opportunity to get some time off for some folks.”
He added that this may not be the last of Tapas. “People are already sending me ideas for new spaces but we might wait until spring before we dig in and look around,” he said. “In the meantime, if you want Tapas food, you can come to Glastonbury.”
Find the restaurant at tapasgo.com.
Susan Dunne can be reached at sdunne@courant.com.
