Old Mill Grocery & Deli has stood near Old Mill Beach since 1919, but the century-old shop at 222 Hillspoint Road sits empty this fall after its longtime operator walked away, and Westport officials are once again trying to rewrite the town's zoning rules to keep it alive. The Planning & Zoning Commission held a public hearing this week on a proposal that would let the beachside market and similar neighborhood food shops sell liquor and seat diners outdoors, more than a year after a judge tossed out the town's last attempt to do exactly that.
The hearing centered on Text Amendment #875, which would establish a brand-new Food and Beverage Planned Development District allowing liquor sales, on-site consumption, and outdoor eating areas within 25 feet of a principal building at eligible properties, according to 06880. A companion Map Amendment, #876, would rezone the Old Mill Grocery parcel from Residence B into the newly created district if commissioners adopt the text change, according to a report from 06880. Eric Bernheim, representing property owner Soundview Empowerment Alliance, outlined the text amendment to commissioners and said the new district could let the grocery's eventual operators sell and serve alcohol as soon as next summer if the changes go through.
A Legal Defeat Forces a New Approach
This is not the commission's first swing at the problem. Westport first tried to allow alcohol sales at the store in June 2024, adopting Amendment #843, then adopted Amendment #846 in November 2024; a Superior Court judge overturned both text amendments after neighbors filed lawsuits challenging them over parking, traffic, noise, and pedestrian safety, per the same 06880 report. In a 21-page decision issued in February, Judge Dale Radcliffe concluded the earlier changes amounted to illegal spot zoning and an impermissible expansion of a nonconforming commercial use inside a residential zone, as detailed by 06880 at the time.
That ruling didn't just affect Old Mill Grocery. The same decision upended zoning for two other historic residential commercial properties in town, The Country Store on Wilton Road and Gruel Britannia on Cross Highway, both long-running neighborhood food markets operating in similar nonconforming circumstances, per 06880's coverage. The new Food and Beverage Planned Development District is designed to replace the piecemeal, single-property fixes the court rejected with a broader framework that would give the commission, in the proposal's own terms, stronger governing power over similar businesses located in residential neighborhoods.
Why the Store Sits Dark Right Now
Romanacci's, the restaurant group owned by Graziano and Maurizio Ricci, had run Old Mill Grocery for the past three years before announcing in September that it would not renew its lease. The operators closed their Old Mill Grocery service on September 29, citing severe winter business slowdowns and a shift in focus toward a new Darien location, according to Inklings News, rather than the ongoing legal friction over liquor permits. The site currently has no named new operator, though Soundview Empowerment Alliance was reportedly negotiating with four separate restaurant and market operators as recently as September, each weighing a concept built for year-round business rather than summer-only demand, per the Westport Journal.
That off-season drop-off is a structural problem for any beachfront business in the area. Compo Beach's parking emblem season runs from May 1 through September 30, and once it ends on October 1, beachside parking opens to all visitors and off-season dog walkers, according to Niang Real Estate. The proposed liquor sales and outdoor dining are part of a plan aimed at making the shop viable year-round.
Supporters and Skeptics Face Off
Commission chair Paul Lebowitz called the new text amendment very supportable during the hearing. Jimmy Izzo, a Representative Town Meeting member, was one of only two members of the public who spoke in favor of the change, telling commissioners he favored keeping Old Mill Grocery open and that there had been no issues at the site. But opposition remains organized and determined. Joel Green, representing the Old Mill Preservation Group, warned that the zoning change could enable nonconforming uses to spread into residential areas in a way that contradicts the town's Plan of Conservation and Development, and he argued flatly that the proposed legislation would not survive judicial scrutiny.
The commission ultimately tabled the matter for reconsideration in November, leaving the store's fate, and its prospective operators' business plans, unresolved for at least another month. Soundview Empowerment Alliance has already paid dearly for the fight: in January 2025 the nonprofit launched a GoFundMe campaign seeking $50,000 toward legal defense costs it expected to exceed $100,000 at $400 an hour, money spent battling three separate neighbor-led lawsuits targeting the town, the property owner, and the operating tenant, according to the Westport Journal.
A Non-Profit Mission Beyond the Storefront
Soundview Empowerment Alliance formed in spring 2022 specifically to save the building, with its founders raising the $1.51 million purchase price for the 222 Hillspoint Road property to shield it from potential demolition or redevelopment, the Westport Journal reported at the time. The organization operates as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with a dual mission: preserving the historic shorefront building while providing job training, education, and life-skills development for adults with disabilities, according to the group's own description of its mission on its website.
The preservation effort has already earned formal recognition. In May 2023, the Westport Historic District Commission awarded Old Mill Grocery & Deli and Soundview Empowerment Alliance its Legacy Business Preservation Award, naming the site the town's oldest continuously operating retail food establishment. 06880 has followed the saga of the property, once known locally in earlier incarnations as Joey's and Elvira's, since first reporting on it back in 2009 — a reminder that the fight over how a beloved local market can survive, legally and financially, on a residential stretch of shoreline is nothing new in Westport.
