GREENWICH, CT — Property owners for the now vacant Mike’s Organic site at 600 E. Putnam Ave. are seeking a change of use from grocery retail to restaurant, and they appeared before the Greenwich Planning & Zoning Commission for a brief pre-application review last week.
The building originally operated as an IHOP for 20 years, and then as a Patio.com store for about 30 years. Mike’s Organic was a small format grocery store that opened in April 2023. In March of this year, owner Mike Geller announced the business was closing.
“We do not believe it will be ever going back to grocery. We are looking to change it to restaurant. It is currently vacant, and we feel it could be in our best interest as we look for a new tenant to make it something planning and zoning and the community would want going forward,” said property owner Lillian Fong during the Planning & Zoning Commission’s regularly scheduled meeting on Sept. 4.
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Commissioners discussed parking during the brief review. There are currently 46 spaces on the 1.1-acre site.
“Our first concern is there really is nowhere to go if you’re going there and you’ve got no place to park. Our first priority would be to ensure that whatever restaurant you go to… is it works well with the parking, and that everybody is staying on site. That’s the biggest piece of feedback,” said P&Z Chair Margarita Alban. “We want to see the parking work because we’re tight for parking in town.”
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Commissioner Nick Macri said the property owners will have to work backward from the parking spaces to determine seating and the size of the kitchen inside. Guidelines suggest one parking space for every three seats.
“Start with your biggest constraint, which is the number of spaces, and maybe get exactly what’s going to happen inside the building,” Macri said.
Details on a specific restaurant have not been mentioned in submitted documents, but during last week’s review, Macri blurted, “Really good barbecue. Did I say that out loud?” which prompted laughter from the panel.
“It’s a joke, because that’s the rumor, and he’s just repeating the rumor,” Alban responded. “That’s just the rumor in town, but rumors are rumors.”
Alban concluded by saying, “You have a good site, it has lots of parking, and you should be able to make a use work.”
The item is expected to come back before the Planning & Zoning Commission at a later date.
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