Changes beginning to reshape Chelsea

Nation's Restaurant News, June 3, 1985 by Howard Riell

Somewhere a niche above is four-year-old Chelsea Foods, a combination cafe and retail outlet serving breakfast, lunch and dinner and offering gourmet items. Hors d'oeuvres like caponata Siciliana, prosciutto mousse and tortelloni skewers sell for $1 apiece. Soups like cream of curried carrot and tortellini in brodo sell for $1.25 a bowl. Appetizers and salads such as snow pea saute, prosciutto and melon and salmon marinade sell for $7 a pound. Entrees like beef burgundy, pizza rustica and leg of lamb with pistachio stuffing sell for $8 a pound. Desserts (2.50 each) include brandied fruits, Chelsea petite fours, mascarpone and strawberries and ricotta, apple and pumpkin pie. Gift baskets are also available for as little as $25. Seventy-five per cent of all retail business is delivered, according to co-owner Ray Wheeler, 44.

In the cafe, which accounts for only a third of all sales, an average breakfast check is $4.50, lunch and dinner $8. Lunch draws the largest crowds, Wheeler said. A $9.95 soup-to-nuts special includes a glass of wine.

"Chelsea was stagnant for many years," said Wheeler, who has lived in the community for 20 years. "There are still low rents, perfect for frontiersmen like us." He admitted, however, that his restaurant's quality is "not appreciated in this neighborhood as much as we'd hoped. The people spend all their money on their new co-ops. We're a little too expensive for the secretaries who work around here." Wheeler and partner Frank Furtivo pay under $2,000 rent, he said. What will happen when that lease is up in three years? "Do what all the others have done," he says. "Move on."