Claire’s Corner Copia prides itself on a lively community of people and a vegetarian menu accommodating various cultures and dietary restrictions.
Brian Zhang
Employees Reporter
Brian Zhang, Contributing Photographer
Spring afternoons at Claire’s Nook Copia seem like arms clasped round cups of scorching chocolate as streaks of rain pitter patter towards glass home windows. In a bubble remoted from the bustling streets outdoors, the voices of scholars and locals waft via the air, intermingling with earthy notes of tofu scramble and recent chai.
A metropolis favourite since 1975, Claire’s is among the many few vegetarian locations within the downtown space that provide each kosher and gluten-free choices. Because the cityscape modifications and unfolds — and as individuals develop up, come and depart over time — Claire’s baked items stay a family identify via all of it, with the restaurant’s signature Lithuanian espresso cake being replicated and shipped all throughout the nation.
“[We are] an integral a part of New Haven,” Erin Guild, one of many present managers on the restaurant, mentioned. “I’ve labored right here for nearly over 20 years [and] in my time right here, I simply actually get pleasure from it as a result of it’s a cross part of the college communities, the New Haven neighborhood [and] the Jewish neighborhood.”
When describing the individuals and environment at Claire’s, Guild emphasised inclusivity as a core worth that may be traced again to when the restaurant was first based. Claire LaPia, the restaurant’s proprietor, beforehand labored as a registered nurse, and it was throughout her time interacting with sufferers at hospitals that she gained inspiration to enter the hospitality enterprise. Guild mentioned that LaPia believed that everybody, particularly the ailing, deserved entry to wholesome, tasty meals. After LaPia married Frank Criscuolo on Feb. 22, 1975, the 2 began their enterprise later that yr, weaving into their recipes their conventional Italian upbringing and family meals. A contest was then sought to find out the identify of the restaurant, with two Yale college students finally profitable and strolling away with free cake for a yr. “And the remaining is historical past,” Guild mentioned.
Past being accommodating to numerous cultures and dietary restrictions, Claire’s additionally places sustainability on the forefront of its delicacies. The restaurant strictly follows the rules of the Environmental Working Group, making an attempt its finest to go natural and supply elements domestically. Since 2006, quite a few environmental initiatives have been applied, together with a swap to Power Star lighting, LED bulbs and compostable containers and utensils.
On the finish of the day, nevertheless, the menu just isn’t all that the staffers satisfaction themselves on.
“[It’s] the individuals,” mentioned Rose Murphy, who has been working as a counter workers barista at Claire’s for over a yr. “Everyone seems to be handled very properly right here. Now we have individuals from all totally different walks of life, totally different ages and totally different ability ranges.” She particularly enjoys speaking with locals, her every day work routine centered round assembly new individuals and catching up together with her regulars.
There’s one notably touching second that Murphy will maintain shut throughout her time at Claire’s, she mentioned. She and a co-worker had simply made a cup of scorching hibiscus tea for an aged most cancers affected person when he advised her that it was the primary time he might “style once more” since beginning chemotherapy.
For Yale pupil Sophie Bhurtel ’25, who went in with the intention of getting espresso however was pleasantly stunned by the number of sandwich choices, it was additionally these small moments that made her eating expertise a constructive one. She alluded to the “vigorous” environment that made her really feel at dwelling, to the “form servers” who complimented her outfit.
“Our backside line is individuals, and once you care about individuals, you need to feed them actual meals,” mentioned LaPia, who’s now additionally an writer of a number of books.
Claire’s Nook Copia is situated at 1000 Chapel St., providing a pre-fixed menu of $20.22 for lunch and dinner as a participant on this yr’s Restaurant Week.
Brian Zhang covers COVID-19 and Yale New Haven Well being, in addition to housing and homelessness. Initially from Brooklyn, New York, he’s a pupil in Davenport majoring in English and artistic writing.
