The Bidwell opens with food, wine, ice cream, and a dash of nostalgia
July 27, 2026 | By Claire Pomer A local trio has opened Waterbury’s newest place to eat: a café, wine bar, and ice cream scoop shop rolled into one restaurant.
Chef Tiffany Caldwell works a busy lunchtime at The Bidwell, next door to Bridgeside Books in downtown Waterbury. Photo by Gordon Miller
Rachael Brown, Katya d’Angelo, and Chris Triolo combine their restaurant experience, entrepreneurship, and sales and finance chops to operate The Bidwell, adjacent to Bridgeside Books. The new eatery is also the new home for The Udder Guys, Waterbury’s former mobile ice cream vendor on a tricycle.
Brown’s role is The Bidwell’s general manager. With 20 years of restaurant experience across New York City and Vermont, she was the opening manager at the nearby Stone’s Throw Pizza when that came to Waterbury three years ago and she’s worked at Prohibition Pig. She now works from open to close at The Bidwell, saying that customers can expect to see her “a lot.”
As owners of Bridgeside Books, d’Angelo and Triolo say they will take less of a customer-facing role at their new enterprise. They helped “get the business up and running” and now handle much of the marketing and back-end duties. While Brown will have a daily presence in the restaurant, they will be floating around, filling in as needed, they explained.
The idea for The Bidwell came as Brown and the bookstore owners noticed separate holes in Waterbury’s food scene that they each wanted to fill. Brown, a self-proclaimed wine connoisseur, noticed that Waterbury was lacking much access to coffee past 2 p.m., and she also wanted to create a wine bar with an “approachable, extensive” menu.
As the founders of The Udder Guys ice cream, d’Angelo and Triolo had wanted a physical location for the business for years. Since its inception in 2018, The Udder Guys was known for popping up around town with its tricycle, given that there was no obvious location available to establish a permanent store.
The Bidwell partners (left to right): Rachael Brown, Katya d'Angelo, Chris Triolo. Courtesy photo
The couple sold the business to Nicole Grenier and her son Eli German in the fall of 2022. German was a freshman in high school at the time, and he pedaled around town selling ice cream for the past three summers. Last fall, before his graduation, he and Grenier approached d’Angelo about repurchasing The Udder Guys.
“After much success with it, and with Eli heading off to college soon, he was ready to sell it,” Grenier said. “He was thrilled to sell it back to [its] original owner and now see it have a permanent home right in town.”
Grenier, the former owner of Stowe Street Café, closed her eatery in December 2025. She and her spouse John Grenier own the building. The empty café space was appealing to d’Angelo and Triolo given that Bridgeside Books connects to it through a shared doorway. But with a full kitchen, the space was “too big to just be a scoop shop,” Triolo said.
The topic came up during a conversation with Brown, and the trio realized that their ideas were complementary. They decided that the space could provide a permanent home for The Udder Guys and a kitchen and dining room for a café and wine bar, filling several niches in Waterbury’s restaurant scene in one business.
“The intention for the café was always to serve as a place for locals and visitors to gather, connect, and enjoy while supporting local coffee, food, and art and creating community,” said Grenier, reflecting on the original café’s mission. “The Bidwell is operated by good people doing good things with the community in mind, so it feels very much aligned to welcome them into the space and support them in this new chapter.”
The Bidwell is busy during lunchtime on a recent weekday afternoon. Photo by Gordon Miller
The new partners signed the lease to the space in March, and The Bidwell officially opened on Thursday, June 25 (although it had been selling ice cream for a few weeks prior). When the Roundabout spoke with Brown a week after opening, she said it was off to a good start.
“It’s been a full house every lunch. It’s been delightful. It’s gone as smoothly as I could have hoped,” she said.
A key move was their hiring of Chef Tiffany Caldwell, formerly in charge of pasta production at Gallus and Hen of the Wood, to create The Bidwell’s dishes and curate its menu. The owners say they already have favorite dishes: the frittata sandwich, the 5th quarter ham sandwich, the meatball sub, the Bidwell bowl, and the affogato—a decadent treat that combines ice cream and coffee.)
Nostalgia in the name
Waterbury physician Dr. George Bidwell in this undated photograph from the Waterbury Historical Society
Brown is credited with naming the business as a nod to Bidwell Lane, the road running by the building (although its address is, unfortunately, listed as Stowe Street.).
The name “rolls off the tongue. It kind of sounds like, ‘I bid you well,’” Brown elaborated. The slogan, “Eat joyfully,” found underneath the business name on its signage, was d’Angelo’s creation.
Bidwell Lane, which connects Stowe Street with Foundry Street, was originally named for Dr. George Bidwell, who served Waterbury as a family doctor for over 50 years in the first half of the 20th century.
The Waterbury Historical Society’s collection contains a number of photographs and records that tell of Bidwell’s life, career and contributions to his community. They paint a picture of a dedicated family doctor who worked until he was sidelined by old age.
Born in 1865 in Rutland, Bidwell graduated from the University of Vermont’s medical school in 1890. After a brief residency in Connecticut, he worked as one of two physicians at the Waterbury State Hospital, caring for more than 400 patients.
Pre-Bidwell Lane: This undated photo shows Dr. Bidwell’s home (second from left) along Stowe Street before it was torn down for a street to be built. Waterbury Historical Society photo
Bidwell later opened his own practice working out of his home, which was located between the buildings where Bridgeside Books and Stowe Street Emporium are today. He would also perform home visits via horse and buggy, traveling throughout Waterbury, Duxbury and Moretown. By his own account, he delivered nearly 1,000 babies throughout his 50-year career, which was stopped only by his worsening cataracts in his old age.
Bidwell died in 1955, and his house was demolished 20 years later to make way for the new Bidwell Lane, which was completed in 1975.
The Bidwell owners are now working with the Waterbury Historical Society to create an exhibit about Bidwell and his life, to be displayed in the restaurant.
Complementing Waterbury’s food scene at
The Bidwell has folded The Udder Guys ice cream business into its operation. Here, Addi Fernandez serves up Adirondack Creamery flavors on a warm weekday afternoon. Photo by Gordon Miller
Given the owners’ and manager’s familiarity with Waterbury’s food scene, The Bidwell was founded with the goal of filling certain niches and the hope that it will complement existing businesses. “There are enough businesses here that we all support each other, but sometimes you’re in a certain mood,” Brown said.
She said she hopes that, eventually, customers will develop a Bidwell mood, pointing out that its interior is intentionally designed to be cozy and welcoming. The decorations are modern and light, with both comfortable seating and a bar.
“We want the space to be a place that feels at home. Whether you’re coming to get work done or for a date night, I hope that people show up as they are,” Brown said.
Triolo also hopes that the space is welcoming and multifaceted, saying he envisions it as a “community-centric place where people come to gather and enjoy themselves,” adding that he hopes it becomes a popular place to meet. The business’s website echoes this sentiment, stating, “Together, we aim to create a place that feels familiar in the best way—something you can rely on, return to, and make your own.”
A recent midday visit found that exactly to be the case with multiple tables full of patrons chatting over lunch as Chef Caldwell cranked out new signature sandwiches and the ice cream bar was busy sending customers off with dessert.
Photo by Claire Pomer
As part of the new business’s financing, The Bidwell was recently approved for a loan from Waterbury’s Urban Development Action Grant fund, managed by Waterbury’s Edward Farrar Utility District. Its Board of Commissioners on July 8 approved a five-year loan of $50,000 for the new business. The loan pool was created from federal funds initially used for the development of the Ben & Jerry’s Waterbury ice cream plant in the 1980s. It’s now used to assist local businesses in launching or expanding. The EFUD board set an interest rate of 5% and said payments could begin in six months as the operation gets up and running.
In discussing the loan application, loan review committee member Anne Imhoff pointed out a detail in The Bidwell’s business plan that shows its owners know the market: “They’re open on Mondays,” she said.
The Bidwell is open Thursday-Monday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., serving its all-day menu including coffee, wine and ice cream.