Update: Troy dining ventures take different paths

The in-development Café Congress sweet shop.

UPDATE (1/9/15): Peck's Arcade has opened, but Cafe Congress is kaput. Go here for the latest on the latter project.

(Originally published 12/24/14)

The new year will see some more additions to the already-burgeoning Troy dining scene.

One will be the debut of Peck's Arcade, the latest creation by Vic Christopher and Heather LaVine, who already have renovated once-teetering downtown buildings to create the Charles F. Lucas Confectionery & Wine Bar and The Grocery, both within steps of Monument Square.

What once was The Clark House, at 217 Broadway, and home to The Tavern restaurant and pub is coming back to life as a restaurant under the aforementioned Peck's name it carried generations ago when it was a department store. There already have been some sneak peeks at the project when Chrisopher and LaVine operated a pop-up ramen eatery there.

Another near-completion project is Café Congress, the Sarah Fish-Josh Sheehan renovation that has been going on for much of this year.

Fish, the much-traveled chef who had operated her own Hungry Fish Café & Country Store until closing it in favor of renovating the wobbly brick structure at 336 Congress Street, has just provided this progress report:

"We've saved and reused the light fixtures, old wood found in the basement, trim from Hungry Fish, old doors, reclaimed oak and tile, newspaper from 1964. We tissue papered the ceilings, exposed original brick and hardwood floors, married two claw foot tubs into one, installed a free washer from craig's list plus a skylight and a replacement trap door.

"We put new flooring throughout, new roof, new windows, new electrical service, new heaters and eternally paint each room. We added panoramic windows to the porch and exposed an original entrance to it to make two and open up the second floor into a studio, from once a dark foyer, kitchen, living room and porch- it's all open and light comes in from the north and south.

"We salvaged shutters, windows, and bricks from the old mills along the falls and we have an 1800s bottle that fell out of the chimney. We moved in without power and installed our lights. We removed 125 years of debris, dust and layer over layer of walls, ceilings and floors.

"And, we're almost done."

Somehow I doubt it, since she just added, "I know we have at least 5,000 bottle caps to do some flooring or walls or something."

If more people had the physical energy of Christopher/LaVine and Fish/Sheehan, Troy's rensissance would be at an even higher level. Ah, to be young.

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