Breakfast restaurant The Place 2 Be opened its second Hartford location on Thursday, marking its first presence downtown with plans to open a third eatery in West Hartford’s Blue Back Square.
Principal owner Gina Luari said The Place 2 B eschewed a grand opening for the new location at the former Spectra Wired Cafe in Hartford’s Constitution Plaza, because she wanted to avoid creating a crowd during a pandemic.
“We made the decision to not really tell anybody and have a soft opening,” Luari said, adding that the approach also allows staff and customers to get better acquainted with their new ordering and payment systems.
The Place 2 Be’s flagship location is at 615 Franklin Ave., in Hartford’s south end, which Luari’s family, owners of Town Line Diner in Rocky Hill, bought and rebranded in 2016.
The new 4,500-square-foot space at Constitution Plaza is equipped with kiosks with touch screens customers can use for to-go coffee orders, Luari said. The restaurant also has an ordering system in which diners order from their phones, and their food and drinks are then brought to their table.
Luari is still moving ahead with plans to open a third location in West Hartford’s posh Blue Black Square, in space formerly occupied by The Cook & The Bear restaurant. An opening date for that location has not been set, she said.
