“The village over the decades has always bounced back from adversity,” said Rand Commercial associate broker Paul Adler. New boutiques include Hope Wade Designs and Modern Druid. Farina’s Café, Mekong District, My Father’s House, Flights & Pints, Woolworth Nyack Smokehouse Sports Bar & Brewery, and the social media savvy Breakfast & Burger Bar all opened during the pandemic. Nyack, already a “foodie” town, will add to its roster Big Jerk Caribbean Restaurant & Ice Cream and Nyack Grill on Main Street. There’s power in the business community.” We’ve learned that you don’t have to bring in external people to get the crowds. “We’ve learned lessons about keeping it local. “By not having external vendors, we removed the competition, which created a good solution for that moment, but might even be a solution for street fairs down the road,” said Mazzeo. When it came to Spring Promenade, vendor selection was limited to local businesses. “It wasn’t that it drew that many people, understandably, but it helped us understand what it meant to unite, to put our heads together.” From there, events like the Nyack Wanderland and the Spring Promenade/Spring Fling built momentum for the village and its vendors. “The planning of the Nyack Masquerade was a game-changer,” said Mazzeo, referring to an event that was meant to create some fun for Halloween in place of the village’s iconic annual parade. Mazzeo, along with neighboring women-owned businesses like Abigail Rose & Lily Too, formed Nyack Merchants United to drive traffic and increase visibility.

Everything was looking rosy until COVID-19 threw its horrid curveball. Marcella Mazzeo opened the Salonniere Coffee Bar on South Broadway in Oct. Like many villages and towns in the Hudson Valley and beyond, Nyack maximized its assets, emphasizing the village’s walkability and functionality during the pandemic with street events, outdoor dining, and traffic closures to create a communal feeling, street-fair atmosphere, to draw people from both near and far. Many in the business community credit Nyack’s mayor Don Hammond for initiating the new Business Council, which brought together the business community to strengthen the vitality, accessibility, and creativity of the village’s economic engines. “Together we have gotten word out that the village is a safe haven,” said Hammond.

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