I went to see my friend Scott Carrino today, he and his wife Lisa are baking and cooking out of their Pompanuck Farm, the Round House Cafe, so important to our community, has been closed for nearly a month.

The longer it stays closed, the more likely that it will not re-open.

This will be a body blow to our town, but maybe a blessing in disguise for Scott and Lisa, who are exhausted from years of struggle to make a cafe in a small-town work. They are offering a fairly full menu as take-out, and Maria and I went there to pick up some of their frozen pizzas.

It is so hard to sustain a small business in many rural areas, even before the coronavirus.s It may be impossible now, and for several years.

Scott and I were close friends, but in the way of men, drifted away from one another. The virus is pushing us back to together, slowly and over time.

Pompanuck is a beautiful site, with a big kitchen and room for a lot of people, I hope they start offering meals out there. I know Scott loves teaching and hopes to get back to that, and if the cafe folds, they are considering making a lot of food at Pompanuck, for take-out and perhaps dining.

I hope it works out, but if it doesn’t, I can say that nobody worked harder or tried harder to make a community cafe work.