Great Barrington — Nearly five months after husband and wife Will and Robin Curletti put their long-running Fuel Bistro and Coffee Shop for sale, the shop has been purchased by new owners.
Its new owners, who closed on a deal on January 29, are Elan Merkel, his wife Lydia Merkel, his brother Ron Merkel, and long-time Fuel employee Carol Keuma-Hipwell.
Fuel was originally started by the Curletti family on 286 Main Street in 2004, but it moved to an expanded location across the street at 293 Main Street in 2016.
According to the Stone House Properties website, the business, but not the building that it’s in, was put up for sale at $220,000.
In an interview back in August, Will Curletti told The Berkshire Edge that he hoped that whoever took over Fuel would continue as both he and his wife operated it.
In an interview with The Berkshire Edge, Elan Merkel said that neither he, his wife, nor his brother had ever owned a coffee shop before.
“I’m in the construction business, and my brother is a Wall Street guy,” Merkel said. “My brother has owned restaurants before, but strictly as an investor. He owned a Blimpie restaurant in New York City at one point. But he’s been in the Wall Street financial world for over 40 years. And as for myself, I’ve been a builder my whole life.”
On his LinkedIn page, Merkel is listed as the vice president of construction at Lemle & Wolff Companies in New York City.
“I build low-income housing in New York City,” Merkel said. “A few years ago my wife and I purchased a home in Monterey. We love this area, and I plan to retire here. We also have a home on Long Island and in a few years, we’re going to be selling that house and moving up to the Berkshires full-time. I’m 71 and my brother is 75 years old, and we both work full-time jobs. But I spend a lot of time up here when I work remotely.”
Merkel said that Fuel will be closed for the next two weeks as work is done to the interior of the building.
“The place needed cleaning pretty badly, but also needed to be painted,” Merkel said. “We’re trying not to change too much in terms of the feel of the place and its menu. Fuel has always been a pretty laid-back store and we don’t want to change that. Both I and my brother come from a very sleepy beach town, Long Beach in Long Island, with a very small population that’s very chill, and that’s how we’ve been our whole life.”
Merkel said that both he and Keuma-Hipwell will be the most involved in the day-to-day operations at Fuel, and his brother will not be involved as much “but we’re all 100 percent invested in the store.”
“For the most part the beverage menu will all stay the same,” Merkel said. “We’ll probably be adding some things to the menu and making it more accessible for the ‘grab and go’ kind of people. We plan on making these amazing breakfast sandwiches that people will love. We are also talking to a lot of local merchants from other stores about featuring their foods as part of a grab-and-go menu.”
Merkel said that he also plans on adding night hours at some point in the future, and possibly having community organizations hold classes at Fuel.
“We don’t know exactly when all of that is going to be, but more than likely we will have all of that during the busy months of the year,” Merkel said. “We also might be open for private parties at night, which Fuel has never done before. We have a kitchen that can basically cook anything, so we want to take advantage of that.”
Merkel added that he wanted people to know that he was totally in love with Berkshire County.
“Before both I and my wife were here, we had a vacation home in Maine,” he said. “Maine had a much different vibe than here and there was really nothing much to do up there. Maine has Acadia National Park and other landmarks, but how many times can you go and see the same national park? There’s not much else to do up there. Here in Berkshire County, there is so much culture and people who love the culture.”
For more information about Fuel Bistro’s reopening go to its Facebook page.
