Haymarket Blends Necessaries and Niceties

Your table awaits at Haymarket where proprietor Anne Stowell has blended the everyday and elegant, filling a one stop shopping and sit-a-spell gap in the community. A ceremonial ribbon-cutting hosted by the Windham Chamber of Commerce is planned for the near future.

Sabrina Morales welcomes customers to Haymarket. The new business has five employees including some who can walk to work.

Bill of Fare includes an inviting array of coffees along with sandwiches, soups and salads including vegan, vegetarian and gluten free selections. Necessities and specialty goods are also available.

Haymarket is located in a side door entranceway at the former Methodist Church on Main Street in the hamlet of Hensonville.

By Michael Ryan

HENSONVILLE - The reason for gathering within its walls has changed but the former Methodist Church in the hamlet of Hensonville is similarly welcoming to Haymarket, a new cafe and provider of provisions.

Generations of worshippers have gracefully given way to seekers of daily bread (and eggs and milk) as well as, ahem, un-sinful dalliances.

Opening this past autumn, a growing number of regulars are spreading the word about the side door entranceway, at the back of the chapel, which in the not too distant past also served as a workout center.

It is now the stuff of proprietor Anne Stowell’s dreams, offering a breakfast and lunch cafe (seating 45 clients at nine tables), a coffee bar and large coolers and neat shelves stocked with necessities and niceties.

“I’ve always wanted to do a business like this, maybe not this large, but I fell in love with the space,” say Stowell, who, with her husband Jesse Schifano, moved fulltime to the mountains five years ago.

“I imagined a business with all the things I like,” Stowell says, smiling. “It was really important to me to create a place where people could congregate and fill a gap in the community.”

Haymarket, therefore, is an, “accessibly priced market that is unique and interesting,” Stowell says, offering Potters Table Bakery goods, Family Farmstead mountaintop cheeses, mini brie wheels and hibiscus tea.

Perusing the remodeled shop, designed by Catskill Architect’s Liz Saunier and crafted by Kip O’Hara Contracting in Prattsville, browsers find Divina fig spread, jams, crackers, honey and Hudson Harvest maple syrup.

There are vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free choices alongside Albacore tuna in olive oil, smoked rainbow trout, Queen Majesty hot sauces, Hardwick Beef, See and Be Kitchen breads and donuts.

Breakfast is served from 8 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. followed by lunch, 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., sharing bacon & eggs mixtures, turkey and chicken salad sandwiches soups, specials and much more, respectively.

“This will be our first winter season, with everybody out there skiing, but we are really encouraged by the first few months. Coloring and crayons are part of our schtick. We are very kid friendly,” says Stowell.

Haymarket is open five days a week (closed Tuesday & Wednesday) with expanded hours during the holidays (closed Christmas and New Years Day). Phone (518) 943-2963 or visit haymarketcatskills.com
for info.