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connecticut

Emily Knapton

mark7AML314_2025-03-14-07-19-34

All right, we made it to Friday. Time for Main Street, Connecticut, a chance to showcase all our local towns and cities and what they have to offer today we're in Dairy Ann. News 12 Connecticut's Mark Sudall is at Naya with more on there. It's a brand new restaurant, right, Mark? Yeah, they've only been here at Becky for about a year. They're located in the Darien Commons, the beautiful Darien Commons here. Naya is a very popular place, if you've never heard, originated in New York City. They now have 31 locations across 5 states. Delicious Middle Eastern food. Joining me this morning is Louis Santa Maria, the general manager here. Thank you so much. Happy to be here. First of all, what are your hours? Our hours are Sunday. Monday 11 to 9. Wow. And what's what's the response been from people? Um, it's been a mix of both. We're fairly new to the Connecticut, market, you know, we have a heavy presence in New York as well as New Jersey, Pennsylvania. Um, you know, it's growing, I would say, you know, time, day by day. Opened up some new locations in Boston now Philadelphia Philadelphia, Boston. We're on track to open 200 locations by. 2030 0 200, yes, that is my 2030, so we're we're starting off, but you know we're gonna get there to 200 locations at 2030. Louis, tell us about your work with the Darian Arts Center. So the Darian Arts Center, so we sponsor we partner with them, you know, ever since the beginning of this location, um, you know, we have our monthly, uh, arts, you know, festivities and events with the kids, um, you know, the kids had come with the families. A little bit of arts as well as you know, enjoy the kids' meals we have, uh, you know, kids' meals, a little Habibi's. Oh yeah, this is cute, you know, it's very different, you know, compared to like the usual, you know, bowls that we offer, you know, it's a smaller, you know, portion for the kids and you know it comes with a side of crayons as well as pita, um, you know, and the kids love it and you have a lot of those foods that are kind of grab and go grab and go yeah, we, you know, we offer like grab and go. We also offer, you know, the fast food. fast casual, you know, like plate where you can customize, um, you know, right in front of us we have a salad of lamb, you know, the lamb, you know, has a little bit of hummus, garlic, you know, cabbage, all fresh food that we create inhouse. So what makes Middle Eastern food so different from others? Um, well, you know, it offers a bunch of spices, so we have, you know, over here we have like the lamb, so a little bit of parsley, um, you know, we have all the spicy hummus, so it's a bunch of. The spices, um, and it's, you know, it's fresh and made in-house. All right, so now we're gonna try a couple of things here which I can't wait for, by the way, you know. What, what do we have here? So right here we have thisar pita chips. So those are made in-house, um, you know, it's the authentic recipe, um, you know, it hasn't really changed. It made recipe. Yes, you dip those so this right here is a spicy hummus. We have, we have the regular hummus with, you know, even the kids love as well as the baba ganoush. Amazing flavor now. I'm kind of a lamb guy myself, so they were nice enough to make this and I probably should cut it. It's gonna be kind of a lot to put. In my mouth at this hour here Bob looks amazing. Oh, incredible. Fantastic. Becky. Naya is the place. Got some flowers coming up in our next stop. Oh, OK, well, we'll let you finish eating that and we'll see you in a little bit. All right. All right. For some Mets fans.

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Mark8AML314_2025-03-14-08-24-30

All right, we made it to Friday. It's time for Main Street, Connecticut, a chance to showcase all our local towns and cities have to offer. And today we're in Dairy Ann. News 12 Connecticut's, uh, Mark Sudall is at Nielsen's Florist and Garden Shop with more forest. Oh, looks like you got some pretty flowers behind you, Mark. Oh really some great colors here, Becky. I mean just some fantastic flowers, good stuff here at Nielsen's. They are right on the Post Road right off I-95. They've been here forever, 80 years, and really are a staple here in the Dairy In community. Joining me this morning, three lovely ladies. We're gonna start off with Ray A Ward this morning. Uh, tell us about, uh, getting into this busy time for you and you have some, some. Coming up here, right? Yes, we do actually every Friday we do 50% off cut flowers right now walk-in cooler here and then every Sunday we have 50% off all kids. And what are your hours? We at the moment are 9 to 5 for winter hours, but as soon as it starts getting busy in April, we are 8 to 5 Monday to Saturday and 9 to 5 on Sunday. Yeah, as we know, once we turn the clocks ahead, that's when things really start to get busy here. And to talk a little. bit about bringing spring into your home. Michelle is going to give us a little update on that. What do you have for us? Yes, Mark. So we have these early spring bulb baskets and flowering plants. It's a great way to see the plants grow and also enjoy fragrance. Like everybody loves the smell of hyacinths, and we can plant these in our garden after they're done blooming. So it's a great time. To get excited about spring, celebrate it with pansies, um, scents of Dianthus and our hellebores as well. We have these wonderful um arrangements of drop-ins that we have done all the time so people could come in and see all this wonderful uh color and that's what spring is all about color, right? We celebrate spring blooming plants and trees. Why not? Well, now don't steal Vivian's thunder here because Vivian is going to talk about color. What are you going to tell us? Well, right now, if you can't find it outside, we provide it for you on the inside. We're exclusive to everywhere in Fairfield County about all of our silks. If you see the showroom is packed. We've got everything you can imagine that you could put together to make your home feel and look a little bit more like spring. Inside instant gratification and it has a place in your home and it has a place next to Austin Michelle's beautiful things. We also have a promotion going on this month where if you bring in your container, we'll make it up for you and what is it, Gray? 2020% off custom silk designs. And so our team is ready here for you. Come in and see us at Nielsen's. Wow. And real quick before we go, Michelle, you told me that you guys also do some videos. Yeah, we do. You'll see me occasionally and I'll be talking and featuring different things at the time. Maybe it's green plants inside. I want to educate everybody how to keep plants alive in the outdoors as well, you know, how do we plant up planters and stuff. So I love doing it. It's fun. It's my passion to educate people and get them involved with the kids too. All right, Michelle, Raya, Vivian, thank you so much. Spring is on the way. Get your flowers, Becky. Oh, absolutely beautiful. All right, Mark, thank you. Thanks, ladies.

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