Change Happens, With a General Store

   “Here baby,â€� Maureen Jones says in throaty tones to a 28-year old carpenter and landscaper (she calls lots of people baby). “What have you got there?â€�

   A New York Post, James Smith tells her, coffee, an egg sandwich. He forks over $7.54.

   Smith, comes into the Warren General Store almost every day.

   Many other people do too ­­— morning walkers, contractors on their way to work, older women, one in Ann Taylor-like sportswear picking up sweets for her visiting grandchildren, another in loose-woven earth tones and a chunky necklace; girls, daintily pierced here and there and on their way to Lake Waramaug in short shorts; and one gentleman from nearby New Preston, Owen Moore, who was taking his 1930 Model-A Ford for an early morning spin. All of them are here for a paper, or coffee, bacon and eggs, maybe some aspirin, pear-flavored balsamic vinegar (man, is that good) and the  local news.    

   Then there’s the table piled with cakes, scones, biscuits, cookies, tarts and baguettes, every bite, except the bagels, baked on the premises.

   Now Warren, more name than town to outsiders, always seemed short on commerce to people driving over the mountain to New Milford, say, or Washington.

   Then “Moâ€� (as her staff calls her) and Cliff Jones bought and renovated, extensively, an18th-century, onetime parsonage, opening the  glamorous and luxe Rooster Tail Inn and Tavern where routes 45 and 343 intersect.   

   That was not enough for the Joneses, though, an indefagitable pair. They rented commercial space across the street from the inn, space owned by millionaire retail executive Joseph Cicio. That’s the fellow who bought up most of Warren’s tiny business district back in 2004, a move that prompted comedian Joan Rivers to gush to The New York Times that “someone smart is going to come along and put in four or five antique[s] shops, maybe an art gallery, and a fabulous inn and restaurant across the street.â€�

   Some townspeople figured a gas station and a post office might be handy, and writer Blake Levitt, a longtime resident here, sent the Times a testy note, claiming that “Antiques are already in good use here in the same homes where they have been for centuries.â€�

   But what the Joneses opened on Cicio’s property was the Warren General Store. It is right next to a single antiques store (a jaunty place with a four-foot plastic pickle hanging from the front porch one day last week).

   The Warren General Store is, well, pretty general, a welcoming, open, light place stocking organic whole wheat flour, several kinds of organic peanut butter plus the heavy favorite, Skippy, sold down to a single jar on the shelf the days I visited, cold cuts, teapots, insect repellant, Pepperidge Farm bread, milk, eggs, hand-packed ice cream, sodas, of course, and a variety of newspapers from International Business Daily to The Lakeville Journal.  

  It is pretty, this store and cafe, painted pale pink and green, with comfy leather chairs and roomy tables, a help-yourself kind of hospitality and jolly people taking orders for omelettes at breakfast and Mediterranean tuna wraps at lunchtime. There’s music. There’s a flat-screen TV, and there’s an ATM. Strangers nod; regulars gossip; and there is Mo Jones, her wide blue eyes ringed with mascara, greeting, hugging, calling people baby and bringing it all together, like a counselor at summer camp.

   Except she’s there all year round.

   This is the first in a series of stories we are writing about breakfast  (the meal served in the most interesting places).