Café Andiamo, a long-time staple downtown, has closed and the current owner said that while he has no plans to reopen, he hopes to find a buyer. “My wife and I own a home in Florida and want to spend more time there,” said David Stover. “We actually leave town on Monday.”
There was no advance announcement of the closure, but the popular coffee and sandwich shop, located at 206 S. Sixth St., has been dark for the past week and for sale signs recently appeared in the windows. “The restaurant is for sale, as is,” said Stover. “I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. If somebody wants to buy it, it’s negotiable. In 30 days, if somebody hasn’t stepped up, then we’ll start selling off the equipment.”
Stover said that he and his wife, Janet, have owned the business for more than 20 years, but also have quite a few other business ventures. FIRM, Inc. is located next door to Café Andiamo and serves as the parent company for the couple’s other businesses, which include employment background screening, fingerprinting services and association management across the country.
The other businesses will continue operations, with the Stover’s daughter and son-in-law taking over the management duties. “We’re saddened to be leaving downtown, but we’re moving our businesses to another location,” explained Stover. “We’re in the process of buying a building over in Lawrence Square.”
While the couple wasn’t involved in the day-to-day operations at Café Andiamo, Stover said they didn’t feel comfortable continuing to own the business, given their plans to spend more time outside of Springfield. “We’ve had others running it for us. We don’t work there; we have many other businesses that we attend to. But doing that from afar doesn’t seem to be the correct decision for us.”
And so Stover hopes to find a buyer to take over the restaurant, which he describes as turn-key. “You could buy it today and open it in the morning.”
