Something shifted on Strickland Road this spring, and unless you drive past 39 Strickland on a weekday morning you might have missed it. The Bush-Holley House came back online in April after roughly six months of environmental upgrades, and the Greenwich Historical Society campus around it has been running at full weekend capacity ever since.
That is a smaller news item than a new restaurant opening on Greenwich Avenue. It is also, for anyone who lives in Cos Cob, the piece that finally makes the Strickland corridor cohere as a summer half-day. The renovation at Green & Tonic on East Putnam wrapped a few weeks earlier. Toby's, the café inside the restored 1805 building on the Historical Society campus, has been open the whole time. For the first summer in a while, the corner works as one thing rather than three.
The reopening that reset the corner
The Bush-Holley House, a National Historic Landmark and centerpiece of the Greenwich Historical Society, closed to the public on Oct. 1 for environmental upgrades designed to preserve its collections and improve the visitor experience, and the historic home was expected to reopen in April to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The reopening is not a soft one. To commemorate the 250th anniversary, the Historical Society is highlighting the experiences of David Bush and his family during the American Revolution, 1777-1783, with visitors exploring the first floor of the Bush-Holley House and learning how the Revolutionary War impacted the family and how the decisions they made during and after the conflict shaped their lives.
There is a second layer running alongside it. Senior Curator Kathy Craughwell-Varda leads exhibition tours of Fashioning America: 250 Years of Greenwich Style, with tours Tuesday through Sunday at 11, 1:00, 2:00 and 3:00 pm. For a resident who has toured Bush-Holley before, this is the reason to go back. The house interpretation is new, the gallery show is new, and both are scheduled to move on eventually. Admission runs $15 for adults and $10 for seniors, students, and youth ages 6-18, with free entry for members, children under 5, and active military, and free admission on the first Wednesday of every month.
Why the walk works now
Strickland Road runs a few hundred yards from the Historical Society campus at 47 Strickland down to East Putnam Avenue, which is where the Hub begins. That is a real walk, not a driving errand strung together with parking. The pieces that make it worth doing on foot only lined up recently.
Here is the order that actually flows on a Saturday, before it gets hot:
- Coffee and a bowl at the renovated Green & Tonic on East Putnam. The space reads cleaner and more considered than before, with sage wainscoting, white subway tile, warm wood floors, and plants on every shelf, and the salad bar counter now anchors the service area, staffed and stocked with a full array of greens, grains, proteins, and toppings.
- The 11 a.m. Fashioning America tour at the Historical Society.
- A first-floor Bush-Holley House visit right after, while the curatorial context is still fresh.
- Lunch at Toby's café on the same campus, or a short walk over to the Hub if you want to sit down somewhere with a full menu.
Green & Tonic announced that beginning June 21, it will offer free iced coffee refills throughout the summer season, which turns the first stop into a lingerable one rather than a grab-and-go.
What Toby's is, if you have not been in
Most residents know the building without knowing its current use. Greenwich Historical Society restored an 1805 former railroad hotel, saloon, and residence to its former Italianate splendor, preserving original floorboards and recreating original wallpapers, and this building, called Toby's in honor of former proprietor Tobias Burke, now houses a carefully curated museum store and café. It sits directly on the campus, so a museum ticket and lunch happen in the same 200-foot radius. This is the piece the Strickland loop has needed. Before the campus restoration, the tour ended and you either drove somewhere or you were done.
The gallery hours are worth knowing before you plan around them. The site is open Wednesday through Sunday, 12 to 4, with Bush-Holley House access via docent-led tours only at 12, 1:30 and 3 p.m. Note that this differs from the Fashioning America tour times listed above, so if a specific tour matters to you, check both schedules against the day you are going.
Where the Hub sends you for the second half
If you skip Toby's and walk down to the intersection of East Putnam and Strickland, you land in the commercial strip most residents already know by heart. What is useful is not the list but the way the list divides. Cos Cob's dining density is heavier on casual than on fine dining, and the trick is knowing which mood each place actually solves for.
Fjord Fish Market, a community fixture since 1990 on East Putnam Ave., serves high-end, responsibly-sourced seafood with separate menus for fresh sushi and clambake, while Little Pub Greenwich offers tavern classics amid a lively atmosphere, and other casual options include Joey B's for hot dogs, burgers, grilled melts, and milkshakes, and Chicken Joe's for fried potato cones and hand cut chicken nuggets. Fjord's clambake menu is the one that surprises out-of-town guests who assume Cos Cob is a bedroom and nothing else. For a sit-down dinner rather than a lunch, the answer is farther east. Louie's Italian Restaurant & Bar on River Road serves authentic dishes in an intimate dining room, and residents can top off the night with dessert from Gelato & Cioccolato.
The Green & Tonic reopening, in context
Reopenings usually get one news cycle and then fade into the run of Tuesdays. This one drew more than that. The line was already out the door by noon when Green & Tonic reopened its Cos Cob location on Tuesday after a renovation, and the crowd showed up. The brand has earned multiple Best of the Gold Coast Connecticut Awards, including Best Juice Bar and Best Health Organic Food, and the Cos Cob location draws the kind of regular crowd that notices when a renovation is done well. The relevant point for a resident is not the ribbon-cutting, it is the salad bar. That is a format change, not a paint job, and it changes what "quick lunch on East Putnam" means going forward.
The Saturday-morning alternative
Not every summer weekend needs a museum. If the forecast is right and you want the walk before the heat, the answer is a short drive north.
Mianus River Park is one of the largest preserved natural areas in lower Fairfield County, and one of Greenwich's most worthwhile places to spend a Saturday morning. The pairing that works is early Mianus, then back down to Green & Tonic for iced coffee and a late breakfast before the East Putnam parking gets impossible. If the family wants a longer day on the water rather than in the woods, the Greenwich Water Club sits at 49 River Road, a five-minute drive from the Hub.
A practical Cos Cob Saturday, in order
For the reader who wants the whole thing on one page rather than in prose:
| Time | Stop | Why this slot |
|---|---|---|
| 8:30 a.m. | Mianus River Park | Cool air, empty trails, out before the crowd arrives |
| 10:00 a.m. | Green & Tonic, East Putnam | New salad bar, free summer iced coffee refills |
| 11:00 a.m. | Fashioning America tour, Historical Society | Curator-led, only runs Tue–Sun |
| 12:30 p.m. | Bush-Holley House, first-floor tour | New Revolutionary War interpretation for the 250th |
| 1:30 p.m. | Toby's café, on campus | Same 200-foot radius as the tour |
| 3:00 p.m. | Fjord Fish Market pickup for dinner | Sushi menu or the clambake for a family cookout |
| Evening | Louie's on River Road, dessert at Gelato & Cioccolato | Sit-down close to home |
None of these stops are new to Cos Cob. What is new is that they cohere. A summer weekend that used to feel like three separate decisions now runs as one route, and it runs through the corner most residents drive past every day without stopping.
A note for anyone showing the neighborhood off
The Bush-Holley reopening will get its heaviest visitor traffic between Memorial Day and Labor Day, and the Fashioning America tour slots do fill on rainy Saturdays. If you have family visiting for the summer, book the tour a day or two ahead rather than walking in. For everyone else, the point is simpler. A quiet reopening on Strickland Road reshaped what a Cos Cob weekend looks like this year, and it is worth walking the loop at least once before the season ends.
If you are thinking about how your own corner of Cos Cob fits into the broader Greenwich market, or you simply want a neighbor's read on what your home would trade at today, Konstantine Wells is available to talk. Request a Free Home Valuation or Schedule a Consultation.
