MILLERTON — Nearly a year and a half after opening The Dig in Millerton, Katja Schultz has decided to close the café and store for good on Friday, Dec. 31. The village resident poured her heart and energy into creating an accessible, comfortable community space at 3 Main St. Yet when 2022 arrives, the village will find that cheerful space of everyday enjoyment vacant, another casualty of the COVID pandemic and the economy that has fallen ill alongside it.
The Dig
Schultz and her husband James teamed up with their friend, Raquel Madar, to open The Dig in August 2020. Since then, it has become a place where people can purchase groceries sourced from local vendors and do so much more.
They can engage in community events, purchase artwork by local artists, treat themselves to fresh smoothies and crepes and pass time in its relaxing outdoor patio space.
Working alongside the owners are Webutuck High School students Kaitlyn Cope and Avery Wickwire, multiple volunteers and members of Schultz’s family, including her mother Natalie Pere.
Yet even with The Dig’s initial success, Schultz understood the all-consuming nature of running a small business, especially in Millerton. Over time, she said it became obvious that she and her mom couldn’t sustain The Dig wasn’t, between the time commitment and the challenge of hiring people in today’s climate.
Deciding it was a lot for her and her family, Schultz said. “We had met our goals and I felt like this was the right time to close. It felt like we had a good season one and we didn’t want to have a bad season two.”
Despite their loss, Schultz said she and her mother will be celebrating till the end of the month — in other words, they plan to go out with a bang.
The Dig will be open Fridays through Mondays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., with a blowout sale before Christmas and plenty of fun before closing on the 31st.
Considering her future beyond The Dig, Schultz said her first goal is to ski as much as possible with her children and enjoy her weekends with them. Though she’ll no longer be an active merchant in the village business community, she wants to shift her focus and time to learn how to help other local businesses thrive.
Boiling the community’s needs down to one word, Schultz said she believes the Millerton merchants need more connection. She consulted with Lynn Caponera, who owns the building at 3 Main St., about the community’s needs, along with other Millerton business owners about how to stimulate more commerce.
Shultz has also discussed how to offer incentives in town “that are different but are mostly needed” to draw people in. She also wants to highlight the community’s existing resources to attract more visitors and figure out how to translate the digital world of connections into actual experiences.
Going forward, Schultz, who remains open to learning new information, hopes to bridge people together with new ideas — almost as a community liaison. Recognizing the devotion local business owners pour into their enterprises and the challenge of making a profit these days, she wants to make a difference with what she learned from running The Dig and help other merchants prosper.
3 Main St.
Before The Dig, 3 Main St. was previously occupied by a small grocer, the Millerton Mercantile. Caponera explained she originally bought the building with the intention of having her nephew and nieces run it as a small farm grocery store for residents who couldn’t drive to a supermarket.
Opening in the summer of 2019, Caponera’s nephew, Stephen Murphy, managed the Millerton Mercantile for just more a year before it closed.
Based on her experience, Caponera said running a business in Millerton is a dream, given all the support fellow merchants give each other. However, there are challenges with limited parking in the village and the enormous time commitment.
“For the people who actually run it, you really have to have it be your only job because it really is a full-time job,” Caponera said. “What happened with us, we thought it would sort of seamlessly run itself, but there’s so much involved in running anything to do with food. It was really a labor-intensive operation.”
A shifting Main Street
From what she’s heard from other vendors who occupied 3 Main St., Thorunn Kristjansdottir, who heads up the Millerton Business Alliance (MBA), recognizes the parking challenge, especially at the top of Main Street,which has “nothing but office spaces around it.” With The Dig leaving that space, Kristjansdottir said there’s no major draw to that part of Main Street. Instead, the business community appears to taper off around the businesses located on Railroad Plaza, where the Harney Tea Room is with Golden Wok and Country Gardeners Florist.
There is the popular Moonwake Yoga, though, on the second floor at 5 Main St., run by owner Kate Shanley (formerly called Buddhi Tribe).
“Whenever there’s a new business that opens or someone moves to town, we’re always excited… to have a new offering to the mix of offerings available in Millerton,” Kristjansdottir said. “The business owner has to make the decision. No matter what that decision is [when a business closes], it’s always a loss for the community.”
Along with filling the vacant space on Main Street, Kristjansdottir said she hopes “something opens up that has a draw for itself and be another flavor to add to the mixture of Millerton.”
“I always get a little concerned when businesses close west on Main Street,” said Mayor Jenn Najdek, “but we’ve been pretty fortunate. Usually when something closes, it’s not too long before something else takes its place.”
Asked what she’d like to see as the space’s next prospective business, Caponera said it would be great to have a store similar to The Dig or the Millerton Mercantile — something that won’t create a lot of noise and perhaps offer a gathering spot and local groceries.
Caponera advised anyone interested in renting 3 Main St. to get in touch with agent Brad Rebillard at Dutchess County Realty in Millerton.
From left, workers at The Dig Avery Wickwire, Natalie Pere, Kaitlyn Cope, Zachary Pere and co-owner Katja Schultz greeted customers at the popular 3 Main St. site in Millerton. Photo by Aly Morrissey Photography
Max Amsterdam reaches out to pet a red panda at the Trevor-Lovejoy Zoo on Millbrook School’s campus on Wednesday, Dec. 17. Amsterdam is a senior at Millbrook School and serves as the zoo’s head student curator.
Stahl said the zoo has been engaged in a long-range master planning process for several years as part of preparing for its next Association of Zoos and Aquariums accreditation review in 2027. “We knew we had to make a plan and look toward the future,” Stahl said. “We had to think about what more we could be doing for the animals, for students and for the community.”
Construction is nearing completion on a new animal holding barn, the first step toward housing off-exhibit animals. Funded by philanthropist Barbara Tober — whom Stahl described as the project’s “catalyst” — the facility is required under AZA accreditation standards. The holding barn will serve as a first stop for new animals required to quarantine before entering an exhibit. It will also safely house animals when enclosures are being repaired or when they need rehabilitation.
The new animal hospital, which zoo staff are referring to as an animal wellness center, is poised to be four times larger than the existing space. Stahl said the team is looking forward to dramatically expanding the zoo’s ability to treat animals on campus, eliminating the need to transport them off-site for procedures like X-rays or ultrasounds.
Max Amsterdam feeds a red panda at the Trevor-Lovejoy Zoo on the Millbrook School campus on Wednesday, Dec. 17. Amsterdam said he became interested in the school's zoo in his freshman year when he watched an older student perform a biopsy on a wolf that had passed away at the zoo.Photo by Aly Morrissey
Stahl said a primary goal of the master plan and the animal wellness center is to “bring the outside in.” The public will be allowed to watch certain procedures and operations to learn more about the veterinary work that goes on behind the scenes.
In addition to the zoo’s around-the-clock staff, rotating veterinarians visit the zoo each week to check on the animals and perform routine procedures. The current space is limited, and zoo staff are eager to have an expanded footprint.
“Right now we’re very limited space-wise,” Stahl said. “This new facility will let us have more space, more vets and more learning happening.”
Max Amsterdam has lived at the Millbrook School as a boarding student for four years and has held a working role at the zoo throughout that time. Today, in his senior year, he serves as the zoo’s head student curator — a coveted leadership role that requires a formal application and selection process.
When Amsterdam first applied to Millbrook School, the zoo was not front-of-mind. Although he wanted to become a veterinarian as a young child, the desire dissipated until he set foot in the Trevor-Lovejoy Zoo as a freshman.
“I watched a senior perform a biopsy on a red wolf that had passed away from a uterine tumor,” Amsterdam said. “I didn’t even know that students could do that. I realized right then how incredible this place was and the zoo became my thing.”
Over his four years at Millbrook, Amsterdam has assisted veterinarians, shadowed medical procedures, conducted necropsies and even traveled with staff to national AZA conferences. “As you grow, you gain a relationship with the staff and vets, and when they know you can handle it, they let you do more,” he said.
With graduation on the horizon and plans to study biology at Bucknell, Amsterdam admits he’s a little jealous of the future students that will benefit from the new zoo facilities.
At the end of the day, he is grateful for the hands-on experience he has received in his leadership roles at the zoo. Millbrook School is the only high school in the country with an AZA-accredited zoo on its campus.
“I’m jealous, but I’m also so grateful that the zoo got that donation because it’s needed,” Amsterdam smiled. “We deserve it, too. It’s a lot of hard work by the staff and students — it’s 200% effort seven days a week, and not many people see that.”
