Beloved Restaurant Returning To Hartford 6 Years After Pandemic Closure

HARTFORD, CT — A restaurant name that was part of Hartford for generations is now returning.

Carbone’s, whose roots in the capital date to the Great Depression and whose longtime Hartford restaurant became a casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, will return to the city next week with a new location at 39 Front St.

It is named Carbone's Hartford.

The fourth generation of the Carbone family will celebrate the restaurant’s opening with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday, Sept. 1, at 11 a.m.

The opening marks a homecoming nearly nine decades after brothers Charlie and Tony Carbone started the family business on Franklin Avenue in 1938.

What began as a modest Hartford restaurant grew over the decades, developing into a high-end dining destination by the 1960s and becoming one of Connecticut’s best-known family-owned restaurant businesses.

For generations of Hartford-area diners, Carbone’s was also a gathering place.

Its tables hosted family celebrations and business dinners and drew elected officials, athletes and celebrities.

That long run in Hartford came to an end during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Carbone’s closed its Hartford restaurant in 2020 amid the shutdown and has not operated in the city since.

Now, six years later, the family is bringing the Carbone name back downtown.

The new restaurant is on Front Street in Hartford’s entertainment district, near the Connecticut Convention Center and Connecticut Science Center.

The area where the restaurant was planned was previously occupied by Apple Cinemas, which operated a dining movie theater at 39 Front St. It closed in 2023.

The Hartford project received about $2.3 million in government loans to help finance the endeavor.

Carbone’s has continued operating outside Hartford following the closure of its city restaurant and currently has locations in Bloomfield and Rocky Hill.

According to the family, the new Hartford restaurant will combine the traditions and hospitality associated with Carbone’s over nearly nine decades with a restaurant designed for today’s downtown.

Tuesday’s opening celebration is expected to bring together multiple generations of the Carbone family along with Hartford city and community leaders and representatives of the business and hospitality industries.

For Carbone’s, the Front Street opening begins another chapter in the same city where the family restaurant story started 88 years ago.

From Nov. 9, 2023: 'Iconic Restaurant To Be Resurrected In Hartford: Reports