Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1067657
NORTHSHOREMAG.COM 32 JANUARY + FEBRUARY 2019 / F A C E S + P L A C E S / Downtown Andover, with its historic brick buildings, bustling boutiques, cozy restaurants, and heavy foot traffic, looks every inch the quaint New England town that it is. Andover residents feel immense pride in their downtown and go out of their way to support local businesses. "In Andover, 'shop local' isn't just a saying," says Danielle Berdahn, who owns the restaurant Yella with her hus- band, chef Carlo Berdahn. Yet over the past several months, "shop local" has become more than a way of life in Andover. It's also become a rallying cry as small businesses try to recover from the Columbia Gas disaster, which plunged Andover, Lawrence, and North Andover into long-term recovery mode. In addition to homeowners who have endured weeks and months without gas service, small businesses have suffered, from ripped-up streets to gridlocked traffic and a lack of parking that prevented patrons from visiting. ere was also the long wait for restored gas service, safety inspections, and, in many cases, new equipment and appli- ances, like furnaces and huge commercial stoves. Months later, many businesses have only just started to reopen. Restaurants were hit particularly hard as they waited for gas service to return. e day of the disaster, Andover chefs saw huge flames suddenly surge from stovetops in their restaurants, prompting mid-meal evacuations once they realized the wide- spread scope of the problem. Days later, when it was safe to reenter, owners of those restaurants found an eerie, postapocalyptic scene of abandoned meals and commercial refrigerators and freezers filled with food D A T E O F S E T T L E M E N T 1642 D A T E O F I N C O R P O R A T I O N 1646 A R E A 32.1 square miles P O P U L A T I O N 36,490 Z I P C O D E 01810 M E D I A N H O U S E H O L D I N C O M E $ 118,324 Shawsheen Preschool, Bancroft Elementary School, High Plain Elementary School, South Elementary School, West Elementary School, Sanborn Elementary School, Doherty Middle School, West Middle School, Wood Hill Middle School, Andover High School, Greater Lawrence Technical School Poet Anne Bradstreet; actor Michael Chiklis; Red Sox star player Jim Rice; entertainer Jay Leno; fourth U.S. postmaster general Samuel Osgood S C H O O L S N O T A B L E R E S I D E N T S THE DETAILS Carlo and Danielle Berdahn of Yella in Andover. PHOTOGRAPH BY SARAH JORDAN MCCAFFERY