Kaffé 1870 wants to be your deli-sandwich ‘destination’

Jeff Hardill, Leigh Irvine, and Tom Werbo (right) have been hard at work keeping Kaffé 1870 running despite the pandemic. Stuart Benson photo

By Stuart Benson

When Kaffé 1870 closed preemptively on Aug. 3, following news of possible COVID-19 contact at The Village House in Wakefield, Leigh Irvine and Jeff Hardill, co-owners of Kaffé 1870, were only concerned about the safety of their staff and clientele.

“We share one staff member with The Village House and there's just so much crosstown traffic between the two of us,” Irvine explained. “So we decided we would just wait and let contact-tracing do its job.”

Irvine explained that the staff member had worked a shift between the possible contact at The Village House and their announcement on Facebook about the possible contact, so the choice to err on the side of caution and close was a clear one. However, re-o