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Date: 10/5/2021
HATFIELD – A tasty meal is harder to find in Hatfield since Double B’s Bar and Grill closed. That’ll change in the spring when Bill Wooldridge and Justin Killeen, new owners of the red brick building, open the second outlet of their budding hospitality empire.
“We own the Olde Mill Inn, across the river,” said Wooldridge. “We bought that in January and renovated it. It’s been in operation since May. This property is kind of adjacent to that.”
Wooldridge and his business partner, Killeen, appeared before the Select Board on Sept. 28 to request a transfer of the liquor license from the Double B to the planned eatery at the corner of Prospect Street and Prospect Court. They’ll probably begin flipping pizzas and tapping kegs when they open on April 1, 2022. Menus have yet to be printed, though, so the specifics about libations and dishes have still to be decided.
Serving pizza would revisit Killeen’s roots. The 31-year-old entrepreneur’s first job was as a waiter in an Italian restaurant. After graduation from UMass Amherst, he gravitated toward the fitness industry, became a personal trainer, took over a boutique gym, then in 2013 started 50/50 Fitness/Nutrition. That’s where he met Wooldridge.
“I own a gym in Hadley and started venturing off into real estate, buying apartment complexes and things like that,” Killeen said. “And that proceeded into the hospitality industry. Bill Wooldridge, he actually came to the gym – I’ve known him about 10 years now – and more recently we reconnected and started talking about other ways to join together on a project. He’d recently retired from UMass and was interested in finding another project to get involved with.”
The partners share business interests, but in important ways are opposites. Wooldridge began a career in academics before Killeen was born. Killeen works with the body, Wooldridge with the mind.
“I was a professor at UMass for 35 years,” Wooldridge said. He specialized in business management. Asked if his academic work will make him a better manager, he said, “It might give me some insights…I did one thing for 35 years, and I guess I was ready for a change and this is it.”
Wooldridge may have learned that good timing is important for business success. While the COVID-19 pandemic may have prevented others from opening businesses, Wooldridge and Killeen think the pandemic helped their business efforts.
According to Killeen, there was “momentum with the Olde Mill (Inn), which opened with the first lifting of restrictions from COVID[-19]. We had a lot of people looking for someplace to go.”
Wooldridge agreed. For him, the pandemic created the chance to enter the hospitality industry.
“Both of these opportunities, the inn and the restaurant, presented somewhat because of COVID-19. The inn was on the market, and that may have been because of COVID[-19]. We opened the inn in the middle of May. The thinking then was COVID[-19] was [going away] in a few months ... but I think we benefitted because in May and June people were ready to travel again, see the family.”
The partners have families of their own, albeit at opposite ends of the process. Killeen and his wife, Meaghan, have a newborn. Wooldridge has a grown daughter and is married to Linda Shea. His son is deceased, a victim of the opioid epidemic, and is often in his thoughts.
“I would not want to forget to mention him. His name was Andrew,” Wooldridge said. “It was a struggle and we loved him dearly.”
A family-friendly restaurant is the goal now for the partners. According to Killeen, the Hatfield area needs nice restaurants where moms and dads can bring the kids.
We’ll be working on this the rest this winter, trying to rebrand it, because it has a long history. We’ll be respectful of its history,” Killeen said. “And try to create something a little bit different.”