CHESHIRE, Mass. — Common Table is a transportation device. Walking into the month-old restaurant on South Street in Cheshire, surrounded by the quiet of the sleepy church across the street and the still trees all around, one might feel a shock of displacement on discovering a packed dining room, buzzing with the  energy and life of a city several orders of magnitude larger.

 

Nevertheless, partners CJ Garner and Marcus Lyon hope locals and visitors alike will feel at home here, where their take on "modern American comfort food" has already found a solid base of regulars in its five weeks of operation.

 

The 40-odd seat room, with tall white wainscoting against gray walls, and a bold white-tiled bar, has a streamlined farmhouse feel that complements the simple yet inventive menu Garner and his kitchen crew present each week.

 

A curated mix of pop tracks and classic rock songs lays a backdrop for the many conversations mingling throughout the space.

 

At the beginning of the year this room bore no resemblance to the sleek, welcoming restaurant it is today. Serving as a makeshift storage space for its owner after the last in a string of pizza joints closed here in 2017, the space had to be completely updated and renovated to be usable, let alone attractive.

 

Garner and Lyon, accompanied by Garner's father and friend Bob, installed new plumbing, new heating and cooling, new electrical, and a lot of new kitchen equipment. A wall was built to serve as the bar's backdrop, the drop ceiling was removed and raised, and the ceiling was vaulted over half of the dining room.

 

Windows all along the dining room let in beautiful daylight during lunch, and at night the darkened space is cozy and intimate.