By Melissa Karen Sances • Photos by Nikki Gardner Studio
Published In Northampton Living | June 2026

They’ve been chasing their first summer together for 16 years.

Danny McColgan was 19 and Isaac Weiner 21 when they met through a mutual friend and felt an instant connection.

“We never really left each other’s side after that day,” said McColgan.

Northampton would fall in love with the couple who’d open Familiars and the Pie Bar. But they’d fall first.

In 2010, Weiner, who studied philosophy and religion at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., lived on a Gothic-style campus where he and McColgan spent hot days “underneath the shade of a giant chapel,” discussing their mutual love of Greek mythology and their individual passions.

Raised in a household where his mother was Southern Methodist and his father was Jewish, Weiner didn’t care for the rituals he was introduced to, but was mesmerized by the breadth of religion and the endless ways to interpret faith.

McColgan, who attended Skidmore College and would soon transfer to the Massachusetts College of Art and Design (Mass Art), committed history to memory by placing unforgettable works of art in certain time.

The verdant campus was virtually empty that summer, so their attraction was a secret playing out in the open.

“In our own heads we felt like the early English scholars, where they were all gay and would never talk about it,” explained Weiner.

McColgan, who lived with his parents in Springfield, Mass. at the time, would drive to the campus nearly every day.

“We were young enough where we didn’t necessarily have intense responsibilities,” he said. “It was the last true summer that we think of when we think of our childhood.”

“We had no responsibilities,” said Weiner. “It was us against the world from the start.”

Romanticizing Work

The two can finish each other’s sentences, but always make space if one wants to add something. After growing up together, they use the pronoun “we” as a matter of fact and seem to function as a well-oiled machine, but it still surprises them that their dream to own their own business has been realized once, let alone twice. They poke fun at how innocent they once were, that idyllic summer a hopeful fantasy and a precious memory.

After Weiner graduated from Trinity and McColgan transferred to Mass Art, the two moved to Boston, where Weiner worked at a coffee shop and McColgan specialized in tea. Their crafts, and the knowledge that both required, were intellectual endeavors that they continued to romanticize.

“In reality, I was working in a mall,” said McColgan with a laugh.

One day, after a family vacation to Colorado, they looked at each other and said, “I want to move out of Boston.”

Weiner knew about Northampton from his time at Trinity, and McColgan had grown up in Springfield, where Northampton was known as “the cool city where all the artsy, interesting people were.”

Then in their mid-twenties, in what “may have been their last stupid, young-person decision” they moved to the city without securing jobs.

Developing a Dream

“We thought all the opportunities would await us,” said Weiner.

They quickly realized that they’d have to manifest their own business. Weiner had a long talk with his father, who told him, “Look: You can do this and fail, but you have to do it now because you’re young enough to recover on the other side of it.”

For the next two years, Weiner worked on a business plan – which he said was as fun to write as his college thesis – and even more illuminating as the couple’s strengths and weaknesses became clear on paper. McColgan worked as a manager at Urban Outfitters, supporting Weiner during their leap of faith.

But after getting discouraged because he couldn’t find a space, Weiner texted McColgan and said, “This isn’t going to work.”

McColgan was pissed.

He texted Weiner, “You haven’t been spending all this time to develop this dream of ours to just give up.”

It was raining out when he announced to his staff that he was taking a 10-minute break before marching out of the store without an umbrella.

There was a diner on Strong Ave. and he’d seen a “For Lease” sign in the window.

“It was definitely a space that everyone was familiar with,” said McColgan. “You can’t walk through that part of town and not see this lunch car wedged between two buildings.”

Soon, the former diner would become Familiars.

“I wasn’t 30 yet and the lease was a 10-year term,” said Weiner. “I thought, ‘Wow, I’m signing a lease that’s more than a third of the life I’ve already lived.’”

Finding Community

Once Familiars opened in February 2019, the couple spent seven days a week at their new business, McColgan manning the register and Weiner working in the kitchen.

“People don’t think of the person asking if they want their BLT on sourdough as a business owner,” noted McColgan, who said that he and Weiner built community by making themselves familiar faces.

The establishment served comfort food and specialty coffee and tea.

When a year went by, they thought they’d found “lightning in a bottle,” said Weiner.

Then the pandemic happened.

For three years, Familiars offered takeout and pick-up, establishing itself as a trusted neighbor.

During those dark days, the couple started checking in with other business owners on the street, realizing that they would sink or swim together.

One of Northampton’s most joyful events, Summer on Strong, a summer-long block party, came out of the relationships the businesses forged out of necessity and mutual respect.

Weiner and McColgan emerged stronger than ever and bought another beloved business in Florence, the Pie Bar, which serves slices of pie and specialty coffee.

Both establishments are thriving.

The couple, who bought a house in Sunderland, will spend the summer “enjoying the perks of the community,” said McColgan.

Every Wednesday night they go to Homestead. They frequent the Eastside Grill for “Sunday sundaes” and enjoy being in the middle of Summer on Strong.

While nothing compares to three months of philosophizing and falling in love, now they’re part of something enduring.