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Table 24, Rutland’s newest restaurant offers basic, well-prepared, well-seasoned. American classics, like roasted chicken, steaks, ribs, prime rib, burgers, daily fish selection. Veggie burgers are an option, and there’s a mushroom pasta, but for the most part, the menu is an omnivore’s delight. Even the mac ‘n’ cheese has bacon in it … not that there’s anything wrong with that.
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Montpelier - “I like flavor,” proclaims Marci Kelley, chef/manager of Coffee Corner, Montpelier’s cornerstone diner. She’s speaking of flavors of the palate, of course, sweet and salty and all that, but she might well also be speaking of local flavor, of the people who stream through the door all day long.
“The variety of people who come in here is amazing,” she says. “Artists, lawyers, accountants …” For this range of patrons, Kelley creates classic diner fare and updated twists on old standbys, all geared toward local products and a healthier spin on the greasy spoon.
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It’s not often I ignore “No trespassing” signs, but here goes.
When I first started writing this column, Alan Frye of Three Tomatoes in downtown Rutland passed along a message that he didn’t want to be reviewed. I understand his concern. A bad review can linger like the smell from a fish fry. And in this era of the Internet, it’s more like a fish dinner where you forget to take out the trash with the bones in it and go on vacation for two weeks in the summer.
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I’m usually telling visitors about well-kept secrets known only to the locals.
Today’s column is a reverse image of that. Johnny’s Boys is one of the top breakfast places around, known and beloved by folks from Boston and New York who visit Killington to ski, but scarcely known among we valley-dwellers.
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Road trip!
Cue ZZ Top on the 8-track: Easin’ down the road in a new Cadillac/Got a fine fox in the front, got three more in the back/They’re wearin’ short dresses, sportin’ spike-heel shoes/Smokin’ Lucky Strikes and wearin’ nylons too/Said we’re ba-a-a-a-ad, we’re nationwide.
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I’m in the farmers’ market in downtown Rutland, talking to the folks setting up for the afternoon.
Generally, they’ve escaped the worst of the storm; one reported that meant building a berm with a bulldozer to keep from losing a crop to flooding, but otherwise, the rain was overdue. Nobody lost their crops and if the sun comes out soon, it’ll be good for the growing produce.
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“I was in a hurry to get back to the office so my volunteer taste testers could get to work on the rest of Lenny’s offerings: Meatball sub, sausage parm sub, chili dog and Italian sausage with peppers and onions. For a cart the size of my office, Lenny puts out an impressive array of choices … and those were just the specials.
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Ah, competition. Ain’t it grand?
Center Street in downtown Rutland has suddenly become Caffeine Alley.
For approximately forever, it seemed like every time the Coffee Exchange changed hands or looks, its hours got shorter — a supply and demand thing, we were told. And that’s just fine if you’re a morning person, but for those of us on a 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. kind of shift, it has been a drag not being able to grab a java after midafternoon.
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BENSON — Do yourself a favor this summer, and go to the Wheel Inn in Benson. Especially on Wednesday’s.
I could stop right there, but you might not believe me, so I’ll give you the details.
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Decades of living in tourist country have conditioned me to thinking of public places as tourist/nontourist. It’s not that I won’t go to a “tourist” place, but I prefer them in shoulder season or off-season, when I don’t have to stand in line.
It’s not as extreme in Rutland as it was living in southern Maine, when most places east of I-95 were so busy from Memorial Day through Labor Day as to remind me of the Yogiism, “Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.” There are exceptions to any rule, however, and for me there’s a very short list of tourist-oriented businesses I’ll frequent in season.Decades of living in tourist country have conditioned me to thinking of public places as tourist/nontourist. It’s not that I won’t go to a “tourist” place, but I prefer them in shoulder season or off-season, when I don’t have to stand in line.
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I took a working vacation last week, which is one of the hazards of living seven blocks from the office. How folks who live above their business stay sane would be good fodder for a psych dissertation. I spent a couple of days hunkered down in the newsroom working on a special project (you could tell I was on vacation because I only shaved every second day and I was at somebody else’s desk) and just hung around the house for a couple more days, tidying up my files there and so on. The highlight was fixing the leaky porch roof, having dodged it by using the line “When it rains, it’s too wet to fix it and when it’s dry, it’s good as any man’s house” until a hole opened up immediately above the spot where you stand with a key to open the back door.
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