Vergennes Laundry is on the move, but not far. The wood-fired bakery and café will close its original location — a former laundromat — after service on Sunday, August 17. In mid- to late September, it will reopen one block away at 205 Main Street, the longtime Jackman Fuels office.
Owner Nadia Dole announced the move in an Instagram Reel on August 4. The new space will have “everything exactly the same and more,” she told Seven Days on Monday, including expanded seating, regular dinner service, and a larger market with fish, meat, produce and cheese.
The move was “not a choice that we made,” Dole said in her video statement. “Our landlords, Didier and Julianne, decided not to renew our lease.”
Julianne and Didier Murat founded Vergennes Laundry at 247 Main Street in 2010 and sold it to Christian Kruse, now owner of the Big Spruce in Richmond, in 2017. Dole purchased the bakery’s name, equipment, furnishings and contents from Kruse, who had operated there as Vergennes Laundry by CK.
Dole reopened Vergennes Laundry in January 2021 and put her stamp on the business with a small grocery section, sweet and savory pastries, breads from the wood-fired oven, and French- and Middle Eastern-influenced breakfast and lunch items. Her five-year lease is up at the end of the month.
She’ll retain the Vergennes Laundry name at the new space. “It is mine, and I worked very hard at it,” Dole said. “But it really belongs to the community, the people who come in and sit at the table.”
“I didn’t know what community was until I opened this shop,” she added.
The new location, between Rockers Pizzeria and Hare and the Dog liquor store, has similar large windows to the old one, and customers will recognize its banquette seating and other finishes. Currently under construction, it will feature a downstairs bakery and a small open kitchen in the café. There, the existing team of six will prepare dishes for brunch and Bistro Nights, which Dole plans to offer two or three nights a week, ideally Saturday through Monday, she said.
For now, the “wood-fired” part of the bakery’s sign will be crossed out; the large oven in the current location is set to be dismantled after the bakery closes. But Dole hopes to add an outdoor wood-fired oven in the alleyway of her new location someday, she said. “That’s the dream.”
This article appears in Aug 13-19, 2025.
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