Hitting a hometown bar on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving is a holiday tradition that ranks up there with the turkey itself — and usually leads to sleeping well past the start of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade the next morning.
But hangovers are for the young, and my toddler definitely wakes me up before 8:30 a.m. So when I’m done brining turkey and rolling pie crust, I more often pop on a Kate Bush album and melt into the couch.
This year, Doma Bar could change my mind. The new cocktails-and-vinyl spot on Pine Street in Burlington has all the comfy couches and Kate Bush a girl could want, plus salty snacks and cocktails that easily beat a dive-bar Coors Light. If you’re one of the high school friends I actually want to see, consider this an invitation.
Doma opened in the former Paradiso Hi-Fi space on November 7. The windowless lounge, tucked between La Reprise and the Makery, had sat empty since Paradiso’s “temporary pause” (permanent in hindsight) in late July 2024.
The new cocktails-and-vinyl spot on Pine Street in Burlington has all the comfy couches and Kate Bush a girl could want
Sadie Williams, 35, has revived it. Previously a freelance marketer for the now-defunct Dedalus group — of which Paradiso was a sister business — Doma’s owner and GM knew the bar well, and she has retained its best features while upping the relaxation factor.
Right around when the bar closed, Williams moved back to Vermont after five years in Mexico City and a year and a half in Jersey City. Her father and business partner, Larry Williams, was an investor in Paradiso and retained its assets. She thought of reopening the bar right away.
“It was not the right time for me, but it stayed in the back of my head,” Williams said. “Part of it was frustration that [Paradiso] didn’t give everybody what they wanted. It could have been so many things.”
Paradiso was both a serious listening lounge and serious restaurant. Chef Micah Tavelli’s time there earned him a James Beard Award semifinalist nod in 2024. But some found it too serious: One friend stopped frequenting it after getting shushed.
Doma, by contrast, is homey. The music is more of a soundtrack than the main focus. I brought two of my loudest friends on the bar’s opening weekend, and nobody told us to keep it down.
“When Sadie pitched this to me, she said, ‘I want this place to be like your coolest friend’s living room,’” said Emily Calhoon, the bar’s chef.
My coolest friends have the same penchant for vintage rugs and a record collection that’s almost as eclectic, though it can’t compare with the sheer volume of choices on Doma’s shelves. Williams still hasn’t finished cataloging the several hundred albums she inherited with the space, along with the high-fidelity sound system and a pair of massive 1950s rewired speakers.
The disco ball spinning and sparkling overhead is all new — one of Williams’ small additions to the bar, which didn’t need many, she said. Designed by Viscaya Wagner and built by Silver Maple Construction in 2022, Doma’s calm, cool room has textural details, such as a wavy wall of flexible wood, and some of the best booths in Burlington.
Williams gave credit for the disco ball to talent buyer Quillan George, who books DJs for Doma. She’d asked him to assess and propose upgrades to the sound system, which had been quiet for more than a year, ranking his suggestions “good,” “better” or “best.”
“His ‘good’ was ‘one disco ball,’ and his ‘better’ was ‘two disco balls,’” Williams said with a laugh.
The furniture hasn’t changed much, either, with armchair and coffee table additions from Anjou VT. Custom pieces by local artist Wylie Garcia, new-old rugs and red gels over the lights complete the revamp while keeping the room recognizable.
“It is the same space, and it’s hard to break that connection,” Williams said. “But it is also a new business, and it has a different feel, and it has a different team. I want people to know it for what it is now.”
That all-femme leadership team includes chef Calhoon, 32, whom Williams met while Calhoon was running lunch service at Dedalus; and bar manager Tatiana Bruno, 43, who was previously GM at Misery Loves Co. and Hen of the Wood. Bruno returns to Burlington’s beverage scene after five years of working elsewhere in the state, including in managerial roles at Hill Farmstead Brewery and Barr Hill.
Both have created menus with elements that feel personal. Calhoon’s salty snacks have a Minnesotan flair — think fried cheese — and Bruno’s cocktails include flavors and ingredients that celebrate their Puerto Rican heritage.
The music reflects that personal touch, too. The team spins its own favorites on nights the bar isn’t hosting DJs. Bruno brought a Bad Bunny album from home and chose the West Side Story original soundtrack recording and the Pharcyde’s Labcabincalifornia back-to-back one day last week.
Blondie, Fleetwood Mac, David Bowie, Japanese-inspired jazz, Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons and Bob Marley have all made the cut so far.
“And we’ve been listening to a lot of Prince,” Calhoon said.
I don’t remember what was playing when I arrived on the second night of Doma’s opening weekend. My group of four rolled in around 7:30 p.m. and ran into two additional friends right away. DJ Taka was setting up for a four-hour set; the night before had featured different DJs each hour.
We snagged a table for six and ordered at the bar. Back at our seats, one friend pointed out the decibel meter hanging in the middle of the bar. Red numbers flickered just under 80 dB — below the eight-hour-average permissible exposure limit where the Occupational Safety and Health Administration requires employers to provide ear protection, he explained.
Volume meters are the sort of thing you start noticing in your late thirties and early forties, I guess. I mostly noticed that I could hear him share that bit of info. I’m sure the 15 Gen Zers squeezed in and around the booth behind us were talking about the same thing.
The room’s demographic was mixed. A few people danced, while a couple sat tucked behind a speaker in the bar’s quietest spot. Some were Paradiso regulars, some first-timers, Williams said, a typical pattern in Doma’s first month. The DJs have been a draw — Doma hosts one Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays — and the special $10 martini and housemade chips deal on Tuesdays is a steal. The bar is closed on Sundays and Mondays.
I snuck a sip of a friend’s Poet’s Dream ($15), Doma’s house martini, while Bruno made my drink. Based on a recipe from bar chain Death & Co.’s award-winning book Cocktail Codex: Fundamentals, Formulas, Evolutions, the gin martini gets an herbal aura from Bénédictine liqueur.
I’d ordered an equally herby — though less potent — lavender-cava apéritif. Bruno popped in two sprigs of lavender and said “Welcome Home” as they handed it across the bar, offering both a warm greeting and the name of the drink ($12).
That mindset extends to the incredibly thoughtful nonalcoholic section of the menu, where zero-proof options such as We Like the Juice ($12) feel as fancy as the similarly Tajín-rimmed house margarita, Drumz Plz ($18). My second drink of the night was the Doma Spritz ($13), which was as bubbly and complex as any boozy-bitter spritz but made with nonalcoholic Prosecco and an amaro-like NA liqueur.
Other early options included an easy-to-gulp daiquiri sweetened with maple syrup ($14); the Puerto Rico Libre ($12), with Puerto Rican rum, Coke and lime; and the Hott Tati ($12), a warm teatime drink with smoked ancho liqueur that’s sure to become a winter staple.
“It’s nice to give people something that’s approachable but then a little bit different,” Bruno said. “That’s how you win people’s trust and keep them coming back. Eventually, you can give them crazy things, and it’ll all feel familiar.”
A couple of weeks in, Bruno is flexing more. New additions to their cocktail menu include a clarified pineapple daiquiri ($18) and the Daphnee ($22), an olive oil-washed sherry drink that I’m itching to try. The short, simple wine and beer list has no options from Vermont, a rare choice for the area.
While Calhoon works in a decked-out kitchen, her job is “to make salty snacks to make people want to drink,” she said. “We don’t want it to be a full restaurant again. The cocktails are the star.”
She started in the industry as a baker, learning skills that she puts to excellent use in a soft pretzel ($9) that everyone should try immediately. Calhoon also nailed the blue-cheese-stuffed Castelvetrano olives ($12); a punchy, less-ketchupy cocktail sauce for shrimp cocktail ($15); and, unsurprisingly for a Midwesterner, fried cheese curds ($10).
“I feel like I’m insulting all of the Vermonters, but the best curds are from Wisconsin,” Calhoon said.
Housemade chips topped with coppa ham and pickled Basque piparra peppers ($13) follow the Spanish chips-with-stuff-on-them trend that hit the area at Wilder Wines and Vergennes’ 10 Green Street earlier this year. Doma’s pile is big enough to serve four.
I ended up passing my leftovers to folks I knew at the adjoining table, sharing just like I would at home.
As the night went on, the dancing crowd swelled around the armchairs in the middle of the room. Some other night, maybe Thanksgiving eve, I think I’ll join them.
Doma Bar, 388 Pine St., Unit 2, Burlington, doma.bar. Visit @domabarvt on Instagram for DJ schedules and holiday hours.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Living It Up | Doma Bar brings ‘your coolest friend’s living room’ to Pine Street in Burlington”
This article appears in Nov 26 – Dec 2 2025.
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