After a closure of more than a year, Montpelier’s Café NOA reopened last week with a pair of cousins originally from India at the helm under the guidance of the café’s chef-founder, Joe Buley. Sadananda Hira and Amit Mojumdar offer a classic American breakfast and lunch menu from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily, except Tuesdays.
Buley, 61, opened Café NOA at 8 Putnam Street in February 2023 as a sister business to his wholesale soup company, Joe’s Kitchen at Screamin’ Ridge Farm. Nine months later, staffing shortages led him to close the 75-seat spot to walk-in customers.
“The soup business was suffering,” Buley said. The café continued to host private events and do catering and opened for eclipse weekend.
In the meantime, Hira, 30, had been renting kitchen space from Buley to make sushi for Hunger Mountain Co-op. He expressed interest in reopening the café and recruited Mojumdar, 36, who moved from New York, where he had been working in restaurants, for the opportunity. The pair grew up together in Calcutta and call each other brother.
“Me and my brother both are chefs, and we would like to improve and do something with our life,” Mojumdar said.
Buley, who is subletting the café to the cousins, said he knew Hira was motivated and organized from watching him manage his sushi business. “I really wanted to see the place up and running,” he said.
Once peak soup season is over, Buley said, he’ll probably start smoking brisket and pulled pork and making deli meats for the café.
Café NOA is active on Instagram and has a new phone number: 223-1538.
This article appears in Jan 22-28, 2025.
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