On November 1, after a yearlong hiatus, Waitsfield’s Big Picture Restaurant and Café started serving dinner again with a pair of chefs in the kitchen: Alexander Brink and Colby Miller. Although the Big Picture Theater at 48 Carroll Road reopened as a movie theater and event space under a new nonprofit model in May, the venue’s on-site restaurant had remained closed while its owner, Claudia Becker, searched for a kitchen team.
Brink and Miller are seasoned professionals in their mid-forties, said Becker, 58. Locals will be familiar with Miller, who has cooked at many Mad River Valley restaurants and co-owned Waitsfield’s Stoke Ramen Bar from 2019 to 2021. Brink moved from Massachusetts to Vermont last year, according to Becker.
Becker, who co-owned the theater before it became a nonprofit, said her goal for the 33-seat restaurant and lounge is maintaining “a local hangout” that serves from-scratch, farm-to-table dishes, “down to the stock.” The Big Picture’s longtime general manager, Kevin McMillion, is again serving in that role for the theater and café.
The café menu will change seasonally, with a roster of what Becker described as “upscale comfort foods.” Those might include smoked trout pâté with house pickles; a roasted beet and braised daikon salad with chèvre; and pot roast with gremolata and fingerling potatoes. The full bar offers wine, local beer, cocktails and mocktails.
Becker said the Big Picture’s Very Small Donut Company will not relaunch, at least for now. In the meantime, she said “the doughnuts are making a return but only in the form of maple doughnut bread pudding” on the restaurant’s dessert menu.
This article appears in The Winter Preview Issue 2025.
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