Hayden Fersing of Burlington Bagel Bakery Credit: File: Steve Mease

The Fersing Family has announced it will open a fifth Burlington Bagel Bakery, its first outside Chittenden County. The newest addition will be located at 133 North Main Street in St. Albans in a former location of Feldman’s Bagels. Feldman’s closed that location and its flagship Burlington bakery on Pine Street abruptly on June 18.

Tamara and Kyle Fersing owned a bagel business in Colorado before moving to Vermont and buying the Burlington Bagel Bakery on Shelburne Road in South Burlington more than 25 years ago. They have since been joined by their daughter, Avery, and son, Hayden, and have bought and converted the former Bruegger’s Bagels on Burlington’s Church Street and the Bagel Market Bakery & Café on Essex’s Susie Wilson Road to their brand. Their Williston bakery was formerly a Friendly’s.

Avery said the family is renovating the St. Albans space and hopes to open this winter.

Customers enjoying glasses of wine on the Westford Provisions porch Credit: Courtesy

Westford Provisions, the country store near Westford Town Common, closed permanently on September 30. Kimberly Harris and Jim Salimeno launched the biz in June 2025 with local specialty food and beverages, a deli, a bakery, Ruby’s Ice Cream, and the Black Orchid Coffee bar. This summer, offerings expanded to include a seasonal outdoor bar on the wraparound porch.

In a comment on the social media post sharing the news, the co-owners wrote, “We are so sad and heartbroken to take this magical little store away from the community. We have done everything possible to keep our doors open.” Harris told Seven Days that the closure was due to “economic circumstances,” including rising food and fuel costs, paying adult employees a living wage and trying to keep prices affordable for customers. “It just didn’t line up,” she said.

Melissa Pasanen is a Seven Days staff writer and the food and drink assignment editor. In 2022, she won first place for national food writing from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia and in 2024, she took second. Melissa joined Seven Days full time in 2020, 18 years after the paper published her first (and last, for a very long time) freelance story on church suppers. During the intervening years, she wrote — mostly about food, drink and agriculture — for outlets ranging from the Burlington...

Jordan Barry is a food writer at Seven Days. Her stories about tipping culture, cooperatively-owned natural wineries, bar pizza and gay chicken have earned recognition from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia's AAN Awards and the New England Newspaper & Press Association. She holds a master’s degree in food studies from New York University, where her research focused on building a lexicon for the American craft cider industry. She also has an animal science degree from the University of...