Burlington’s Queen City Café will close after service on Saturday, January 11. Chef-owner Sean Richards announced the news on social media last weekend, noting that the business will be open this week with regular hours, Wednesday through Sunday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Richards opened the café in the former Myer’s Bagels spot behind Barge Canal Market on April 4. He built a following for his Southern-influenced fare — especially his flaky, wood-fired biscuits — while battling construction on Pine Street throughout the spring and summer.
“It’s been great to serve this town,” the post read. “Come down for one last biscuit before we go.”
On Monday afternoon, City Market, Onion River Co-op announced the temporary closure of the café at its downtown Burlington location. The email sent to co-op members cited “a continued number of safety and security issues.” It did not share a timeline for reopening but said City Market would “take the time to reassess the space and reopen it when we feel that it is safe.”
El Comal opened in Williston on January 4, almost a year after Casimiro De Jesús Martínez and Cayetano Santos announced plans for their restaurant serving scratch-made, Oaxacan-style dishes. Located at 28 Taft Corners Shopping Center, it has daily hours from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Santos attributed the delay to the challenges of finding specialized equipment such as a mill with volcanic stones needed to grind house-nixtamalized corn for masa — the base ingredient for fresh tortillas; thick, topped tortillas called memelitas; and triangular, bean-stuffed tetelas.
Mad River Distillers has added a tasting room in Stowe. Located inside Edelweiss Mountain Deli at 2251 Mountain Road, the small space highlights products from the Warren-based distillery that aren’t available in the state’s 802 Spirits stores, such as an American single malt whiskey and the 10-year-old Founders Reserve Rye Whiskey, president Mimi Buttenheim told Seven Days.
Mad River Distillers continues to operate its tasting room at Waitsfield’s Mad River Taste Place and its full-service bar in Burlington. The Edelweiss outpost, previously occupied by Essex’s Black Flannel Distilling, is tucked in an alcove near where customers wait for their deli orders.
“They do a lot of traffic,” Buttenheim said of the deli, “so it’s a great place to encounter visitors and people who don’t make it out of Stowe.”
Tastings are available Thursday through Sunday.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Crumbs: Queen City Café Shutters, City Market Downtown Café Temporarily Closes, El Comal Opens, Mad River Distillers Adds a Tasting Room”
This article appears in Jan 8-14, 2025.
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