Kismet is my new go-to lunch spot. A short walk from the Seven Days office in Burlington, the Turkish restaurant at the south end of Battery Street offers sit-down service and is open all afternoon. I can nosh on a mezze platter and have a work meeting. The space is so big, I know I’ll get a table. That’s a nice way of saying: Business is not booming. I’ve gone in half a dozen times — for lunch and dinner — since the eatery opened last August and have noticed too many empty seats.
I saw at least one nonpaying customer, though.
On the way to lunch there last Friday, my colleague Cathy Resmer and I came upon a young woman passed out on the sidewalk. Specifically, she was bent over at the waist with her face buried in the dirt and snow of a landscaping feature. Cathy went to her aid, and some workers filling potholes nearby offered to call 911. Cathy moved the woman’s head, confirmed she was breathing and eventually roused her. Tanya from Massachusetts was thankful and apologetic — and almost certainly under the influence — but insisted she did not want or need help.
When we got to Kismet and described Tanya to co-owner Serkan Çetin, he nodded; he’d already given her food and temporary shelter from the cold that day. From our table by the window, we watched her walk unsteadily back and forth outside on the sidewalk. After lunch, we spotted Tanya again: Çetin had let her in to use the bathroom.
Encounters such as these, or the fear of them, are among the challenges facing Burlington restaurateurs this winter. There’s also a giant construction site in the heart of downtown that has shut down sections of Main Street for months; the threat of avian flu and its adverse impacts on the price and availability of eggs; fewer Canadians crossing the border since our president insulted their country; and the usual seasonal ice and cold.
And those are just the measurable risks to a local food scene that for decades has punched above its weight. On a gray wintry day, parts of Burlington look almost postapocalyptic. Back in January, Jed Davis, owner of two local restaurant groups that include the Farmhouse Tap & Grill, told Seven Days food writer Melissa Pasanen that Burlington eateries faced a potential “existential crisis.”
The Café HOT. is struggling to survive on Main Street, which has been closed to cars for more than a year. “Not having the parking, not having the traffic was already putting us in a weakened position,” co-owner Travis Walker-Hodkin said. “Once they closed the South Winooski intersection,” in early January, “that was a nail in the coffin.”
He said he and his business partner have been “white-knuckling it” since the city started rerouting Main Street travelers to South Union Street. Walker-Hodkin said this stage of the project, which was supposed to take four or five weeks, is now stretching into a third month, and no one at the Public Works Department can tell him with certainty when it will end.
“People cannot get into Burlington,” he observed. Nor can they easily find their way to the Café HOT. “We’re a quick-service restaurant; the entire thing is built on ‘pop in, pop out,’ but if it takes you 20 minutes to get here and then you’ve got to walk through construction because you don’t know which way to go and they’re changing it all the time … Our only problem right now is not having access to our customers.”
The Café HOT. has reduced operations from seven days a week to five and cut back on staff hours. It’s selling a frozen version of its Bon Appétit-endorsed chicken-fried egg at City Market, Healthy Living, Leo & Co., and Jake’s ONE Market. Walker-Hodkin has organized neighboring businesses on Main Street, including Honey Road, to ask the city for a lifeline. All they want, he said, is a westbound lane of one-way traffic on Main Street for as long as the work continues.
Walker-Hodkin claimed that, whether they admit it or not, “100 percent” of Burlington businesses are being adversely affected by the closure of Main Street. In a December 17, 2024, Instagram post, chef Cara Chigazola Tobin put a positive spin on it: “You know what the best part of the Main St. construction is? It’s easier than ever to get a table at Honey Road!”
Last year’s roadwork on Pine Street did a number on Haymaker Bun. The disruption is over for now, until it starts up again next month. Meanwhile, owner Caroline Corrente is trying to figure out how to make her 8-month-old breakfast and lunch spot in Burlington’s Soda Plant as successful as the 6-year-old one on Middlebury’s Bakery Lane. Last week she posted on Instagram, asking customers to buy gift cards to help her to navigate “turbulent economic conditions,” including “ripple effects of tariffs, all during the slowest time of the year.” She also mentioned rising food costs; the price of eggs has more than doubled. Corrente’s brioche dough-based business goes through up to 1,800 a week.
On Monday morning at the shop, she told me more: She’s had to lay off some workers and reprioritize. Like the Café HOT., she’s expanded her wholesale business, freezing buns and distributing them through Wilcox Ice Cream to stores in Vermont, New York and New Hampshire. Her husband, a former chef who now works in education finance, is doing pop-up dinners in Middlebury to bring in extra cash. She had “knots in her stomach” when she published the plea for community support.
“It’s a scary time,” she said, noting widespread anxiety about the state of the world; her sister just lost her Vermont job with USAID. But it’s also been “heartwarming” to see customer appreciation for her work. Someone shelled out $2,500 for a gift card.
I bought a box of mouthwatering buns and shared them with my coworkers back at the office. Especially in uncertain times, I’ve found life is vastly improved by something delicious.
With that in mind: If you can afford it, please go out to eat this month. Whether it’s breakfast at a favorite diner or a special meal at a fine-dining establishment, Vermont’s local food businesses could use a boost. We at Seven Days are doing our part, too, by offering deep discounts to restaurant advertisers through March.
As Corrente put it: “If you value these places that are creating not only food but community, patronize them. Keep coming out and showing up.”
And don’t forget to leave a tip.
This article appears in Mar 5-11, 2025.
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
