BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – Burlington staple Sweetwaters reopened its doors Thursday at its original location, four years after closing amid pandemic struggles and downtown challenges.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels like back to the future,\u201d said Sweetwaters owner David Melincoff.<\/p>\n
If you blinked, you may have missed the changes. When Sweetwaters closed, Pascolo Ristorante moved from a block up the street. Now, both restaurants have moved back to their original locations.<\/p>\n
With some winters filled with snowboarding, Melincoff said he was ready to come back and slowly pass on the restaurant to a new team. \u201cJust felt like I got my rest and it was time to maybe, you know, try something new again and go forward,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Head Chef Jessee Lawyer is back in the kitchen and says folks can order many of their old favorites, along with some menu updates. \u201cIt feels like home again. I got my start in here as a fry cook and worked my way up to chef,\u201d Lawyer said.<\/p>\n
The restaurant plans to start with just dinner for five days a week and gradually gear up for more hours, including lunch service.<\/p>\n
Melincoff says they experienced many of Burlington\u2019s struggles, including the pandemic slowdown and issues with homelessness, drugs, and theft. But with their return, he envisions a healthy and vibrant downtown. \u201cI believe in Burlington long-term, and it\u2019s a great building, and it\u2019s an iconic location. We were open for 42 years and felt like we could add value back to the community and to, you know, help make the street be alive again with our patios,\u201d Melincoff said.<\/p>\n
For many, the restaurant was always a part of their trip to Burlington. \u201cWhenever we\u2019d come up here, usually around the holidays, when the lights are up, we\u2019d come to Sweetwaters for our family dinner and then go shopping,\u201d said Brook Jette of Middlebury. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re losing Church Street a little bit, so it\u2019s nice to have some of these staples here and returning here, and I hope it just promotes more of that.\u201d <\/p>\n
For years, the restaurant also offered a free Thanksgiving meal and a coat drive during the holidays. They said they plan to keep something like that going in the future.<\/p>\n
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BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – Burlington staple Sweetwaters reopened its doors Thursday at its original location, four years after closing amid pandemic struggles and downtown challenges. \u201cIt feels like back to the future,\u201d said Sweetwaters owner David Melincoff. If you blinked, you may have missed the changes. When Sweetwaters closed, Pascolo Ristorante moved from a block<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[6668,19663,6663,6661,6659,6662,6660,6669],"class_list":["post-21035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vermont","tag-burlington","tag-sweetwaters","tag-vermont","tag-vermont-dining","tag-vermont-food","tag-vermont-grocery-stores","tag-vermont-restaurants","tag-wcax"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dc\/117300933766076883","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}