Construction Challenges Winooski's Main Street Restaurants 

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• Daria Bishop
• The southbound lane of Main Street in Winooski, closed until November

Potholes are part of life in Vermont. But on a four-block stretch of Main Street in Winooski, they pale in comparison to the other annoyances that customers currently face on their way to pick up pad Thai, chicken piccata or vegetable pakoras. From the railroad bridge near Maple Street to the Colchester town line, the road is under construction as part of the voter-approved $28.07 million Winooski Main Street Revitalization Project, which started in April and is anticipated to continue through summer 2026.

The project will bring improvements to sidewalks and infrastructure such as stormwater drains and sewer and water mains, plus a protected bike lane, landscaping upgrades and other much-needed fixes. While in progress, though, it's a one-way dust bowl filled with disruptions.

The food businesses along Main Street, many owned by new Americans, represent cuisines from around the globe. From the stalwart Tiny Thai Restaurant to the less-than-6-month-old Vermont Curry & Cocktails, they make for a vibrant scene. And they're struggling.

"We're lucky that we've been established for 20 years," said Paul Ciosek, who co-owns Tiny Thai with his wife, Pui. "But some smaller, newer businesses might not make it."

Ciosek estimated that business at Tiny Thai, which moved onto the Main Street strip from the bottom of the Winooski traffic circle in 2021, is down "at least 20 percent over last year, maybe 30 percent."

Junior's Winooski, which opened in 2018 and was purchased by longtime employees Glenn Patterson and Ryan Brigante in January 2023, is seeing similar losses. Patterson said it would have been worse if the Italian American eatery hadn't seen a bump when its one-time sister restaurant, Jr's Williston, closed abruptly in mid-July. Customers from that location are finding their way over, he said. "Which is great, because we're new owners. We haven't built up the cash reserves."

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By Leah Krason

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Some businesses are down even more. Before construction started, Hamro Sagarmatha Grocery was busy with customers stopping in from Burlington and Essex for long beans, bright chile peppers and lumpy, pear-shaped chayote. So busy, in fact, that owner Dinesh Maidali didn't have time to eat lunch on Fridays after the weekly fresh produce delivery.

Now, said Dinesh's father, Ram, staff throw out half the fruits and vegetables that were once such a draw. Business is down 60 percent overall. The Maidalis have tried to negotiate for a lower rent with the market's landlord, with no luck.

Wicked Wings, which moved to Winooski from Essex Junction in 2021, has taken a 60 percent hit to its dine-in business. Instead of chatting with customers as they enjoy beers and burgers at the bar, co-owner Collin Sourdiff is packing wings to go.

"A lot of my regulars I haven't seen in a long time," he said. "It's hard for me to keep staff because of that. We're just getting hit hard."

Takeout sales and delivery via the apps are faring a little better, Sourdiff said, even up a tiny bit from before the construction started. But not enough to make up the difference: His overall drop in business has been between 35 and 40 percent.

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Where to Eat in Winooski’s Main Street Construction Zone

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• Don Eggert ©️ Seven Days
• Where to eat in Winooski's Main Street construction zone

Winooski City Manager Elaine Wang echoed the business owners' figures of 30 to 60 percent drops. "Unfortunately, we did not anticipate the impact would be this severe," Wang told Seven Days, "so we didn't have anything lined up for support."

Even businesses outside the construction zone are feeling its effects. When McKee's Pub & Grill announced its closure in early August, the owners of 18 months said sales were down 70 percent, noting that "construction will continue into 2029."

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That's a reference to work on the bridge connecting the Onion City with Burlington, which will follow the Main Street project. This year, Main Street work will stop in November for the winter and resume in April for another full season; work in 2026 will be mostly cleanup and "less disruptive," Wang said.

Tiny Thai's Ciosek attended the meeting where the infrastructure work was initially discussed 12 years ago. He was on board with the project then and still is, he said, despite the challenges and what he called "lackluster" communication from the city, whose updates are "cut and paste" and whose answers to email questions are "boilerplate." Wang said the city has "a very well-coordinated response team" handling construction-related inquiries and encouraged people to reach out with feedback, complaints and questions.

Wang said city officials are taking different approaches to the problem, from seeking grants to investing in marketing to get out the word that businesses are still open and in need of support.

"No surprise, there's not a big, magical pot of money waiting around just to be granted out to people in this situation," Wang said. "But we're trying to turn over every stone."

The city government is working to find solutions with Downtown Winooski, a nonprofit that supports Winooski's designated downtown district and serves as a liaison between the city and its business community. Executive director Melissa Corbin said her organization is assembling a group to brainstorm creative strategies — modeled on successful initiatives in Middlebury and Brandon, where similar projects disrupted downtown.

Among those strategies might be coaching and technical support for small businesses and assistance in attracting funding such as grants, donations and loans — though Wang acknowledged that loans don't tend to entice struggling businesses. A campaign could promote affected businesses, and events such as a drag walk, high heels and all, might bring folks to the area.

"This is an investment that the whole community is making," Wang said. "Our businesses on Main Street are bearing the brunt of that. We want to show them there's a large community that cares about their success. Come spend your money in Winooski."

We took Wang's advice and headed to several affected restaurants for a meal. We navigated street closures, got stuck behind a parked construction truck and biked around potholes. In each case, the food was worth the trouble.

A Challenging Climb

Mountain Valley Restaurant, 212 Main St., 489-5617, mountainvalleyrestaurant.com

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• Melissa Pasanen
• Lamb seekh kebab, aloo paratha and chile momos at Mountain Valley Restaurant

Dhanbahadur Chhetri, 44, arrived in the U.S. from Nepal in 2016. He spent six years cooking professionally in several states before buying his own restaurant in Winooski in 2022. After painting the small dining room a bright cobalt blue and installing a tandoor oven, Chhetri opened Mountain Valley in a humble storefront on Main Street's west side in early August of that year.

With the help of his wife, Rozee Pardha, Chhetri developed a following. The Indian/Nepali/Indo-Chinese restaurant earned praise for its tender tandoori chicken ($14.99); fragrant meat or vegetarian curries (from $11.99); and Pardha's plump, hand-pleated momos (from $9.99).

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• Melissa Pasanen
• Dhanbahadur Chhetri and Rozee Pardha of Mountain Valley Restaurant

By early summer 2023, business was good enough that Chhetri was able to hire an experienced head cook. But less than a year later, in June, Main Street construction obliged him to lay off his main chef and return to helming the kitchen.

Chhetri described himself as an accomplished cook but still learning. "That chef had 30 years' experience," he said. "With business going down, we can't offer that."

The restaurant owner estimated that roadwork disruption has sliced Mountain Valley's sales in half. In June, Chhetri tried offering a 20 percent discount as an incentive. While that did help, maintaining it isn't financially feasible, he said. In addition to laying off the chef, he has had to let a server go.

On a recent Friday, around 1 p.m., Chhetri chatted briefly after cooking up an order of sweet-spicy chicken chile momos with bell peppers ($13.99); warm, spiced-potato-filled paratha ($3.99); and chewy, tandoor-kissed ground-lamb kebabs ($15.99) with herbed rice boasting whole cardamom seeds.

He held out his phone to display a Google search result indicating that Mountain Valley was "busier than usual" and shook his head. "It's not right," he said.

Chhetri has heard the project will last two and a half years. Four months in, he said, "I don't know if after two and a half years we will still be here."

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• Daria Bishop
• Construction outside Mountain Valley Restaurant on Main Street in Winooski

Customers and delivery people don't want to deal with detour traffic and don't know where to park, the restaurateur said. Sometimes a delivery order is canceled after it has been cooked, resulting in financial loss and waste. One week, a food distributor postponed Mountain Valley's delivery because the truck driver couldn't park, making Chhetri wait for some critical ingredients.

The determined do manage to reach Mountain Valley.

Terry McKegney of South Burlington popped in to pick up lunch on her way home from Essex Junction. She said she had read about the closure of McKee's Pub & Grill and resolved to support a favorite spot where she hadn't been in several months.

The route to Mountain Valley was not optimal, but McKegney succeeded in procuring her order of chicken biryani and naan. "I really like their chicken saag, too," she said. She knew to expect the longer navigation time, she added, but the food was worth it.

M.P.

'Worse Than COVID'

Pho Dang Vietnamese Café, 348 Main St., 655-0707, Facebook

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• Daria Bishop
• Pho Dang manager LyLy Dang, left, and owner Pany Senebouttarath

Mornings are a family affair at Pho Dang. When the Vietnamese restaurant opened on a recent Wednesday, right at 10:30 a.m., the youngest members of the owner's family rode balance bikes and a battery-operated Minnie Mouse four-wheeler through the maze of tables in the dining room. The construction outside has become so routine that the toddlers didn't run to the window when an orange loader whizzed by carrying gravel.

Owner Pany Senebouttarath, 57, has been running the restaurant for 18 years; she moved her biz a few blocks north to its current spot in 2018. The construction-related losses are "worse than COVID," she said. Business is down 40 percent, despite her increasing hours and opening seven days a week. She has no days off, owes back taxes and has switched to buying poultry day by day, rather than placing larger weekly orders.

Pho Dang has strong support from regular customers, Senebouttarath said. But it no longer gets business from the larger tour groups from Boston or Montréal that used to stop there, taking advantage of Pho Dang's location right off Interstate 89.

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• Daria Bishop
• Pho tai nam gan at Pho Dang

"It used to take two minutes from the highway," she said. "Now it takes an hour. I know I look busy, but I don't want to be one who's closed soon."

From a customer's perspective, Pho Dang's early hours make it easy to beat the lunch rush: Traffic is less painful at 10:30 a.m. Heading up Weaver Street instead of Main and cutting in on Stevens Street helps cut down the wait time.

This reporter found out that you should take those "Don't Follow" signs on the back of construction vehicles seriously if you don't want to get stuck behind one that suddenly parks. If not for that mistake, which required merging back into steady traffic, the whole ordeal would have only taken five minutes.

Inside the restaurant, the aroma of rich spices simmering in pho broth made the comforting soup irresistible. A lunch-size order of pho ga — accurately described yet underplayed on the menu as "chicken noodle soup" — is just $12. With an order of deep-fried cha gio egg rolls stuffed with pork and noodles ($6), you can leave satisfied for less than $20.

Pho Dang is staying afloat for now, and Senebouttarath plans to reevaluate in November when the construction stops for the season.

"Hopefully we're still going," she said. "For my kids and my family. I'm gonna hang in here for a while."

J.B.

Shaken, Not Stirred

Vermont Curry & Cocktails, 211 Main St., 497-3097, Facebook

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• Daria Bishop
• Vermont Curry & Cocktails co-owners Bhakti Dahal and Tul Niroula

The season of construction is loud with the humming of generators, the constant rush of operating excavators and the drone of ventilation systems. But inside Vermont Curry & Cocktails, the soundtrack on a recent Monday evening consisted of a looped Bollywood tape and the complaints of DoorDashers struggling to find a place to park.

The new restaurant opened on April 1, just a couple of weeks before the launch of the Winooski Main Street Revitalization Project. Parking is still usually available both in front of and behind the restaurant, but this reporter biked from Burlington's Old North End to avoid the daunting, one-way, pothole-filled road.

Tul Niroula, 51, Vermont Curry & Cocktails' co-owner and manager, provided a warm welcome to the few diners that evening. A refreshing Moscow mule cocktail ($9) complemented a large bowl of spicy chicken korma ($14.99). Vegetable samosa chaat ($6.99) housed vibrant green peas and a tangy yogurt sauce over a large portion of samosas. The chicken korma was buttery and comforting on a rainy night, and garlic naan ($3.99) helped mop up all the sauce.

Niroula also works as a home-school liaison for the Winooski schools, connecting Nepali- and Hindi-speaking parents with teachers and providing support to help students succeed. He said he opened the restaurant with chef Bhakti Dahal to create a community space centered on food.

But after the construction began, sales dropped 40 percent from those reported by the Fusion Café & Bar, which previously operated there. Niroula said most of Vermont Curry's orders these days come from delivery services, but those drivers are struggling, too. One DoorDasher said she tries to avoid taking orders for Winooski restaurants due to the road conditions.

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• Amelia Catanzaro
• Samosa chaat and a Moscow "mosque" mule at Vermont Curry & Cocktails

Vermont Curry & Cocktails boasts an extensive menu bridging the cuisines of India, Nepal, Bhutan, Thailand and Vietnam, which causes another issue: food waste. The cooks make a wide range of curries and sauces every morning, but much has been ending up in the compost after slow nights.

One other diner on Monday night, Stuart Paton of Burlington, said he has become an avid fan of the restaurant and decided to dine in to enjoy a bowl of beef pho ($13.99), parking in front of the building. "I knew it would be rough terrain and was impressed with how rough it was," he said.

Niroula expressed frustration with the construction's pace. "They don't work at night or on weekends, and the work is very, very slow," he said. He would also like to see more city signage to inform customers of parking options.

"Two years is going to be a long time to survive like this," Niroula said. His two sons, Abinav, 18, and Abhishek, 28, take orders and bus tables, but Niroula has not been able to pay them regularly. "I tell them, 'Just wait,' but how long can they wait?"

A.C.

Wicked Tough

Wicked Wings, 211 Main St., Suite 1, 879-7111, wickedwingsvermont.com

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• Daria Bishop
• Collin Sourdiff holding a plate of Wicked Wings and a Woodstock Inn & Brewery brown ale

(Update, August 30, 2024: After this story was published, Wicked Wings announced its closure.)

This isn't the first time Collin Sourdiff, co-owner of Wicked Wings, has done business in a construction zone. His first location, which opened 14 years ago and has since closed, was in the middle of a two-year Main Street project in Johnson. The difference there, he said, was that Route 15 is the only way through town.

That's not the case at Wicked Wings' 3-year-old spot in Winooski.

"People are just avoiding Main Street completely," Sourdiff, 45, said.

The 60 percent dine-in drop he noted is the result of that avoidance. Wicked Wings' outdoor patio has sat only six tables all summer. Lunch business took an almost immediate hit in April.

Sourdiff thought the folks working outside might stop in for a midday meal. "But I looked outside one day and saw 13 of them sitting on the grass with their bagged lunches," he said. "And I was like, Oh, these guys pack a lunch. That's not good.'"

Now, Sourdiff serves lunch only Friday through Sunday. He has had to close on four separate days due to disruptions in Comcast service (no credit cards, television or Wi-Fi) and boil water notices. ("I can't boil the water going through my soda gun," he said wryly.) More than once, when the road's been really bad, the trucks bringing beer, Coca-Cola products and base ingredients haven't showed up.

Late-night hours remain a staple of the casual bar spot. Construction-wise, that's a great time to visit. After 5 p.m., "it's not so bad," Sourdiff said. "Everybody's gone, they've cleaned it up pretty well, and it's kind of the Wild West in terms of parking."

Inside, boozy milkshakes in flavors such as Bailey's salted caramel and orange creamsicle (both $11) are a worthy reward after a harrowing journey. So is a heaping pile of signature Wicked Wings: 24 bone-in, seasoned and sauced wings that are both fried and grilled on an open flame ($38.99). Bone-in and boneless wings come in 14 sauces and five heat levels, from mild Buffalo to Melt Your Face.

Delivery apps make meals more expensive for both diners and restaurants. But Wicked Wings is on all of them, from DoorDash to Uber Eats, if you're trying to avoid avoiding potholes. On a Wednesday evening, a pile of sticky-sweet maple-barbecue wings ($11.99 for six in-house or pickup; app prices vary), curly fries ($8) and a spicy chicken sandwich ($18) arrived in Burlington within 40 minutes, piping hot.

If you do pass the buck to a DoorDash driver, be sure to pass them a few extra bucks for that car wash.

J.B.