Offbeat Eats

Way back in 2008, in the early days of Offbeat Eats, we visited Robie’s Country Store. It was a particularly good and lavish breakfast, but in the years following that visit, the store started to struggle, the breakfasts weren’t as good, and while Robie’s Country Store stayed open, the food counter closed. A replacement store, Roots Community Table at Robies, was good, but also closed a few years ago. But then I got notice in January this year that a big shift had happened. The Robie family of Hooksett (which operated the General Store since the 1800s) was actually related to the Robies of the Robie Farm in Piermont, NH, which are pretty well known in the region for their farm-raised meats (it’s pretty common around NH and VT to see “Robie Farms” meats on high-end restaurant menus, and at the various consumer coops). They had refurbished the place, and re-opened as The Robie Store, a specialty product store, cafe serving breakfast and lunch, and a butcher shop providing farm fresh meats straight from the farm in Piermont.

As I mentioned earlier this year in our review of Haymaker Bun Company in Middlebury, Vermont, our wine club has us traveling several times a year to Lincoln Peak Vineyard for picking up our order. While sometimes this isn’t the greatest convenience, in general it is a welcome excuse to drive through one of the more scenic parts of Vermont and check out a few places along the way. On this trip, we took it as a chance to revisit one of my favorites that I hadn’t yet reviewed: 7 South Sandwich Company.

A recent trip up to visit with friends in Burlington, Vermont had us again looking to try new options for breakfast as we drove along Interstate 89. While we really liked our last visit to Wit & Grit, we had another spot in Randolph that’s been on our hit list since they opened: Wee Bird Bagel Cafe. This little cafe on the NE side of Randolph Vermont has been one of those spots that seems to perennially be experiencing changeover; just in the last 10 years, this spot has been Three Bean Café, Café Salud, Green Light Café, and the Huggable Mug, all variants on a basic cafe theme. But while none of them really had much tenure in the spot, Wee Bird, opened by Chelsie Brown of nearby Bent Hill Brewery (one of our area favorites), started a major renovation of the building and now runs the Wee Bird Bagel Cafe, featuring bagels, breakfast sandwiches, and other light bakery fare.

After a weekend of doing the Cabane à Sucre and visiting several delightful breweries and beer bars around Montreal, it was time to head home, stopping off in Le Plateau for a brunch. We used to go a lot to Lawrence for this, but Lawrence has retooled their concept and menu and isn’t much of a brunch spot any more. And another former area favorite of ours, Universel, moved and isn’t convenient anymore. But just around the corner from Lawrence is another spot known for brunch, Fabergé, that our friends Rick and Sarah had gotten as a recommendation, so we all headed off there for a proper sendoff breakfast.