Ever since I moved to the Upper Valley, I’ve had a handful of favorite diners in the area. For years, one of my favorites was The Fairlee Diner in Fairlee, VT, for some good pancakes, good Benedicts, and some well-above-average home fries. Really, it was a great spot. And it closed in April, 2022, a few months after my last review. But a few months later, with some minor renovation, the place reopened as “Jan’s Fairlee Diner”, and I finally had a chance earlier this summer to drop and and give the place a try.
Realistically, aside from the name on the front of the place, very little has actually changed inside the restaurant. It’s the same basic diner interior, reasonably well-maintained, and unlike a lot of the former diner cars around the area, Jan’s Fairlee Diner still focuses most of their kitchen work right at the griddle at the center of the restaurant. Menu-wise, they’ve kept the menu largely the same as well, with the same selection of pancakes, egg dishes, Benedicts, and the like for breakfast, and similar grilled diner fare for lunch. So, if you’re wondering if Jan’s Fairlee Diner is still the basic experience as it was before, you can rest easy: it’s basically the same overall experience and menu.
On my last visit to the old Fairlee Diner, I got one of my favorites, the kielbasa Benedict with home fries. Happily, this is still on the menu, and the actual Benedict part of the meal was approximately the same: a nice griddle-cooked English muffin, topped with a split kielbasa link (the Eastern European heritage in me craves a more garlicky kielbasa, but this was certainly not disappointing), and a nice Hollandaise. Definitely a good entree. And the home fries? These were decent enough in their own right, but of the deep-fried variety, whereas the older Fairlee Diner incarnation had stellar home fries, parcooked, thin-sliced, and cooked to a really good crisp. I’ll miss those old home fries, but this was still a good breakfast.
While I’ll admit to a bit of disappointment with the home fries, that was offset by the blueberry pancakes that Carol and I split: a stack of substantial pancakes with a good texture and an excellent crisp, these were some of the better pancakes I’ve had since some of my previous stalwarts (such as the long-departed Dana’s by the Gorge) left the area. Definitely worth getting if you visit.
Where there’s another important improvement is actually outside the restaurant: the ice cream shack that used to be located in the parking lot at Wing’s Market moved and is now run by Jan’s Fairlee Diner in their parking lot, so in addition to the diner, you can stop by for a good creamee in the warmer months.
Overall, I was pretty satisfied by Jan’s Fairlee Diner. While I miss the old home fries, the rest of the experience was pretty much as I remembered from the old place, and the pancakes actually a bit better. It remains one of the better breakfast destinations in the area.
