2024 has definitely been a year where I’ve finally had a chance to visit a lot of places that I’ve driven by a gazillion times, thinking “I should check that place out.” In this case, a trip down south had us swinging through Windsor, VT. The location has a long history, way back in 1962 it was an A&W Root Beer. It closed in the early 1980s, reopening in 1988 as Stub and Laura’s, run by the late, colorful A.W. “Stub” Aldrich until 2008. It had at least one other interim name and owner that I’ve forgotten, but in 2013 it opened in its current incarnation, Frazer’s Place, serving up breakfast, lunch, dinner, and ice cream, with both outdoor seating and a limited amount of indoor dining. And while it’s had a lot of good word of mouth, I never had a good opportunity to stop in until we few weeks ago, when we passed by right at breakfast. So we decided we just had to stop in.
From the outside, you can definitely see the history of Frazer’s Place, with the classic layout of a 1960s A&W. Indeed, the layout is nearly identical to a former A&W I used to regularly visit years in Minneapolis called The Soda Works (the place eventually became the original Psycho Suzi’s Motor Lounge, but that’s a story for another time and place…). They don’t have car-hops, and the outdoor service is walk-up, but they do a brisk business in maple creemees and food at the outside tables during the nicer months.
Moving inside (yes, Frazer’s has an inside, featuring a counter, a small dining room, and some restrooms, although admittedly it is a bit cozy), we grabbed a nice little table by the window. The place is obviously popular with the locals, since most everyone in the place knew each other, and I heard two people order “the usual”, which is always a good sign (indeed, I wouldn’t have been shocked to have run into some of my Vermont coworkers). The menu is classic American diner food, with the typical set of daily specials written on the wall. While enjoying a well-above-average cup of coffee, I decided on the “Monster Mash Omelette”.
The Monster Mash is a 3-egg omelette, with house-made hash, onions, peppers, mushrooms, and cheese. This was hitting on all cylinders: the house-made hash was flavorful, tender, and crisped (this may be the year of hash, I’ve had a lot of good hashes recently, this being almost as good as The Bristol Diner). The onions, peppers, and mushrooms rounded it out nicely. All in all, a very fine omelette. The home fries? Good, nicely griddled, proper homefries. Really, a great breakfast.
Overall, we liked Frazer’s Place, although while doing this review I discovered that the relatively new Daily Grind in Claremont is the same owners and menu, so I’ll have to check them out as well. But it’s always great when I can finally stop at a place that I’ve been driving by for years, and discovering that it is indeed worth the stop.
