Drive down Holland Lane in Finney Crossing on a Friday night and you will find two restaurants doing steady business within sight of each other. One is a farm-to-table gastropub with a south-facing patio full of pint glasses. The other is a sixty-seat Italian American spot still smelling faintly of fresh paint, serving baked ziti and stuffed shells to a Friday-night crowd. Neither restaurant existed here two years ago.
That is the version of "what's new in Williston" most people already know, because they have eaten it. The part fewer people have connected is why a restaurant group that built its reputation in downtown Burlington chose to plant its second location here instead, and what that decision says about a very different construction project happening at the same time, a few miles away, in the woods off Governor Chittenden Road.
The address that used to be something else
The Farmhouse Group's second Farmhouse Tap & Grill sits at 282 Holland Lane, in a space that used to be Railroad & Main before that restaurant's owners announced their retirement in late 2024. Farmhouse Group owner Jed Davis, who opened the original Farmhouse Tap & Grill in a former downtown Burlington McDonald's back in 2010, took over the Finney Crossing space and reopened it as a second location, now serving dinner nightly and weekend brunch with the same locally sourced burgers and Vermont craft beer list that built the Burlington flagship's name.
A short walk away, in a building that did not exist a year ago, sits SPAGHET Red Sauce Joint. It comes from Davis's other company, Awesome Times Group, which also runs the Bliss Bee locations in Williston and South Burlington. SPAGHET is the casual half of the pair: sixty seats, counter and table service, and a menu built around the kind of Italian American comfort food that does not need a reservation.
Two restaurants from the same ownership group, both opening within the same year, in a development that did not have a dedicated restaurant row a few years back. That much is visible from the sidewalk. What is less visible is the reasoning Davis gave for making this bet in Finney Crossing rather than downtown.
Why here instead of there
When Davis talked to Seven Days about the expansion, he was blunt about what is pulling growth toward Williston and away from Burlington's Church Street core.
There's new housing as far as the eye can see.
That is the plain version. The pointed version is what he said about the alternative. Davis described downtown Burlington restaurants and shops as facing what he called an existential crisis, arguing that the Chittenden County customer has grown less interested in visiting downtown for a variety of reasons.
That is not neutral restaurant-industry chatter. That is a business owner who already has a downtown location choosing to put his next two investments somewhere else entirely, and saying so on the record. For anyone trying to read where Chittenden County's retail and dining energy is actually heading, a restaurateur voting with a second lease is a more honest signal than any survey.
Maple Tree Place is playing a different game
While Finney Crossing has been adding sit-down destinations, the news out of Maple Tree Place this year has been smaller and slower. In August 2026, the shopping center confirmed that J.Jill is opening a store at 28 Walnut Street, Suite 110, inside the plaza anchored by Shaw's. As of that announcement, the location was still under construction and the center had not said when it would open.
That is the whole update. One specialty retailer, still being built out, no opening date. It fits the pattern Maple Tree Place has followed for years: a grocery-anchored center built for errands and quick stops, not for lingering over dinner.
| Node | What changed this year | What the change is for |
|---|---|---|
| Finney Crossing (Holland Lane) | Farmhouse Tap & Grill's second location plus SPAGHET Red Sauce Joint, both under the same ownership group | Sit-down dinner, brunch, a reason to stay |
| Maple Tree Place (Taft Corners) | J.Jill under construction, no opening date set | A specialty stop inside an errand-run trip |
Put side by side, the two centers are not competing for the same visit. Finney Crossing is being built for people who want to park once and stay for two hours. Maple Tree Place is still built for people who want to park, grab what they need, and leave. Both are legitimate uses of a growing town's commercial space. Neither is a preview of the other.
The bigger build isn't retail at all
Here is the part that does not show up when you drive past Finney Crossing or Maple Tree Place, because it is happening on land the town already owns, off Governor Chittenden Road, where Catamount Outdoor Family Center manages the trail network on the Catamount Community Forest.
Catamount was founded in 1978, long before Finney Crossing existed as a development, and has managed trails on this land ever since. In 2019, the Trust for Public Land, Catamount, the Town of Williston, and a group of volunteers partnered to conserve 393 acres of the property, transferring ownership to the town while Catamount continued to manage the trails and recreational programming as a nonprofit. What Catamount has never had, in all that time, is a real building of its own.
That is changing. Through a VOREC Building Planning Grant, Catamount has spent this summer working with the firms Black River Design and TCE on conceptual designs for a new community building, alongside the wetlands delineations, stormwater permitting, septic planning, and Act 250 review that a project like that requires. The organization's own updates put the goal of finalized conceptual designs at this fall. At the same time, Catamount is working through Act 250 and wetland permits for a separate Comprehensive Trail Plan covering its roughly twenty to twenty six miles of singletrack, doubletrack, and gravel trail, including more than ten miles of adaptive accessible routes.
None of that requires a storefront or a lease sign to notice, which is exactly why it is easy to miss. A nonprofit that has operated out of makeshift space for decades is closer than it has ever been to getting a real building, funded and planned in the same year that Finney Crossing added two restaurants and Maple Tree Place added one retailer under construction.
What this adds up to
Williston is not getting one kind of new. It is getting three, and they are not aimed at the same resident.
Finney Crossing's restaurant additions are aimed at people who want a destination close to home, backed by a restaurant group that is explicitly betting on suburban growth over downtown foot traffic. Maple Tree Place's slower, single-retailer update is aimed at people who just need Taft Corners to keep functioning as it always has. And the Catamount building project, the one without a grand opening date or a lease announcement, is aimed at the roughly 20 to 26 miles of trail behind Governor Chittenden Road finally getting the year-round infrastructure that the trail network itself has needed since long before either commercial center existed.
If you already live in Williston, the practical version of this is simple. The next few months are worth watching in two directions at once: whether SPAGHET and the Farmhouse expansion hold their early momentum through a full year of seasons, and whether Catamount's conceptual designs land on schedule this fall. One of those stories will show up on a receipt. The other will show up as a building that was not there before, on land you have probably already walked, run, or ridden across without ever needing a storefront to enjoy it.
If any of this, the restaurant growth, the retail pace at Taft Corners, or the investment happening in Williston's outdoor spaces, has you thinking about what it means for property values or timing in this part of Chittenden County, The Hammond Team knows this town from more angles than the listings page. Reach out when you are ready to talk specifics.
