If you have lived in Vergennes for more than a couple of years, you already have a mental map of a summer Saturday. Coffee at one address. A drink at another. The lake at the end of Basin Harbor Road. That map is out of date.
Three of the addresses locals rely on have moved, opened, or reopened in the last twelve months, and the museum most of us treat as background scenery has staged its biggest change in years. Here is what actually looks different in the Little City this season, and how to update your default weekend without leaving town.
The addresses that moved
The single most useful thing a resident can know right now is which door to walk through. A short cheat sheet:
| Place | Old spot | Where to find it in summer 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Vergennes Laundry | 247 Main Street | 205 Main Street |
| The Holt | opened March 2025 | 11 Main Street, inside the Kennedy Brothers building |
| Big Heart Social | new | upstairs at 35 Green Street |
Nadia Dole, owner of the beloved café and restaurant Vergennes Laundry, said goodbye to its original location at 247 Main Street in Vergennes, and is relocating just down the street to 205 Main Street. If you have not been in yet, the short version is that the wood-fired bread, the French and Middle Eastern pastries, and the small grocery section all made the move with her. Julianne and Didier Murat founded Vergennes Laundry at 247 Main Street in 2010 and sold it to Christian Kruse, now owner of the Big Spruce in Richmond, in 2017; Dole purchased the bakery's name, equipment, furnishings and contents from Kruse, who had operated there as Vergennes Laundry by CK. Same name you have used for years, new door.
Inside the Kennedy Brothers building, the café slot has changed hands again. The café inside the Kennedy Brothers building at 11 Main Street reopened as the Holt, a family-friendly breakfast, lunch and dinner spot, on March 7. Maple Café, which preceded it, closed last year. The counter-service restaurant serves everything à la carte, both to keep prices affordable and to minimize waste, co-owner Adam Neff said. The menu features classic dishes such as eggs and French toast in the morning; salads, sandwiches and homemade soups throughout the day; and lasagna, coconut-curry shrimp, falafel, shepherd's pie, burgers and roast chicken for dinner. Plus tacos at every meal, co-owner Teresa Boucher added. The counter-service model is the detail worth knowing before you arrive with a group. You do not sit down and wait for a menu. You order, you eat, you go.
The genuinely new arrival is upstairs at 35 Green Street. The former Hired Hand Brewing taproom at 35 Green Street has sat empty since Antidote returned downstairs and subsequently closed in 2024. This summer, the upstairs bar will become Big Heart Social. Cofounder Shiloh Lawrence wants the café-bar and coworking spot to be a local third space, a community hangout. Big Heart Social will occupy two-thirds of the upstairs, which is now sealed off from the restaurant below. Lawrence is brightening and softening the space with vivid colors and furniture. A new counter will soon be installed on the wraparound deck out front. Exact hours are still to be determined, but Lawrence plans to offer coffee and a few breakfast food items, including house-baked biscuits and hot-and-ready breakfast sandwiches, from 7:30 a.m. Coworking is planned to follow. If you have been driving past that upstairs space wondering what was happening behind the windows, that is the answer.
What changed down at the lake
The Lake Champlain Maritime Museum is the kind of place locals stop noticing because it has always been there. This is the year to notice it again.
Museum grounds and exhibits are open for the 2026 season from May 23 to October 18. When open for the season, the Museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Two things distinguish this season from the last several. You can get in free on the opening day of the season, check out a new exhibit on the American Revolution on Lake Champlain's shores, or have your kids explore with a free scavenger hunt. There is Guatemalan food from a local food truck, and a segment of the PBS Ken Burns documentary on the American Revolution plays at 2 p.m. The new exhibit is called "Fragments: Voices of the American Revolution on Lake Champlain," and opening day included the unveiling of a new mural.
The other thing worth knowing: the museum is now free in an admirable effort to be accessible to all who wish to visit. If you have not been down Basin Harbor Road with visiting family in a while because you remembered the admission fee, that math has changed. Free means the museum has stopped being a plan and started being a fallback, useful for the Sunday afternoon when the weather turns or the kids run out of ideas.
The standing dates worth putting on the fridge
If the addresses above are the moving pieces, these are the fixed pieces. The rhythm of a Vergennes summer runs on four:
- Third Thursdays. On the third Thursday of each month, downtown shops stay open until 7:00 PM, with live music, the farmers market, special promotions, and family-friendly activities.
- Thursday farmers market. Vergennes Farmers Market runs rain or shine each Thursday 3:00 to 7:00 PM beginning June 12 through October 9 at Vergennes City Green.
- Vergennes Day. Saturday, August 22, 2026, 10 AM to 3 PM at City Park. This year is the 44th, per the Addison County Chamber. Pancake breakfast, road race, chicken BBQ, bandstand music.
- Groovin' on the Green. The block-party fundraiser in City Park, described as the last bash of summer, most recently drew friends, family and neighbors on Friday evening, September 12, with music from Unruley Allies.
The reason to write these down instead of relying on the algorithm to surface them: three of the four land on the same day of the week. If your Thursday afternoon is already spoken for, you miss half of the summer's civic life without realizing it.
The Main Street project you will actually notice
If you have not been paying attention to Vergennes Partnership meetings, the near-term change to how downtown looks is worth flagging. The Partnership has listed among its next steps a plan to create a more beautiful and safer Main Street through the removal of the utility poles and relocation of the wires, reimagine the waterfront with improvements like new docks and enhanced parks, and lead the historic Pump House renovation. The utility pole work is the one you will see first from a car window. The waterfront and Pump House pieces are longer horizons but worth tracking if you use the Otter Creek falls area with any regularity.
The context matters. The Vergennes Partnership was born in 1999 after Vergennes earned status as an official Vermont State Designated Downtown, one of 24 Designated Downtowns in the state, which comes with tax credits, grants and programs; business owners and property developers in the downtown have used over $900,000 in state tax credits to rehabilitate, upgrade and improve their properties. This is the funding lane the new streetscape work is riding on, and it is why the downtown block keeps quietly upgrading without a big public campaign attached to it.
Rewriting a default Saturday
Put it together and here is what a resident's Saturday looks like this summer if you actually use the new pieces:
- Coffee and a pastry at Vergennes Laundry at its new 205 Main address.
- A walk to City Park, or across the Otter Creek bridge to the falls.
- Lunch counter-style at The Holt inside Kennedy Brothers, or a browse at The Waypost, described in local reviews as a curated collection of unusual vintage and gently-worn clothing, with a fun collection of vinyl for cheap, new and vintage home items, including locally made pottery.
- Afternoon at the Maritime Museum on Basin Harbor Road for the Fragments exhibit and the new mural. Free admission, so it is fine to stay an hour and leave.
- Evening drink upstairs at Big Heart Social, once hours settle in, or dinner downtown at one of the standing options on Main.
None of the individual moves are dramatic. Together they are a different day than the one you were having in 2023.
When the map matters for more than a Saturday
Knowing your own downtown well is its own reward. It is also, quietly, one of the more useful things you can offer a friend who is thinking about buying here, a family member weighing a move up from Middlebury, or a neighbor deciding whether to list. The Little City's real value shows up in the details of how a week is actually spent, not in a listing description.
If you or someone you know is thinking about a move in or out of Vergennes this year, The Hammond Team is happy to talk through what the market looks like for your specific block and what to expect from a Vergennes-area sale or purchase. Contact The Hammond Team when you are ready.
