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| The Miss Lyndonville Diner, shown here inundated in this image from the Caledonian Record, will not reopen after 46 years in business. |
The Miss Lyndonville Diner, a Northeast Kingdom fixture since 1978, will not re-open after it was damaged in this year's July 10-11 flood.
It's a sign that weather and climate disasters are having a real impact on the fabric of Vermont life and culture. We risk losing much more as the threats of further floods and severe storms increase in the coming years and decades.
"Janet Gray Burnor, who has owned the diner for 46 years, plans to sell the business.
'I'm choosing to rebuild but not reopen,' Burnor, 72, told Seven Days on Friday morning.
Still, the closure of the Northeast Kingdom staple 'feel like a death in the community,' she said, getting choked up. 'We are heartbroken. I completely understand the community's reaction to this loos, and I have tremendous gratitude. They've never let us down.'"
Like most of these situations, the the flood isn't the only reason why the Miss Lyndonville is shutting down.
The Covid pandemic took a toll on just about every restaurant in the universe. Including the Miss Lyndonville.
The circumstances that ultimately shut down the restaurant were pretty abrupt, though. On the day of the flood, the Miss Lyndonville was busy with customers and staff when water from the nearby Passumpsic River surged across the street toward the restaurant.
Manager Travis Butts got everybody out safely, then he got stuck in the flooding restaurant while shutting down the restaurant, Seven Days reports. So he made himself a sandwich and headed to the roof, where he awaited either rescue or for the water to go down.
A foot of water inside the Miss Lyndonville caused a lot of damage. Burnor said she will repair the building, and then put it up for sale.
These weather and climate related sad moments affect people far and wide. Obviously the Lyndonville community will feel this acutely.
People with even the thinnest ties to Lyndonville feel it, too. I attended what was then Lyndon State College in the early 1980s, trying (and failing) to obtain a meteorology degree. The Miss Lyndonville was a staple, and we were there a lot. I know hundreds of other people who went to that college will lament the loss of the Miss Lyndonville, too.
At least we can still hope that this isn't the end of the Miss Lyndonville. It could be just a new chapter. We're hoping it doesn't change too much if it reopens, and the signs are positive that it might not.
"When the business sells, Burnor said, she'll offer to run a training class for the new owners' dining room staff to 'to instill the difference between an 'order taker' and someone who cares about the people they're dealing with, she explained."
The Miss Lyndonville isn't the only iconic place we've lost to weather and climate disasters here in Vermont.
During the July, 2023 flood most of the Inn by the River in Hardwick collapsed into the raging Lamoille River. The inn had been getting increased business which was good for the economically strapped town. The owners opted not to rebuild, and the wreckage of the inn was removed the day before this year's July flooding.
Whole communities are at risk.
Downtown Montpelier, badly victimized by the July, 2023, avoided trouble this year. But the business district faces an uncertain future.
The flood put retailers and others out of business for months. Foot traffic downtown was already lame due to Covid and the introduction of widespread remote work, and that state of affairs continues today.
The Capital Plaza Hotel, shuttered after the flood, reopened in the spring. Businesses have re-opened in town, and some new businesses appeared. But the success is shaky. It could take just one more inundation to kill or at least badly diminish downtown Montpelier permanently.
Business owners might look elsewhere to make a living, abandoning beautiful, but flood-prone downtowns like Montpelier.
VTDigger reported this example back in April:
"Brian Lewis owns the Yellow Mustard sandwich shop and the recently opened Filibuster Cafe in Montpelier. He also owns restaurants in Middlesex and South Burlington.
'I am running $800 per day in labor and bringing in $1,200 a day in sales in Montpelier, but I also have to pay for utilities, rent, food and insurance,' he said. If I am not making money in Montpelier, what is the point of being here? I have other locations and opportunities.'"
Then there's Barre, where downtown, and other large swaths of the city flooded in both July 2023 and 2024. I think it's too soon after this year's flood to assess its future, and I haven't seen any news regarding that. As I've said in previous posts, I'm deeply worried about the viability of Barre.
This is repeating in towns throughout Vermont. Plainfield lost housing stock to this year's flood just a couple months after Goddard College in town announced its permanent closure. The uncertainty of what happens to the Goddard property combined with the trauma of this year's catastrophic flooding definitely has residents wondering what the future will hold, and what Plainfield will look like five or ten years down the road.
Climate change disasters as slowly changing the face of Vermont. Our built-in bias here in the Green Mountain State is to resist change. That's a lot of the reason why the beautiful old architecture of downtowns like Montpelier, St. Albans and Rutland haven't changed all that much in the past century.
But change we must. There's flood mitigation, buyouts and more that have to be done. That's doubly hard when the wheels of federal bureaucracy turn slowly and hinder the process.
And maybe, the Miss Lyndonville might eventually revive and thrive, and with it, hopefully the rest of Vermont will somehow do the same, with or without climate change.
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