Buying a loaf of Red Hen bread used to take a bike horn. In the bakery's early wholesale days, you drove to a lonely stretch of Route 100 in Duxbury and honked a black rubber bulb. Then you waited while someone in the next room washed the dough off their hands and came out to sell you bread. Co-owner Randy George described that routine to Seven Days this summer.
Twenty-seven years later, the line for that bread sometimes runs out the door at 60–64 Main Street and onto the sidewalk, as the same Seven Days story reported. The odd part is how that café came to exist. Red Hen never planned a downtown Montpelier café. It opened as a workaround for a construction delay in Middlesex. As of this fall it is the only full Red Hen café operating anywhere, and the business that was supposed to carry on at Red Hen's old Middlesex home has closed.
A Workaround With a Long Lease
The chain of events started in August 2025. George and his wife and co-owner, Eliza Cain, signed a lease on a building at 31 Welch Park in Middlesex, the former home of the food delivery business Farmers to You. They wanted more room for both baking and dining. Permitting delays piled up, and the couple realized their Camp Meade lease on Route 2 would run out before the new building was ready.
They solved it in two pieces. Woodbelly Pizza, the incoming Camp Meade tenant, agreed to share the wholesale bakery space with Red Hen until the Welch Park project was finished. For the café, Red Hen took over the vacant Rabble-Rouser Chocolate & Craft storefront on Main Street. At 4,000 square feet, it was one of the few spaces in town big enough for what Red Hen needed. Rabble-Rouser had roots at Camp Meade too, so a Main Street storefront linked to Camp Meade passed from one Camp Meade business to another.
The café opened as planned on May 1, 2026. That same day, Red Hen's café at Camp Meade closed after 18 years there. In March, WCAX reported that the owners had a five-year lease on the Main Street property and planned to stay at least that long. By June, Cain told Seven Days the downtown café had become a permanent part of the business plan, not a stopgap. "We signed a long lease," she said.
The couple already knew the Montpelier crowd. As The Bridge reported, they spent 25 years selling at the Capital City Farmers Market before they ever had a storefront in the city.
Every Loaf Now Comes From Welch Park
The second half of the plan landed in September. According to Red Hen's website, as of September 2026 the company bakes all of its bread and pastries at 31 Welch Park in Middlesex. So every loaf on the Main Street shelves is baked in Middlesex and driven in.
Red Hen plans to open a café at Welch Park too, but it hasn't given a date. For now, the only retail option there is The Bread Box, a self-serve stand open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily or until it sells out. It takes credit, debit and Apple Pay only. Red Hen describes it as a quick, in-and-out stop with easy parking and "no lines (yet)!"
Red Hen says 99% of the wheat and rye it uses is grown and milled within 300 miles of the bakery. Until a Welch Park café opens, Main Street is the only place to order a sandwich or a coffee with that bread.
The Move That Was Meant to Last
Woodbelly's part in the swap was the one planned as permanent. The wood-fired pizza business began in 2008, selling sourdough pizzas topped with local ingredients at farmers markets, and ran as a worker-owned cooperative for many years. It closed its Barre Street location in Montpelier in July 2025, and the plan was to move into Red Hen's old space at Camp Meade.
Woodbelly Café opened at Camp Meade in May. Over the summer it added daytime sandwiches, salads and sides, plus outdoor pizza and a creemee window. Seven Days reported on September 21 that the café had closed at the end of August, with a final pizza night on September 5. Co-owner Eric Andersen said customer traffic was slower than expected. He told the paper the business was most likely gone for good, though it would fill its remaining catering orders.
Here is the reshuffle in order:
- August 2025: Red Hen signs a lease at 31 Welch Park, Middlesex.
- July 2025: Woodbelly closes its Barre Street location in Montpelier.
- May 1, 2026: Red Hen opens on Main Street and closes its Camp Meade café the same day.
- May 2026: Woodbelly Café opens at Camp Meade in Red Hen's former home.
- End of August 2026: Woodbelly Café closes. Its final pizza night is September 5.
- September 2026: Red Hen moves all baking to Welch Park and opens The Bread Box.
- Still pending: A Red Hen café at Welch Park and new tenants at Camp Meade.
Camp Meade owner Russ Bennett told Seven Days he has new restaurant tenants lined up for the space but couldn't share details yet. Woodbelly's own website still lists Camp Meade hours, but those date from before the closure.
Six months after the swap, the Main Street café that started as a workaround is open seven days a week, and the Camp Meade space is waiting for its next tenant.
What the Main Street Café Is Doing Now
Red Hen lists its Main Street hours as 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day. The menu covers bread, pastries, espresso, and rotating seasonal soups, salads and sandwiches. The creemee window runs May through October on Red Hen's posted schedule, so this is its last stretch for the year. The cones are pressed in-house from freshly milled flour, according to Seven Days.
In June, Seven Days listed the cinnamon-and-honey iced latte at $6.70. That story also noted that Camp Meade regulars knew the old café for its maple-frosted cinnamon buns and buckwheat coconut chocolate chip cookies. The same piece said the owners were meeting with an architect to improve the counter workflow, after lines in the first month spilled onto the sidewalk. Café manager Hannah Connor, a culinary-school-trained pastry chef who has worked with Red Hen on and off since 2008, told the paper what customers were writing on comment cards:
"We hope you stay here."
The room is also becoming a downtown meeting spot. Last Friday, October 23, Red Hen hosted a free talk with Henry Grabar on parking, organized by Montpelier Complete Streets, the Vermont Sierra Club and AARP Vermont. It was timed to Moonlight Magic, the evening of late shopping and performances. Seven Days pointed out that the Main Street location reaches stroller-pushing parents, groups of teenagers after school, and people who might never have driven out to Camp Meade.
From Main Street Back to the Market
Bread and a coffee fit easily around the rest of the downtown calendar this fall. Here is what's ahead on the Montpelier Alive calendar and elsewhere:
- Friday, October 30: Lost Nation Theater stages "An Edgar Allan Poe Halloween," a one-night fundraiser with readings, dance and a costume contest. The Montpelier Performing Arts Hub hosts its "Rest In Sleaze" Halloween burlesque show the same night.
- Friday, November 6: Mark Lorah's solo show "The Invention of Intention" opens at The Front with an artist reception from 4 to 7 p.m. It runs through November 29.
- Saturday, November 21: The Capital City Farmers Market holds its Thanksgiving market at the Montpelier High School gym, 5 High School Drive, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
- December through April: The winter market moves to Alumni Hall on the VCFA campus, 45 College Street. It runs 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the first and third Saturdays of each month.
That market is where Red Hen sold bread in Montpelier for 25 years before George and Cain signed a lease on Main Street.
If you're curious how changes like Red Hen's move affect your own block, the team at Flex Realty tracks Montpelier one business and one address at a time. Contact us, and we'll walk you through what we're seeing downtown.
