A day of eating in South Burlington is more than just a walk in the park(ing lot)

SOUTH BURLINGTON - It was a gorgeous summer day, that sublime kind of moment we all covet in northern Vermont, yet one that has been so rare this immensely wet season.

It was the kind of day you want to spend outside absorbing fresh air and beautiful scenery or, in lieu of that, among hundreds of cars coming and going in a parking lot on one of the busiest roads in Chittenden County.

At least it’s a parking lot filled with plenty of places to eat.

That’s what brought me to an outdoor shopping center along Williston Road. I arrived on this Tuesday in late August to eat my way through the eateries within, and to further explore the strange sort of isolation one can find by spending a day alone in a bustling center of commerce.

This is my third and final parking-lot piece in a series that began as something of a whim two summers ago in the City Market lot in downtown Burlington, as we were continuing to emerge from the social cocoon that was the COVID-19 pandemic. The second installment came late last summer in the so-called “tastiest parking lot in Vermont” in Waitsfield, where I pigged out on tacos and some of the best fried chicken in the state.

Three seems like the right number to end on, doesn’t it? Three articles about three meals a day in three parking lots. It’s a trilogy of taste.

Breakfast, The Bagel Place

I’m not a morning person, so it’s bordering on brunchtime when I pull into the parking lot smack in the heart of Williston Road, aka U.S. 2. This is the smallest and I expect the most-boring of the three lots I’ve hunkered down in. I’m fine with that. At home our water heater is on the fritz and our clothes dryer is kaput. I’m feeling betrayed by my own house. Why not hang out in a parking lot with no home appliances to fail on me? At least it’s a change of scenery, such as it is.

I step into The Bagel Place a little before 9:30 and order an egg and cheese sandwich with bacon on an onion bagel, plus coffee made by Uncommon Coffee in Essex. This makes three parking lot stories in three years and three breakfast sandwiches. It’s possible this series has just been a cover for me to sample the breakfast sandwiches of northwestern Vermont.

Fortunately the sandwich at The Bagel Place is both tasty and modestly-sized. I’m planning to cram a lot of food into an eight-hour day. I don’t want a big fat heavy bagel taking up excess space in my belly.

This parking lot, unlike the others I’ve taken up residence in, has almost no outdoor seating. It’s essentially a strip mall, with all the charm that term implies. I sit at a window-side bar overlooking the lot, in a prime spot to get smushed if the person in the car five feet in front of me accidentally shifts into drive instead of reverse.

Speaking of the car in front of me, why is the woman in the driver’s seat just sitting there for minutes on end looking at her phone? Who in their right mind would spend so much time just hanging out in a boring parking l---

Oh. Never mind. We all have our reasons.

I take my last satisfying swig of coffee around 10:15 and venture out to explore the place where I’ll spend my day. Two minutes later I’m done exploring. There’s a sports store, a nail salon, a barber shop and the various eateries I’ll venture into today, and that’s it.

I had never noticed until wiling away the late-morning hours in this lot that these businesses constitute the Small Meadows Shopping Center, or so the sign at the entrance says. I had a bit of a philosophical dialogue with myself while planning this article about what constitutes a parking lot. Do Starbucks and Moe’s Southwest Grill, separated from the other businesses by a strip of pavement, count as part of the parking lot I’m spending the day in?

The sign at the entrance includes those two places, so if the Small Meadows Shopping Center considers it one lot that’s good enough for me. Following a reconnaissance mission further afield, I discount the Windjammer behind Moe’s. While connected by a short access road, the hotel and restaurant complex does appear to have its own distinct lot, as the sign proclaiming “WINDJAMMER Patron Parking ONLY” would seem to indicate.

Because I don’t visit this shopping center regularly I had never noticed there are other parking lots behind the businesses. I suddenly realize there’s no reason to try against often heavy traffic to turn left out of the shopping center onto busy four-lane Williston Road. (One driver this morning spent close to five minutes waiting, waiting, waiting). Just go behind the plaza, turn left onto the Windjammer access road and then let the traffic light allow you to turn left onto Williston Road with ease.

Wait, did I say there was a barber shop in this plaza? My shaggy head is suffering from a long-deferred trim, so I step into Clay’s Barber Shop.

I wait my turn while leafing through a barber-shop copy of Sports Illustrated (an article on baseball’s new and elaborate home-run celebrations holds my attention for a while). Sports-talk radio plays in the background with guys arguing about various things including, sometimes, sports. I exit looking sharp-ish, lighter by $18 and seemingly four pounds of weight off my head. Time for more food…

Lunch, Chicken Charlie’s

The lyric that opens the latest Sylvan Esso album asks “How can I be moved/When everything is moving?” Hang out in a parking lot and you’ll be struck by how people are coming and going, coming and going, but it’s all ephemeral; in the end, nothing much happens.

Sure, it’s tedious spending eight hours in a parking lot. But I always appreciate the slowing down of things. It lets us observe more. You go deeper into your own head yet further from the daily irritations that weigh on us. Maybe we’d all be happier if we were bored more often, if instead of moving all the time we allowed ourselves to be moved.

At quarter to noon I head into Chicken Charlie’s and order a quarter chicken (leg and thigh) with gravy, mashed potatoes, creamy Cole slaw and a root beer. I sit inside by a closed garage door window − next to the parking lot, of course – and prepare to eat my lunch while enjoying the soulful soundtrack playing the hits of James Brown and The Temptations.

I struggle to cut the chicken with a plastic knife and fork without also eating the wax paper on the metal tray my lunch came on. I pick up the chicken pieces and eat them by hand, Henry VIII-style. The chicken is pretty small, and I finish it well before I’m done with the mashed potatoes and Cole slaw. The potatoes are lumpy but I don’t mind a few lumps. It means they’re real.

After my meal I take a stroll past Kevin Smith Sports and look into the adjacent urgent care lot, where I see a guy in medical scrubs eating lunch while sitting in the back of his open hatchback. I feel a twinge of parking-lot-dining kinship there.

Regarding the lack of picnic tables in my parking lot – there is one, around the corner from Leonardo’s, but it’s really just part of a designated smoking area - would it kill someone to invest a few bucks in a cheap picnic table or two and plop them on the patch of lawn next to Leonardo’s? Must strip malls completely embrace their depersonalized, could-be-anywhere-in-America reputations?

Apparently, the answer is yes.

Coffee break, Starbucks

Let’s get this right out there: I don’t like Starbucks. I’d rather shop local instead of at a global conglomerate. Plus, Starbucks’ brew is too bitter for my taste. But I’m in a parking lot with minimal options and I already had coffee at The Bagel Place, so Starbucks it is. At least it gives me a chance to immerse on the west side of the Small Meadows compound.

I get my “grande” coffee (“grande” is a fancy word for “medium”) and sit beneath an umbrella at a table out front. It’s a little after 1 p.m. and it really is a glorious day, 71 and sunny with a moderate breeze. Admittedly I’m in a cranky mood. My house feels like it’s falling apart one faulty appliance at a time. My wife and dog are out of town for the week. The sense of isolation I arrived with in this parking lot only grows. I vow to relax in the sweet air with my spiffy new haircut and coffee and just enjoy the moment.

I polish off the crossword in today’s Free Press. The Jumble puts up more of a struggle. The wind kicks up and blows parking-lot grit in my face. I pretend it’s beach sand and take another sip of coffee.

Just before I drain my coffee I have a spark of insight with the Jumble and conquer that puzzle, too. I decide to celebrate my victory with another bite to eat.

Snack, Moe’s Southwest Grill

I walk a dozen steps west from Starbucks to Moe’s Southwest Grill, where I get a soft-shell chicken-adobo taco and water. I’ve had no water in this asphalt desert and I’m feeling parched.

The taco does the trick. It’s just enough food and time spent to serve as a bridge between 3 and 5 p.m., when I’m planning my last meal of the day. I go back to my car, retrieve a book I’ve been reading about Jackie Robinson’s first season with the Brooklyn Dodgers and return with a second cup of water to my table outside Moe’s.

On one final perambulation around the parking lot I notice a small sign on the side of Kevin Smith Sports. It reads “Please use the traffic light” and shows the route behind Moe’s I only just discovered for myself a few hours earlier. I suddenly realize these easy-to-miss signs are outside almost all of the storefronts in the shopping center. If only more people knew…

Dinner, Leonardo’s Pizza

I spend a few minutes relaxing at the picnic table next to Leonardo’s before going in to order dinner. (As with breakfast sandwiches, I’ve managed to have pizza for all three of my parking-lot stays.) I order the Hawaiian Island Delight, partly because I like pineapple on pizza and partly because I like the iconoclasm of ordering it. Purists think pineapple on pizza is an abomination. Anything I can do to rankle the traditionalists makes me happy.

I come to realize that the downside of this picnic table I’ve been eyeing all day is that it’s on the west side of Leonardo’s, meaning that just before 5 it’s in the direct line of fire from the setting sun. I sit with my back to that mysterious shiny orb we’ve barely seen this summer and take my culinary trip to Hawaii.

Leonardo’s was long an election night staple in the Free Press newsroom, and while it’s never been inventive, blow-your-socks-off pizza it’s plenty fine, and made with King Arthur flour from right here in Vermont. It’s a perfect capper to the day.

I eat about half of my medium pizza and save the rest. I decide to swing by the office and leave it in the fridge for tomorrow’s lunch.

As I exit the parking lot exactly eight hours after this quiet odyssey began I drive the back way, behind Moe’s, to the access road that brings me to the signal light. I make a quick and easy left turn left onto Williston Road, feeling good that I get to use my newfound knowledge from a day spent doing almost nothing but eating, and observing.

For more information

Places visited in this article:

• The Bagel Place, 1166 Williston Road, South Burlington. (802) 497-2058, www.thebagelplacevt.com

• Clay’s Barber Shop, 1174 Williston Road, South Burlington. (802) 660-4845

• Chicken Charlie’s, 1160 Williston Road, South Burlington. (802) 862-1211, www.chickencharliesvt.com

• Starbucks, 1150 Williston Road, South Burlington. (802) 651-6873, www.starbucks.com/store-locator/store/8598/williston-rd-s-burlington-1150-williston-rd-unit-2-south-burlington-vt-05403

• Moe’s Southwest Grill, 1150 Williston Road, South Burlington. (802) 660-4900, https://locations.moes.com/vt/burlington/1150-williston-rd

• Leonardo’s Pizza, 1160 Williston Road, South Burlington. (802) 951-9000, www.leonardosonline.com

Contact Brent Hallenbeck at bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com.

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Food in South Burlington: This parking lot might have all you need