After expanding, Montpelier's Three Penny Taproom was under water. Here's how it recovered

This profile of Three Penny Taproom is the latest in a series by the Burlington Free Press on Montpelier restaurants as they reopen following flooding that devastated Vermont’s capital city in July. What has the experience been like? What does the future hold?

MONTPELIER ― A bar/restaurant renowned for its beer selection completed an expansion project just in time to celebrate Independence Day. A week later, that expansion – and the rest of the business – was under more than three feet of water.

What happened during the flooding?

Kevin Kerner, co-owner of the Three Penny Taproom, was at the Main Street business the morning of Monday, July 10, to finishing installing new stools in the addition that had just opened a week earlier. The taproom expanded next door into a former antiques shop. The former L-shaped bar in the main part of the business had been converted into a horseshoe-shaped bar, and the taproom added seating.

The rain kept coming down and the water from the Winooski River kept rising. Kerner’s wife called to say he should get out immediately. The basement started to flood.

“It was coming up and there was no sign of it stopping,” Kerner said.

He was at home that night watching a video feed from inside the taproom and saw that the water was rising to the level of the newly installed bar in the addition.

“I’m fairly stoic. I kind of was like, ‘OK,’” said Kerner, who served for a while as an emergency medical technician. “I deal with emergency fairly well.”

He returned to the Three Penny Taproom two days later.

“It was devastation – mud, silt everywhere,” Kerner said. He found kegs, tables and chairs that had been floating in the floodwaters scattered throughout the building. He and his crew started cleaning right away. His mentality, he said, was “Let’s get to work.”

They ripped out soaked drywall and flooring. They disposed of damaged freezers and coolers. They installed nine dehumidifiers that ran around the clock to dry everything out through the humid summer. Kerner and his crew came in every day to empty the dehumidifiers of water. It took two months to dry the building out.

The Three Penny Taproom was one of dozens of downtown Montpelier businesses unloading damaged equipment outside their buildings, creating dank, narrow passageways on the sidewalks. That was a depressing reminder, Kerner said, of how all of those business owners’ and their employees’ livelihoods shut down suddenly,

“It was a visceral, town-wide reaction” pointing out how much all those businesses needed each other to create a vibrant city, he said. “It’s a cliché, but a rising tide floats all boats.”

How has the recovery gone?

Though Kerner said he deals with emergency fairly well, doubt crept in. “Over the four months of recovery,” he said, “I maybe freaked out a couple of times.”

The biggest freak-out involved simple mathematics: The Three Penny Taproom was spending money to refurbish, and because it remained closed. the business was bringing in no money.

“There was a period of time where we didn’t know if we were going to be able to rebuild,” Kerner said. That was especially true by late summer; he said people kept asking when the Three Penny Taproom would reopen, and Kerner didn’t even know if the business would ever reopen.

He felt bad for the taproom’s 30 full- and part-time employees. who were out of work for months.

“I’m responsible for their livelihood,” he said, and yet was unable to help. Overworked local contractors would say they could finish a certain project in a day, but two weeks later the work was still not done.

The Three Penny Taproom provided outdoor seating and a limited menu in late September, but hardly any visitors were coming to town more than two months after the devastation. The taproom reopened fully in early November.

Kerner said loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration allowed the Three Penny Taproom to come back. He wishes those loans could be grants, especially for a business like his that had just taken out loans to expand.

“This is Main Street, America, not even figuratively,” Kerner said of the smallest state capital in the U.S. “It seems as Americana as you can get without John Cougar Mellencamp writing a song about it.” State and national governments need to spend money on communities to boost the overall economy, according to Kerner.

It wasn’t until December, a month after reopening, that Kerner began having what he called “stress dreams.” In those dreams he was at the Three Penny Taproom, and the bar area was filling up with water. No one was doing anything to help.

What does the future hold?

Downtown Montpelier isn’t what it was in 2009 when the Three Penny Taproom became one of the first craft-beer bars to open in what would become a beer-intensive state. People don’t flock downtown to hear live music as they did back then, according to Kerner. Students, staff and diners are no longer drawn to the eateries of the New England Culinary Institute, which closed in 2021.

If the capital city is to thrive, Kerner said, government needs to do something about Montpelier’s tendency to flood, especially considering the looming prospect of climate change.

“The future of Montpelier could be bleak if flood mitigation isn’t taken seriously. This (July flood) is not a 100-year flood,” Kerner said. “If it happens again we will lose the majority of the businesses.”

Hours and information

Three Penny Taproom, 108 Main St., Montpelier. 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Friday-Saturday. (802) 223-8277, www.threepennytaproom.com

Contact Brent Hallenbeck at bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com.

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Three Penny Taproom in Montpelier VT back after expansion, flood