Traveling through the Burlington airport just got a whole lot more pleasant. I discovered this in May after passing through security in the airport’s north terminal and, with 30 minutes to spare before boarding my flight, went to grab something quick to eat. Anticipating the purchase of a hopefully not-so-stale bagel, I turned the corner and stopped in my tracks at the sight of a line of customers 10 deep at a bustling counter, above which read a sign heralding the arrival of Skinny Pancake to BTV.
The story behind Skinny Pancake is one of those tales made possible by a couple of tireless young men with a bold, quirky idea and just enough naiveté not to question their venture’s long odds.
Just a few days after graduating from Middlebury in 2003, Benjy Adler and his brother, Jonny, served their first crepe to a hungry customer from the siblings’ cobbled-together food cart on Burlington’s Church Street. Their idea was simple: local ingredients, food prepared before your eyes, and a product that you wouldn’t find around the corner.
During the past decade, Skinny Pancake has evolved from a food cart with a cult following to a flagship eatery on the Burlington Waterfront, a café in Montpelier, a spin-off Burlington pastry shop (Chubby Muffin), a catering business, and now the airport restaurants (one in each terminal, as well as a Chubby Muffin kiosk near the check-in counters).
The brothers say that the airport deal is an attempt “to create the most local airport eatery in modern history.” To me, it is yet another example of Midd folk doing ambitious things in the food world. On that day in May, I found myself regretting just one thing—that I didn’t have more time to sit and stay a while.