It’s been many things: a Mexican restaurant, a clam shack, a roadhouse and a long-running nightclub called Destiny. The fortunes of the one-story building at 5308 Route 5 in Ascutney have experienced an ebb and flow often tied to those of the nearby Ascutney Mountain Resort.
Now the building’s latest incarnation might draw the attention of Guy Fieri: the Ascutney Diner is due to open there this week.
Co-owners Bob Reed and Patty Button will serve three meals a day, six days a week; theirs will be the only establishment in town serving dinner since Casa Del Sol closed this year. “We asked around, and we heard, ‘If you build it, we will come,’” Reed says. He and Button ran a food truck in Ascutney last summer and used to own a snack bar adjacent to Quechee Gorge.
With that experience under their belts, they’ve built a menu dense with all-American classics such as omelettes, pancakes and burgers but also peppered with slightly offbeat diner dishes such as “French Texas” toast, an Italian sausage-and-onion sub, fried mac-and-cheese bites and plates of liver and onions with bacon and mashed potatoes. Reed adds that the kitchen will serve fresh seafood and steaks each night — along with beer and wine — and diners can order their chops with a Montréal rub.
Open every day but Monday, Ascutney Diner can be reached at 674-4263.
This article appears in The Winter Reading Issue 2012.
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