There are a few things you should know before heading to Majestic café and bar, which opened Thanksgiving week on the rotary in Burlington’s South End, across from Christ the King School:
No. 1: The small restaurant is open all five weeknights but not Saturday or Sunday.
No. 2: Those who drive there, please, for the love of whatever higher power you believe in, ignore the mapping apps and enter the compact parking lot from Ledge Road, not directly off the rotary, heading the wrong way into the one-way exit. On a recent visit, I watched several drivers slow rotary traffic to make a tight, angled turn into Majestic’s narrow parking exit, risking simultaneous rear-end and front-end crashes.
No. 3: If Majestic’s early weeks are any indication, be prepared to wait to eat, unless you arrive close to the 4 p.m. opening time or after about 8:30 p.m. The 25-seat eatery does not take reservations, nor does it have a website or phone number to inform you that it does not take reservations. Staff will serve you drinks while you wait, though.
These cautionary notes aside, once you park safely and land a seat, Majestic is an easy place to enjoy. The convivial atmosphere evokes a relaxed, lively dinner party at a friend’s house — assuming that friend is a very good cook with a well-stocked bar, a deep vinyl library and a thoughtful but not snooty wine collection.
Settle in with a smoky, tart Everything’s Fine mezcal margarita ($13) and a plate of slightly funky Crema Alpina cheese ($10) from the Berkshires, served with marinated local mushrooms, a bright parsley and celery salad, and a hunk of Tremolo Bread baked in the Old North End. Share a golden beet salad ($8) with ginger-maple vinaigrette and a little dish of tender, ricotta-enriched meatballs ($12) in tomato-fennel sauce with house-baked focaccia. Sip a glass of skin-contact Sicilian zibibbo ($10) from the wine list curated by downtown Burlington’s Wilder Wines.
As your cocktail’s name suggests, everything is indeed fine down at Majestic.
The new bar and restaurant is a partnership of seasoned Burlington industry professionals Maura O’Sullivan, 58, and Sam Tolstoi, 38. O’Sullivan was kitchen manager for 16 years at Penny Cluse Café until it closed in 2022. The career chef previously led the culinary team at Burlington’s Smokejacks, a trailblazer in Vermont’s farm-to-table movement that ended its run in 2008.
Tolstoi started as a prep cook at Manhattan Pizza & Pub as a 19-year-old University of Vermont student. He later co-owned the downtown Burlington fixture for a decade before selling his share in 2022. (The bar, which was briefly rebranded as Rincon Pizzeria and Tapas Bar in the fall, has reopened under new ownership and is undergoing renovations.) Tolstoi is also a hands-off partner in Burlington’s Muddy Waters.
O’Sullivan and Tolstoi had known each other for years. When they found themselves looking for a new project at around the same time, they decided to join forces. “We both came from high-volume, fast-paced restaurants and wanted to do something on our own terms,” Tolstoi told Seven Days last January. Among those terms was their eventual and unusual decision not to open on weekends, seeking a better work-life balance for themselves and their staff.
In late 2023, Tolstoi bought the former Majestic Car Rental building on the rotary and launched the major makeover required to turn it into a restaurant. A planned spring 2024 opening had to be pushed to late November due to construction and permitting delays, he said.
The spot’s name came naturally, the pair said. During months of building and planning, their refrain became “Let’s meet at Majestic.” The co-owners hope that becomes their customers’ mantra, too.
O’Sullivan said they aimed to create not a food or drink destination per se but a welcoming “local hang where people can come to be with each other.”
Her business partner, who lives just a couple of blocks from Majestic, said, “This neighborhood needed something.” Tolstoi’s neighbors — and many others — are proving him correct.
Among Majestic’s early fans is Justin Kuzma, who lives with his family about a mile from the restaurant in Burlington’s South End. Kuzma said he watched the construction in the high-profile rotary location with interest and followed Majestic’s Instagram (its only online presence) for updates.
So far, Kuzma said, he’s visited the restaurant twice: with his wife and then with his sister, his wife and the couple’s almost 4-year-old son, who was tickled when the server satisfied his request for a whole apple he’d spied in a kitchen prep bowl.
“We’re very excited to have a new place close by,” Kuzma said, adding that he looks forward to walking over in warmer weather. “It has that nice, cozy home feel, a neighborhood place.”
O’Sullivan and Tolstoi are very much the personal hosts of Majestic. She stays busy in the compact open kitchen but will pop out to deliver a plate or two and say hi to the many customers she already knows, as well as those who are quickly becoming familiar faces. Tolstoi works with the small front-of-the-house team to seat, serve and flip records from his collection on the turntable, spinning a soundtrack that ranges from Donna Summer to Fela Kuti to Neil Young.
O’Sullivan’s low-key menu fits the vibe. Her goal, she said, is to offer an array of “snacks that can be combined into meals.” The food is not fussy or overly complex, but you will be well fed.
The menu’s 10 or so shareable plates make for an affordable mix-and-match game, with choices spanning a bowl of sweet-hot chile crisp Chex mix ($6) to the salsa verde chicken drumstick served with roasted peppers and pearl couscous ($12).
For those familiar with the past 25 years of the Burlington restaurant scene, O’Sullivan’s menu also provides a fun memory game. The salsa verde is borrowed from Penny Cluse (it’s also now on the menu at Deep City), as are the marinated mushrooms served with the Crema Alpina cheese. The beet salad’s maple-ginger vinaigrette comes from a recipe on a faded fax used in the Smokejacks kitchen, where O’Sullivan first smoked salmon, as she does now for Majestic’s classic smoked salmon plate ($8) with Ploughgate Creamery butter and dill-cucumber salad.
Other recipes were gleaned from friends, cookbooks and newspapers. The herby shrimp remoulade ($9) comes from the grandmother of Penny Cluse co-owner and current Deep City chef Charles Reeves. The beef-and-pork meatballs are based on a New York Times classic, and the very good carrot cake ($6) is from Joy of Cooking. A satisfying wedge of flaky-crusted potato and Gruyère tart ($10) graces the menu thanks to a close friend of O’Sullivan’s, James Beard Award-winning cookbook author Molly Stevens. A version of that recipe appears in One Potato, Two Potato, a 2001 book Stevens cowrote with Roy Finamore.
An accomplished home cook could probably re-create much of Majestic’s menu, but it’s so much more relaxing to have someone else do the cooking and cleanup.
Early fan Kuzma said he appreciates the “focused and affordable” menu and the interesting but not overwrought cocktails. The food is generally a few steps beyond what he and his wife would cook, he said, “but I don’t care if I could have made it at home at that price point.”
Tolstoi claimed responsibility for one edible offering, which is tucked on the spirits list among the amari. A small glass of gummy bears ($3) is a tip of the hat to Tolstoi’s tenure at Manhattan’s, where the candy was also on the menu.
The co-owner quipped that his other major contribution is naming cocktails. In honor of “the antics of the rotary,” as O’Sullivan put it, look for a drink called In Through the Out Door, coming soon to a neighborhood bar near you.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Majestic Meetup | Industry veterans open a neighborhood bar and casual eatery in Burlington’s South End By Melissa Pasanen“
This article appears in Jan 8-14, 2025.
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