• Jeff Drew

Note: Looking for the Daysies 2017 ballot? Check it out here.

Welcome to the Daysies, the locals’ guide to the best of Vermont, brought to you by Seven Days. This guide is devoted to readers’ picks for the best places to eat, drink, shop, get outside, be entertained and, well, pretty much everything else. Whether you live here or are just visiting, consider this the inside scoop on doing as the locals do.

In the 14th year of the Daysies, we knew we had to really bring it. You know what they say: Go big or go home. Being an altweekly, we decided to go … gnome. After all, the Daysies are already a pretty huge endeavor: 7,743 people cast 619,515 individual votes in 168 categories. It takes an elite team of Excel-savvy talliers to pull this thing off every year, gnome sayin’? This year we also singled out six "Gnometown Heroes" to give their expert recommendations for all the best Vermont has to offer. Do you agree with their "gnome-inations?"

Thanks to Seven Days readers for voting, and congrats to all the Daysies winners! Because of you, there’s no place like gnome — er, home.

Did you attend the Daysies party at ECHO?
If you posed for a photo in our gnome-tastic photobooth, the images are now on Facebook.

A note about the “Outside Chittenden County” section. In Vermont, the largest population is inside Chittenden County, so it’s tough for anyone outside to top the Burlington area. But in some instances — say, best restaurant or best draft beer list — the passionate swell of votes from outside Chittenden County justified separating the category.