• Oliver Frank
• Deep City

The lights are back on at Deep City, and former Penny Cluse Café co-owner Charles Reeves is in the kitchen. By late March or early April, the Burlington waterfront restaurant owned by the Foam Brewers team will reopen with regular brunch service.

Before closing Deep City on November 22, Foam's partners contacted Reeves for advice about the restaurant, which launched in March 2020.

"We realized we were a good match," Reeves told Seven Days.

He's bestowed on himself the title of "food director," he said, and will redevelop food service for both the restaurant and Foam's taproom next door. Rather than serving dinner, Deep City will remain an event space at night.

If longtime Burlington favorite Penny Cluse was a breakfast and lunch spot, Reeves said, "this is brunch." He's still designing the menu but said it might include familiar sauces such as salsa verde and salsa ranchero from the restaurant he owned with his wife, Holly Cluse, which closed in November 2022. Since spring 2023, Reeves has worked with the team at Burlington's Halvorson's Upstreet Café to revamp its menu.

"I'm not opening up Penny Cluse there," he said of the light-filled Deep City space. "But I am gonna open up a very brunch-specific place where the coffee's good, the smoothies are good, the breakfast cocktails are right, and the offerings are really fresh."

Reeves has already begun expanding food offerings in Foam's taproom; lunch options such as soup, grilled-cheese sandwiches and small entrées will be available soon. Over the next year, the team will develop a bakery to pair with the brewery, making the most of its yeast and other raw ingredients. The chef said he hopes to be part of the Foam team "for many years."

"We'll see how I do with the brunch thing," he added with a laugh.