• Jordan Barry ©️ Seven Days
• A savory bun at Haymaker Bun

The Burlington location recently vacated by Tomgirl Kitchen will soon be home to another popular, woman-owned local business. Middlebury-based Haymaker Bun will open a second location and move wholesale production of its four-packs of frozen brioche sticky buns to the Soda Plant at 266 Pine Street. Owner Caroline Corrente is targeting a July opening, she told Seven Days.

Haymaker's Burlington outpost will serve the bakery's full lineup of buns and pastries, along with its signature breakfast sandwiches on savory buns. The café's lunch menu will be a condensed version of the Middlebury restaurant's, with grab-and-go salads, grain bowls, wraps and sandwiches, Corrente said.

Soda Plant neighbors Magda and Nate Van Dusen of Brio Coffeeworks alerted Corrente, who serves their coffee at her Middlebury business, to the open space not long after Tomgirl closed in mid-February.

"I was immediately interested," Corrente said. "I know the location and think it's a pretty prime spot." She and general manager Chloe Speyers "fell in love with the space," she continued. "It really fit our aesthetic, and we love the company in the Soda Plant. There are so many cool makers and artisans."

Haymaker will serve Brio drip and iced coffee, along with tea and other beverages.

Corrente and her husband, Matt Corrente, opened Haymaker and an Italian restaurant, the Arcadian, on Middlebury's Bakery Lane in 2018. (The latter is now closed.) Haymaker was a James Beard Award semifinalist in 2023, the inaugural year of the awards' nationwide Outstanding Bakery category.

"I'm shocked when people in Burlington know who we are," Corrente said. "But it's always felt like a natural expansion point."