• COURTESY OF THREE PENNY TAPROOM
• Buttermilk pancakes at Three Penny Taproom in Montpelier

When Down Home Kitchen closed in Montpelier on January 1, the folks at neighboring Three Penny Taproom, at 108 Main Street, spotted an opening for serving breakfast.

"We saw that the town kind of requires a breakfast place, and when Down Home closed, we kind of sprung into action and made it happen," Three Penny co-owner Kevin Kerner told Seven Days.

After a couple of weeks of Saturday and Sunday breakfasts, last week Three Penny started Thursday through Sunday service beginning at 8 a.m. The menu includes house-smoked gravlax and cream cheese on a Myer's bagel, buttermilk pancakes, granola and eggs Benedict.

Three Penny's kitchen managers, Pat McGinley and Dreux Potvin, worked with general manager Jay Bothwell to develop the breakfast menu with input from the owners, Kerner said. Prices range from $5 for oatmeal to $13 for the lox plate.

"People are loving it," Kerner said. "We've always maintained a pride aspect of giving people their money's worth. We're a bunch of blue-collar people, and that's kind of the philosophy of our entire establishment: making it worth your money."

The menu switches to lunch at noon, when options such as burgers, salads, soba noodle bowls and chicken wings are available until 9 or 10 p.m., or 6 p.m. on Sunday.

The restaurant's management hopes to start serving breakfast seven days a week at some point, Kerner said.