• Cover Illustrations By Sean Metcalf

Every year is an "election year" at Seven Days. I'm referring, of course, to our annual Daysies competition in which readers nominate and vote for their favorite local businesses, artists and experiences. The contest involves months of planning; the nomination round happened in April, followed by voting on the finalists in late May to early June, when 20,065 people weighed in.

Seven Days' staff collected their 483,002 votes — in 236 categories — and spent July wrangling All the Best, the lovingly curated and artfully designed magazine inserted in this week's issue. Producing it is a Herculean task, but we think it's worth the effort.

Related The Best of Vermont: Locals Pick the 2024 Seven Daysies: Food, Drink, Culture, Shopping, Services, Recreation

The Best of Vermont: Locals Pick the 2024 Seven Daysies

Food, Drink, Culture, Shopping, Services, Recreation

Since 2003, Seven Days has been inviting locals to vote in hundreds of categories that highlight why we’re lucky to live here. Vermont is no Vegas, but we’ve really hit the jackpot with the businesses, people and places in our midst. So for the Daysies’ 21st year — Blackjack! — we took our chances with a Sin City theme for our annual readers’ choice awards.

By Carolyn Fox

Intro

Frankly, our readers see eye to eye on a lot of things, such as the enduring appeal of Mount Philo and Shelburne Farms. Some folks win year after year — looking at you, Katharine Montstream, City Market and Leonardo's — proving the power of incumbency.

But as with any exercise in democracy, upsets happen. For the first time in Daysies history, Bolton Valley Resort edged out Smugglers' Notch and Stowe Mountain for best ski/ride slope. Noah Kahan joined the winning musical ranks of Kat Wright, Brett Hughes, Rough Francis and A2VT. WCAX weatherman Gary Sadowsky unseated Darren Perron as the TV personality to watch.

There's a lot of intel — and signs of generational change — packed into the food and beverage categories. Now that Penny Cluse Café is gone, a.m. eating looks different in Chittenden County. The breakfast sandwich at Kountry Kart Deli got beat by the one at the Café HOT. Stowe Cider tipped over Citizen Cider — the result of bad publicity last fall? In two displays of support for Montpelier, Sarducci's beat out Blue Paddle Bistro for best restaurant outside Chittenden County, and Charlie-O's World Famous survived flood and fire to score bragging rights as best dive bar.

Similarly, it seems the electorate is looking for good deals on food: In 2024, our readers chose Casa Real, a Tex-Mex restaurant in Colchester, near Costco, as Vermont's best new restaurant — likely for its generous portions, big padded booths and margarita glasses the size of your head.

One of the proprietors is 30-year-old Eduardo Fuentes, a native of Guadalajara, Mexico, who came to the United States when he was 15 and worked as a dishwasher in Louisiana, as food writer Melissa Pasanen reported when Casa Real opened last October. Less than a year later, he and his business partners are opening a second location, Casa Grande, in the Williston space formerly occupied by Vermont Tap House.

Bottom line: Vermont businesses are working hard to serve you. The Daysies competition is our way of honoring their industry — and making visible their essential contributions to the local economy.

We almost lost it all, remember, during the pandemic?

Keep that in mind when you study these crowdsourced recommendations or share them with someone who is eager to explore what this place has to offer. In print or online, All the Best is quite simply the locals' guide to the Green Mountain State, a 72-page love letter to Vermont.

We also asked readers to pick their favorites in some new categories this year, including neighborhood corner store, family-friendly festival, craft fair, podcast, used-book store, local cannabis grower, place to camp and bowling alley.

There's always more to learn about this patch of Earth we share. Start with All the Best and Seven Days.