This story by Aaron Calvin was first published in the Stowe Reporter on Nov. 6, 2025.
The Skinny Pancake, a regional breakfast and brunch chain, will close its Stowe location for at least the winter season, blaming an inability to hire and retain enough staff to effectively run the restaurant.
In an open letter published on the restaurant’s website and on social media, Skinny Pancake owner Benjy Adler was unequivocal in pointing to Stowe’s housing and labor crises as the forces preventing him from keeping his Stowe location open.
Adler wrote that the entire state of Vermont, where he operates four restaurants, has a housing and labor shortage, but the problem is more acute in Stowe than anywhere else. He pointed to the long commutes employees have had to make to work at his restaurant to an inability to live nearby, a problem a July Housing Needs Assessment commissioned by the town of Stowe also identified as a primary contributor to the town’s tight labor market.
“Vermont has a very severe and different employment issue than Massachusetts or New York, and it is worse in Stowe than any of the other places we operate, by far,” Adler said.
He described an endless hiring cycle that frustrated any attempt to build a sustainable work culture, workers driving from an hour away, and a tight labor market compromising the standards he generally holds for prospective employees. He said both he and his regional manager have compromised their work-life balance just to keep the doors open on the weekends.
Adler acquired the former location of McCarthy’s, a restaurant that operated in Stowe for decades, at the end of 2019, and had managed to endure the pandemic, but has had a tougher time managing the problems created by the market forces that continued in its wake.
He also pointed to an inability to compete in Stowe’s shallow labor pool against restaurants that function more as hotel and resort amenities rather than standalone businesses, referring to them as “certain employers in town that don’t need to make money on food service.”
While he called on “town planners, community members and stakeholders to dig deep in addressing this issue in a long term and meaningful way” in his open letter, Adler admitted he has been busy trying to keep the doors open and manage his eight still-open restaurants while trying to open a new location in Albany, New York; he has not been, that is, watching the discussion and policy development currently underway in an attempt to address the town’s housing crisis.
After a short-term rental registry that went live this spring revealed that a large majority of rental owners don’t live in the town, the town has begun taking steps toward encouraging the building of more affordable housing and limiting rentals.
The Stowe Selectboard recently began drafting new policy that would place a cap on short-term rentals. The planning commission has also recommended the town hire a consultant and lawyer to draft an inclusionary zoning ordinance that could encourage the development of more affordable housing in Stowe. Other discussions indicate an interest in potentially establishing a housing reserve trust to manage funding meant to address the town’s housing issues.
The Skinny Pancake isn’t saying goodbye to Stowe quite yet, and Adler plans to take some time to reset and reconsider how the restaurant operates, including organizational structure and compensation, but the problems plaguing his restaurant and others in Stowe are unlikely to be solved in a season.
“If this town wants a sustainable tourist industry, it needs housing in town, not people driving from an hour away,” he said
