JODY HAYES AND Scott Collins, longtime friends of 3 Squares Café owners Matt and Danelle Birong, expect to close a deal to buy the Vergennes restaurant within the next week or so. They plan no major changes, and will partner with the Birongs on the catering end of the business. 
Photo courtesy of Scott Collins

VERGENNES — In retrospect it all seems inevitable. 

Sometime in the near future, most likely between Jan. 8 and 15, Matt and Danelle Birong will sell their downtown Vergennes eatery, 3 Squares Café, to longtime friends Scott Collins and Jody Hayes, a couple living in Bolton with their own deep ties to Vermont’s restaurant sector. 

The Birongs, who have owned 3 Squares for 17 years, have been quietly marketing the restaurant at 141 Main St. for a year and a half. Matt Birong, a three-term Democratic representative from the Vergennes area in the Vermont House, was patiently waiting for the right fit, including a buyer who would partner with him in the catering end of the business after the restaurant sale. A couple prospective deals didn’t work out.

On top of finding buyers he could work with post-sale, Birong said there were other considerations, including wanting to keep the restaurant’s employees on board.

“We were really trying to find the right people who were the right fit for the staff, for the business, for the community, for the Ryans (landlords Tim and Liz Ryan),” Birong said. “There was a lot to take into consideration.”

Meanwhile, Collins and Hayes had been looking for a breakfast-and-lunch restaurant, and hadn’t found what Collins called “the right fit.” 

At about the same time a potential deal for Collins and Hayes fell through this summer, one did also for Birong and 3 Squares. When Matt Birong and Collins worked together at a catering gig in September, everything fell into place. 

“I worked a wedding with Matty, and he made the pitch,” Collins said. “We were thinking about it before he even brought it up to us, and then everything aligned perfectly.”

Collins, 48, is a Los Angeles native who first came to Vermont more than two decades ago to attend the former New England Culinary Institute. He met Birong while student interning at Burlington’s The Waiting Room restaurant, where Birong was working. 

Eventually there came a stint where Collins and Hayes operated a food cart in Portland, Ore., before returning to Vermont seven years ago. Collins has since worked in restaurants in Stowe and Waterbury and served as Bolton Valley’s food and beverage director until a year and a half ago, when he stepped away for a bit from the restaurant business to work as a financial advisor. 

Meanwhile, Hayes is also a familiar figure in the Vermont hospitality sector. She is a representative for restaurant supply company Performance Foodservice and will keep that position, but also be a presence at 141 Main St.

“I want to be part of 3 Squares, but I’m going to continue to do what I’m doing right now,” Hayes said. “But I still want to be part of the community, go in on the weekends, meet everybody, work with the staff, bus tables, do whatever needs to be done,” Hayes said. 

They have a son, a high school senior who plans to attend Castleton University, and a 12-year-old daughter. At some point, when the time is right, they plan to move to the Vergennes area. 

Other than a long-held goal to own their own restaurant, why 3 Squares Café? 

“It’s the type of place we’ve been looking for, and we’ve been a fan of 3 Squares the whole 17 years it’s been around,” Collins said. “And it’s in a community. We’ve always wanted to be in a smaller, but not tiny, community, that we could really become part of.”

As well as keeping the staff on board, they plan no major changes to the menu, although Collins said a few tweaks are likely. 

“We’re not in a hurry to change anything. We’re just going to get in there, get to know the community, get to know the staff, and then go from there,” Collins said. “We’re definitely not going to take any favorites off (the menu), but we’re going to add some of our own dishes.”

They’re also looking forward to partnering with Birong on off-site work with the 3 Squares food tuck, essentially in the summer and fall months when Birong is not preoccupied with legislative business.

“We’re happy about everything about the deal,” Collins said. “We’re happy to work in the restaurant we’ve always enjoyed and be in a community we’ve always enjoyed. And working with Matt also in the deal is also exciting,”

BIRONG REFLECTS

Birong seems likely to have, as he put it, “two part-time jobs” — catering and lawmaking. He has already announced he’ll seek a fourth term in the House, and has easily prevailed in three races, the last time by more than 700 votes over the third-place finisher in a four-way competition for two seats.

As for catering, Birong said that part of the hospitality business is still appealing and he always wanted to keep it. He was happy Collins was agreeable. 

“I really enjoy doing off-site work still, so we decided to operate an events business,” he said

Birong believes the off-site business can be expanded if he has more time to devote to it; he noted the legislative session coincides with the slowest time of the year for catering and events. 

“There are a lot of growth opportunities there,” he said. “We’re basically going to be building both things up at the same time.”

MATT BIRONG WILL soon be a former owner of 3 Squares Café, which he has operated in two different downtown Vergennes locations for the past 17 years. Birong will still cater under the 3 Squares name with new owners — and longtime friends — Scott Collins and Jody Hayes.
Independent photo/Andy Kirkaldy

But Birong, soon to be 47, said he was ready to leave the day-to-day grind of restaurant management after 17 years, and he had set a goal of moving on before he turned 50. Before coming to Vergennes, Birong worked in the restaurant business in Boston, New York City and Burlington, after having studied at NECI.

“I’m just kind of tired. I’ve just gotten to the point where I don’t know what I’ve got left in the tank in this business. And I’m one of those personalities where if I’m not driven toward the next thing, I stagnate. And that’s not good for me personally, and that’s not good for the business, either,” he said.

The extra strain of nursing 3 Squares through COVID cemented his decision to stick to his long-range plan. 

“I always felt like there was going to be something else for me to do. I don’t know what it is yet,” he said. “I’m just staying true to that.”

Certainly, he has no regrets about buying the former Eat Good Food eatery a bit west on Main Street in January 2007, and about nine years later moving the business to the Ryan Block. 

He said the decision proved to be a good investment in more ways than one. 

“Professionally and personally, this has been a bigger life experience than I ever expected,” Birong said. 

Birong said things have “very much” gone well  for 3Squares “even though we started the business in the financial collapse of 2008.” A global pandemic dealt the hospitality sector another body blow in 2020.

But the 3 Squares game plan pulled through both, the same approach that Collins and Hayes said they will take. 

“We’re a neighborhood café, right? We do a good job with anchor staples that people know, approachable sandwiches, approachable salads, approachable breakfast items. We play with flavors with the other half of the menu, so it’s been able to offer a level of creativity,” Birong said.

As for the community aspect, Birong said his efforts lobbying for small business in Montpelier, and then becoming a Bernie Sanders delegate at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, and being a multi-term a state representative, all can be traced back to their purchase of 3 Squares.

“I got so much more than just the ability and opportunity to run a business. I found a community. I knew there was a strong work community here, but the way my wife Danelle and I were welcomed in, were really quickly brought into the fold conversationally as operators of the business and residents of the town, and how we felt within the community dynamics beyond the business front, I never expected it,” Birong said. “And it’s been an amazing experience.”