Mill to Mall: People, Places, and Stories
During its years as a shopping center, the Champlain Mill was an integral part of the local community and its economy. Featured here are some of the many individuals and businesses that contributed to the mall’s success.
Carroll Reed, Caribbean Corner, Norway Design
Paper Peddler, Betsys, The Coat Gallery
Interior Innovations, Holiday Celebrations, Ray Pecor
Yankee Pride, Chessy’s Frozen Custard, Waterworks
Yankee Pride
The quilt and craft store Yankee Pride was located on the Ramp Level from 1981 to 2002. Yankee Pride sold fabrics, patterns, books, and supplies for quilting, sewing, embroidery, stenciling, and more, and offered crafting classes – everything customers needed to “make it special … with pride!” Owner Judy Thomas loved the store’s “elegant” original hardwood floors, exposed brick walls, and fourteen-foot ceilings, which were perfect for displaying queen-sized quilts above her shelving.
One of the Champlain Mill’s core tenants, Judy Thomas reluctantly moved Yankee Pride out of the building in 2002 due to the upheaval caused by the City of Winooski’s downtown redevelopment project. Yankee Pride remains in business today in the neighboring town of Essex.
Burlington Free Press, April 30, 1993.
Yankee Pride, 1981. Gift of Judy Thomas.
Chessy’s Frozen Custard
Chessy’s Frozen Custard, located on the River Level from 1981 to 1988, featured owners Ted and Ann Castle’s signature homemade ice cream made with a custard base. The Castles prepared their ice cream on site and sold it at the counter to Mill shoppers along with other light fare, including hot dogs, soup, chili, sandwiches, and cheesecake. Chessy’s eventually sold twenty flavors of ice cream along with the Chesster ice cream sandwich, made with cookies prepared by the neighboring Winooski Chip Mill, owned by the Castle’s friends Will and Colleen MacKinnon.
Within a few years, Chessy’s expanded to wholesale accounts, selling to local convenience stores and restaurants – including Waterworks in the Champlain Mill, which featured several of Chessy’s products on its dessert menu. In 1988, as their wholesale business grew in demand, the Castles decided to close their retail ice cream shop at the Mill and move the wholesale operation to a new location. Now known as Rhino Foods, the business employs more than two hundred people in Burlington.
The owners of Chessy’s Frozen Custard, Ted and Ann Castle, at their store in 1981. Courtesy of Ted and Ann Castle.
Waterworks Restaurant, 1981, by Sandy Milens. Courtesy of the City of Winooski.
Waterworks
From 1981 to 2004, Waterworks served lunch, dinner, and Sunday brunch in the Mill’s former powerhouse, accessed through the Second Level. This high-volume restaurant, which employed up to one hundred people at a time, offered a large and eclectic menu that appealed to a wide variety of diners.
The restaurant was owned by four partners: Peter Brady and David Ely, who ran the day-to-day operations, and Mill developers Raymond Pecor and J. Richard Corley. Brady and Ely renovated the space themselves, installing beams salvaged from the building’s original top floor to create a balcony seating area. They later added a greenhouse and outdoor deck overlooking the Winooski River.
Waterworks was the longest-lasting of all of the original businesses that opened in the Champlain Mill in 1981. It closed in 2004, after a steep decline in sales caused by Winooski's multi-year municipal redevelopment project. Nine years later, the restaurant reopened in the same space under new management as Waterworks Food + Drink.