About Us
                                                                                                 

The Bee’s Knees opened in July of 2003 because we wanted a place where everyone felt comfortable to stay as long as they wanted or as short as they pleased to play a game, write a poem, or share a song.  We wanted it to feel as if you were coming into a good friend’s home never sure what will be in the fridge, but confident that it will always be delicious.

It became that and more.  The employees became family - the customers became friends - and the music beyond expectations.

We are committed to purchasing as much as we can locally.  We care about the health of our food and the health of our world.   Please see our links to connect to some of the local producers we support.

National Public Radio, February 2008
NPR aired a modified version of what was aired on VPR earlier this month on February 26- click below to listen!  We’ve heard from people in Alaska, California, Florida, New York and Boston who heard the piece! 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19357345&sc=emaf

Burlington Free Press, February 2008
Burlington Free Press covered our plans for expansion.  See link below.

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008802210334

Channel 5 News & New England Cable News, February 2008

We were on the news February 19, 2008.  See the link below!

http://www.necn.com/Boston/Business/The-Bees-Knees-Communitysupported-restaurant/1203476198.html

Stowe Reporter, February 2008
Lisa McCormack wrote a lovely story in The Stowe Reporter last week with lots of pictures by Glenn!   We were on the cover of Stowe Scene!  See link below:

http://www.stowetoday.com/news_tool_v2.cfm?pnpID=1034&NewsID=874818&CategoryID=19631&show=localnews&om=1

Vermont Public Radio, February 2008
Claire’s Restaurant in Hardwick and The Bee’s Knees were featured with our community supported restaurant (CSR) certificates (a tool for financing our expansion).  The Bee’s Knees was featured as an audio postcard on Vermont Edition the same day.  National Public Radio also picked up the CSR story.  See links below.  (You can listen to Terry Diers on the audio postcard!  Come on out for the Second Sunday Gospel Jam, 11-2 on the 2^nd Sunday of the month.)

News piece: http://www.vpr.net/news_detail/79214/

Audio postcard:  http://www.vpr.net/news_detail/79220/

Boston Magazine’s New England Travel & Life
Best of New England, 2007  Best Restaurant for Kids
Some places just get how to make kids happy.  Take The Bee’s Knees, a café-cum-playroom adored by wee ones (and their hipster parents).  If the munchkins aren’t preoccupied with the wall of toys, odds are they are digging into healthy plates such as mac and cheese (with locally made cheddar) and chocolate milk, grooving to the regular live folk rock music performances or instigating an impromptu toddler social hour.  The upshot?  Junior is delighted, and mom and dad can score a minute to enjoy their organic greens or wasabi-mayo tuna with pickled ginger.

Yankee Magazine’s Travel Guide to New England, 2007
Editor’s Pick
This homey little eatery provides patrons with a creative menu featuring locally grown and raised foods – a BLT made with bacon from Winding Brook Farm and organic greens, served on a baguette from Elmore Mountain Bakery, for example, or meatloaf with Cabot cheddar.  Plus, there’s music most nights.

Vermont Life Magazine, Spring 2007
16 Great Places to Hear Music in Vermont

Why it’s good:  Simple music in an eatery that feels like grandma’s kitchen
What sounds best:  Folk, acoustic pop
When to go:  The first Wednesday of every month for honky-tonk night.

Seven Days, July 2007
Night Moves:  Quirky clubs not to miss- beyond Burlington
If the hustle and bustle of Burlington’s nightlife has you yearning for a more rural Green Mountain experience, few places are better than Morrisville.  Several miles north of uber touristy Stowe on Route 100, the town is a genuine slice of Rockwellian down-hominess, and should be high on the list of anyone seeking the “real Vermont.”  Approaching its fourth anniversary, The Bee’s Knees has established itself as the artistic cornerstone of this sleepy little village.  Like TV’s “Cheers” it’s the kind of place where everybody knows your name.  Proprietor Sharon Deitz has poured her heart and soul in the coffee shop/bar/restaurant, and the town has responded in kind.  She estimates that she knows 80 percent of her clientele on a first-name basis.  The tiny venue is packed almost nightly with patrons enjoying items from an impressive localvore menu, microbrewed ales and wide-ranging musical fare.  While Central-Vermont-based artists features prominently on the monthly calendar, Deitz does an admirable job or mixing things up, bringing performers from across the musical spectrum.  On any given night you might hear folk, bluegrass, rock or jazz.  The place is very small, so get their early- shows usually start at 7:30pm.  And plan to make new friends, as you’ll quite literally be rubbing elbows with your neighbors.

Seven Days’ Annual Guide:  7 NIGHTS pick for Stowe/Smuggs Area, 2006
Meet your “knees”
You can get good food all day at the Bee’s Knees in Morrisville, but the term “restaurant” may be too restrictive for this all-purpose eatery that is also a coffeehouse, a playpen, a gallery, a nightclub- even a massage parlor.  Owner Sharon Deitz wants customers to think of the place as “the town’s living room, a place where everyone feels comfortable…” You may find yourself surrounded by boisterous toddlers gleefully reducing homemade muffins to their molecular level.  The live music starts up around 7:30 almost every night.  Cramped, comfy, and slightly chaotic, the place has a crunchy charm.  Various styles of art cover the walls and hang in the windows.  A collection of books, toys, and board games is jammed into a corner bookshelf.  The hearty and generous food, mostly organic with many vegan-friendly dishes, adds nourishment to the scene.  Relying heavily on local producers such as Pete’s Greens, Winding Brook Farm, and Sandiwood Farm, the menu offers everything from breakfast burritos to creamy mac-n-cheese and a chicken with goat cheese pot pie.  The roasted root vegetable salad is a standout.  Homemade applesauce and organic mesclun greens, accompany most orders, and there is a small but choice selection of win and local beer.

The Burlington Free Press, 2005
Sittin’ a spell at Bee’s Knees.  Diners cozy up in restaurant’s coffee-shop vibe
Two men sit and chat in Adirondack chairs in front of the austere, pre-depression brick building.  Inside, slow fans cool the space where a half-dozen small tables and a few bar stools host diners sampling locally grown food. 

A woman at one of the tables greets an incoming customer with a “How ya doin’ Jim?” Near the front door, a husband-and-wife team strums guitars and sings old rural standards with names such as “the darkest hour just before dawn.” 

This is not “The Andy Griffith Show” This was Friday night in Morrisville, at a place called “The Bee’s Knees” where this sort of pastoral/bohemian scene has played out for a couple of years now. 

Almost exactly two years, as a matter of fact:  Sharon Deitz left her job as an early childhood special educator and opened her casual eatery in the former Munson Store building on July 24, 2003.  “We had intended for it to be quick and simple food,” Deitz said, but customers demanded more than just salads and sandwiches, and wanted meals served three times a day.  I used to say the first year ‘we’re not a restaurant’ but I can’t say that anymore.  It just got out of control.” 

The Bee’s Knees is open six days a week for breakfast, lunch and dinner and hosts free live music most nights.  Deitz based the idea for The Bee’s Knees on the time she spent in her 20s in England, where the neighborhood pub welcomes people of all ages who, if they don’t know each other, will soon.

The cozy space on Lower Main Street had been a beauty parlor and a garage when Deitz and business partner Jen Edwards bought the building three years ago.  Edwards died suddenly before the eatery opened, leaving Deitz as the woman in charge of the business that’s open as much as 15 ½ hours a day. 

The Bee’s Knees emphasizes local food and beverages.  Organic vegetables are grown at Pete’s Greens in Craftsbury and Sandiwood Farm in Wolcott.  The naturally raised chicken comes from Misty Knoll Farm in New Haven; other meats are raised naturally on Winding Brook Farm in Morrisville. 

Detailed menus are updated daily.