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Good morning, Burlington. After a cool, foggy overnight, Monday is shaping up to be close to perfect, with full sunshine, easygoing humidity, and highs settling into the mid to upper 70s, maybe brushing 80 down by the lake. Tuesday keeps the bright skies and turns up the warmth, climbing into the low to mid 80s. Wednesday is where things get restless, as humidity creeps back in and clouds usher in a chance for showers and a rumble of thunder, though nothing severe looks likely. Forecasters are split on just how toasty Thursday and Friday become, with some models leaning toward sticky upper 80s and scattered pop up storms, so it may be wise to keep an umbrella within reach as the week winds on.

Let's start with tonight. If you are in the mood for something offbeat, Partizanfilm downtown on College Street has a one night only screening of Stolen Kingdom at 8:35 PM, a documentary tracing a strange heist at Disney World and the underground world of urban explorers who orbit it. Over in Essex Junction, Country's Best VT runs a beginner friendly line dancing night at On Tap Bar & Grill from 6 to 8 PM, open to first timers and seasoned boot scooters alike.

Tuesday fills up fast. Early risers can join UVM OLLI for a guided morning walk on the Green Mountain Club's Short Trail in Waterbury Center at 10:30 AM, a gentle half mile loop with seasonal tips from the club's director (preregistration and a $20 fee required). Come evening, lace up for a group run [MEETUP] at Shelburne Farms with the Forever 38 crew, who wind down afterward with food and drinks at Folino's and Fiddlehead. Closer to home, Centennial Field hosts the Vermont Lake Monsters against the Worcester Bravehearts at 6:30 PM, a game doubling as a fundraiser for the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. For something quieter, Queen City Brewery toasts five years of Knot Knite with sweet treats for the local crafting community, while storytellers take the mic at Burlington Beer Company for the Moth's June StorySLAM at 7 PM. The Burlington Odd Fellows pair a BBQ potluck with a mystery movie on North Avenue, Lines Vermont in South Burlington kicks off a five week beginner pole dance series, and Higher Ground welcomes The Hip Abduction at 8 PM for a globe spanning blend of Afrobeat, reggae, and jam.

Wednesday brings a wetter turn, but plenty to do indoors and out. The lunch hour belongs to Skylark, the contemporary string quartet playing a free midday set in City Hall Park starting at 12:30 PM. Rock Point offers two gentle ways to slow down, with a morning nature journaling session at 10 AM and a biweekly afternoon volunteering shift tending the land from 3:30 to 5:30 PM. If the rain holds off, the summer pickup basketball [MEETUP] crowd gathers at Pomeroy Park from 5:30 to 7:30 PM. The arts take over after that, with Art Amplified lighting up the BCA Center from 5 to 8 PM with DJs, drinks, and live folk from Otter Creek, while VTIFF screens Ozu's silent drama That Night's Wife with a live improvised score at the Screening Room at 7 PM. Music lovers have a choice between the Old Post in South Burlington hosting night one of the Jam 4 SLAMT1D benefit competition at 5 PM and Greensky Bluegrass taking the stage at Shelburne Museum's Concerts on the Green at 7 PM for their first concert this summer!

Thursday is the busiest day of the bunch. Soccer fans can settle in for the long haul at Switchback Brewing, where a free watch party for the 2026 World Soccer Tournament runs from noon to 9 PM with beer and BBQ. The business crowd gathers earlier at HULA Lakeside for the 2026 SBA Awards luncheon honoring Vermont's small business standouts, with registration at 11:30 AM ($25). In the afternoon, Essex Junction hosts a free, neuroscience minded Make an Impact workshop, and City Market's South End store runs a hands on mushroom cultivation class from 5 to 7 PM where you take home your own grow bag. As evening sets in, City Center Park in South Burlington lines up a row of tables for Dinner in the Park with music from the Vermont Cello Duet, while the Fellowship of the Wheel leads its monthly women's mountain bike ride at Saxon Hill in Essex Junction. Out at Shelburne Vineyard, Soul Porpoise brings funk and soul to the lawn alongside Vermont legends Dave Grippo and Paul Asbell from 7 to 9 PM. Two stage productions open the same night and run through Saturday, the experimental dance and music piece Stories of Spirit and Spirits at Main Street Landing and Vermont Repertory Theatre's Shakespeare in Love at the Isham Barn in Williston, both at 7:30 PM. Catch The Wood Brothers at 8 PM as they bring their signature roots sound to the Flynn Main Stage, sure to be a hit. And for the night owls, Radio Bean throws a late dance party for the birds starting around 10 PM, twenty one and up.

See Events Section for full list of events Monday-Thursday.

The Btown Brief IRL - We’re now seeing 20–30 people at our weekly events! Here is what we have coming up:

If any of those sound fun, be sure to RSVP on Meetup.com. So, be sure to stop by, everyone is welcome! Especially coffee, since it’s a great place to talk about weekend events too, along with news and life updates. So come find things to do this weekend together:

Why support? Every week, I sort through 24+ local sources: 12 event calendars, some of those being Seven Days, Front Porch Forum, Facebook events, plus 9 others and 12 news stations, from VTDigger to WCAX to Vermont Public to Community News Service, plus 8 others, to keep you connected. If this lengthy newsletter saves you time, or has introduced you to new experiences in Burlington, then definitely consider chipping in!

About Me

Old Brick Store to Open Outpost in Burlington's Karma Bird House

Public Service VT, from the team behind Charlotte's beloved Old Brick Store, will take over the Maple Street café space this fall, while Kestrel Coffee Roasters closes that downtown location after seven years. It continues a season of churn for Kestrel, whose Pine Street spot already closed in April, though its airport and South Burlington roastery stay open. For downtown regulars, it is a familiar Burlington rhythm of one well loved spot handing the keys to another.

Sounds of Summer Underway in Chittenden County

The piece is a handy map of the summer's free and cheap live music, from SB Nite Out on Thursdays at Veterans Memorial Park to Burlington City Arts' lunchtime concerts in City Hall Park to the lineup at Shelburne Museum's Concerts on the Green. If you have ever realized in July that you missed a show you meant to catch, this is the roundup worth bookmarking now.

UVM Medical Center Resident Doctors Rally for a New Contract

The 400 residents and fellows in the union have been bargaining since late 2025, asking for higher pay, shift caps, childcare support, and a set of common good provisions that would limit immigration enforcement inside the hospital. Their case rests on a simple recruiting argument, that a state already short on doctors cannot attract new ones without competitive residency conditions. Watch this one closely, because the residents see their contract as a benchmark for the 3,300 person support and technical staff unit now at the table, meaning the outcome could ripple well beyond the white coats.

Hundreds of Housing Units in the Works in Burlington's South End

The South End Coordinated Redevelopment Project cleared its first City Council hurdle last month, greenlighting 204 apartments on Lakeside Avenue at a cost near $100 million, with backers hoping the full buildout eventually tops a thousand homes. That scale matters in a city regional planners say needs thousands more units by 2050. It is also a test case statewide, since the developers are angling to be the first to tap the Legislature's new tax increment financing tool for housing infrastructure, which means a lot of other Vermont towns are quietly watching how Burlington's gamble pays off.

New VHFA Awards Will Build and Preserve 241 Affordable Apartments

The $28 million in credits will fund 241 income restricted homes across seven communities, from elderly housing in Highgate to larger family units in Winooski. One award folds directly into the South End story above, with 67 apartments in the Ride Your Bike Building forming the first phase of that master plan. The sobering context is the math, since these 241 homes are a fraction of the roughly 11,000 rentals the state estimates it needs for low income households over the next five years.

US Supreme Court Lets Vermont Continue Suit Claiming Meta Hid Harms to Youth

By declining to hear Meta's appeal, the nation's highest court left intact Vermont's ability to pursue the company in state court over claims it concealed how Facebook and Instagram affect kids. Meta had argued it lacks the in state presence to be sued here, a jurisdictional dodge Vermont's own Supreme Court rejected last August. The ruling could embolden other state attorneys general eyeing similar consumer protection cases, and Clark has signaled her office is already running a parallel suit against TikTok.

Vermont's First Director of Animal Welfare Presses for Change

Milot runs the state's two year old Animal Welfare Division entirely by herself, on a budget of about $128,000 drawn from dog license surcharges. Lawmakers passed only two modest bills this session rather than the broader overhaul she recommended, one tightening forfeiture rules and another effectively banning wolf hybrid breeding. Her report laid bare a tangled system where reporting abuse can mean calling six different agencies, and where 507 cases in 2024 produced just nine arrests, often for lack of anywhere to house seized animals.

Vermont Radio Stations Seek to Fill the Void Left by CBS News

After CBS News Radio shuttered last month following nearly a century on air, Vermont stations had to scramble for a substitute. WDEV in Waterbury landed on Townhall/SRN News, a service owned by Salem Media Group, a company that brands itself around Christian and conservative content, while WCVR in Randolph switched to USA Radio News. Owner Meyers Mermel insists the actual broadcasts are unbiased, though the segments point listeners to townhall.com, a site that openly calls itself a conservative news source, so local ears will be the real judges.

A Burlington Elementary School Parade Celebrates the Trout

The Sustainability Academy's annual trout parade caps a months long fourth grade study that begins when hatchery eggs arrive in January and ends with students releasing the fish into the Huntington River. This year's procession drew the mayor, towering papier mâché river goddesses, and stilt walkers from Glover's Bread and Puppet Theater, winding from the Flynn to Battery Park. It’s the kind of gloriously absurd community ritual that explains a lot about why people stay in this town, me included.

The Mobile Pet Food Shelf Brings Free Supplies to Those in Need

Colchester animal control officer Stephanie Gingras turned a recurring question, whether owners had enough food for their pets, into a nonprofit that now makes seven stops from Burlington to St. Albans. Everything is free with no income requirement, from dog and cat food to hay, birdseed, and flea medication, funded entirely by donations and bake sales. The group is planning free rabies and distemper clinics in Williston and St. Albans this July.

Want a Dog but Not All the Responsibility? Try Dog Sharing

Two families across a dirt road from each other now co own Maple, a shepherd dachshund mix who splits her weeks and her loyalties evenly between both homes. With pet ownership costs climbing, the arrangement, which a company called CoPuppy now helps arrange in cities worldwide, is catching on, even if a viral r/Burlington post on the idea drew its share of skeptics. The setup works here mostly because the families were already close, which their vet notes is the real key to keeping the dog from getting confused.

Meet the 2026 Best of the Beasts Pet Photo Contest Winners

The paper's long running reader photo contest pulled in 767 entries this year, among the most in its roughly two decade history, crowning winners like a costume averse pug named Betty and Doodle the hedgehog in a flower crown. It is pure local fun, and a reliable reminder of how many cameras in this county are pointed at someone's dog. The full gallery is worth a scroll if you need a break from the not-as-fun headlines.

Two Longtime Friends Are Swimming Every Lake and Pond in Vermont

Sally Cummings of South Burlington and Jenness Ide of Danville, the self named BergCum Swim Club, have logged more than 100 of Vermont's lakes and ponds since 2013, with 63 still to go. Their rules are charmingly strict, ten strokes out and back, photo and spreadsheet entry required, and their travels have turned up everything from banana bread offering landowners to an accidental visit to a nudist colony. At 75 and 81, they call it a lifetime project, and you believe them.

Search and rescue dogs show off their skills at Philo Ridge Farm — New England K9 Search and Rescue brought their air scenting German shepherds to Charlotte for an April demonstration, tracking down hidden volunteers across an open field. The group has 44 years and more than 1,100 searches behind it, including a New Hampshire toddler found cold but safe last year.

Burlington mayor joins fire crew for live burn training — Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak suited up with the Burlington Fire Department's A-shift at the Vermont Fire Academy for a hands on look at fire behavior and suppression tactics.

Free entrance to Vermont State Parks and Historic Sites June 13 and 14 — Vermont Days opens all 55 state parks and six historic sites for free that weekend, with a statewide Free Fishing Day on Saturday, park concerts, a kids fishing festival in Grand Isle, and free admission to the Montpelier and Barre history museums.

How good of a reader are you? Think you’re keeping up with Burlington news? It's time to prove it. Every Monday and Friday, we're dropping a quick 5-question quiz covering the local news you just finished reading. You've got just 60 seconds to answer them all. No looking back allowed. Use the same unique name each time you play so everyone can track your stats in our Hall of Fame, where you'll compete for titles like Sharpshooter (highest accuracy), Speed Demon (fastest average time), and Streak Leader (most consistent player). Make your name (or cool nickname) known to Btown!

And yes, there are PRIZES. Each month, we'll reward the top performers based on the best combination of Total Score and Average Score. That means playing consistently AND playing well will pay off. The more quizzes you complete with high scores, the better your chances of winning. I mean, who doesn’t want cool Btown Merch gear sent to them?

Ready to play? Click the link below, enter your name, and show us what you've got. Btown Brief Quiz

View the potential prizes on the Btown Brief Merch Store

In a historic Friday night at Virtue Field, Vermont Green FC were crowned Champion of Champions after securing a decisive 4-1 victory over West Chester United SC in the 2026 Hank Steinbrecher Cup Final. Despite conceding an early header to West Chester's Gavin Wetzel in the fourth minute, the Boys in Green stormed back with four unanswered goals. Marco Dos Santos quickly leveled the score in the eighth minute. The turning point came in the 60th minute when Riley Moloney curled in a breathtaking 'Olímpico' straight from a corner kick. Diego Rosas and Martin Bakken added second-half insurance goals to seal the club's first piece of silverware of the 2026 season in front of a sold-out crowd.

Meanwhile, the Vermont Green FC women's squad fought to a thrilling 2-1 victory over the New England Mutiny during their Pride Night match, propelling them to the top of the USLW Northeast Division. The Women in Green found themselves trailing 1-0 at halftime following a late first-half strike by Mutiny's Se-hanna Mars. However, the squad emerged reenergized in the second half. Isabel Smith calmly converted a penalty kick in the 59th minute to equalize, and Neve Renwick fired home a clinical game-winning volley in the 83rd minute off an assist from Olivia Grenda to secure the three points. The women's side will return to Virtue Field on Friday, June 12 for a home clash against Hartford Athletic.

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Full list of 202+ activities to do at anytime is always waiting here when you need a plan: 202+ Things to Do

Full list of restaurant reviews here.

View the full list of food & drink deals here.

Whatever the week throws at you, sun or storms, there is plenty out there worth stepping out for. Support the local makers, musicians, and organizers keeping this town humming, and if a description above caught your eye, the links will take you the rest of the way.

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