Hunger Mountain Co-op

The Hunger Mountain Co-​op is always worth the stop on the way north to the Waterbury/​Stowe area.
They have a solid craft beer selection, gourmet local cheeses and good prices on fruits and vegetables.
On our last visit we grabbed a few sandwiches (they make several different kinds with fresh, local ingredients.) They were great and generous, we split 2 sandwiches between 4 people.
I think being a member affords you better prices on things but we mainly stop for beer and snacks so it’s never seemed like a terrible markup. There is ample parking and it’s pretty easy to find right off the highway.

Drove up here from MA just to snag some Heady Topper, but I didn’t do my homework and it had long been sold out for the day. So I settled for a Sip of Sunshine, got a gluten free vanilla whoppie pie, and called it a day. It’s pretty much like a locally run Whole Foods.
There’s plenty of parking in the area, special parking for ages 65+ and families with children near store entrance, but this place seems to busy all day!

Having made the arduous trek from Rhode Island to buy Heady Topper, the folks at the Hunger Mountain Co-​op made the process as easy as possible. I e-​mailed them the day before for recon purposes and they were very helpful. I got there about 7am (and was not the first person there). At 8 they handed out numbered tickets (brilliant!) for the 9am distribution, which gave plenty of time to browse the co-​op. Solid, if not somewhat small, beer selection, but with a strong focus on top-​notch, local and hard-​to-​find brews. The rest of the place was similarly impressive, and made me wish I lived in the area. The staff was all delightful, making the process as smooth as the sweet, sweet ambrosia we were all waiting around like idiots for. Definitely worth checking out, even if you aren’t chasing fermented plant-​water.

Pretentious, overpriced, hang out for entitled Vermonters. Let’s see someone making 50k and under afford to shop here. Staff make you feel non existent and unwelcome. I buy some things here but it really isn’t a welcoming affordable place.

When I was visiting Montpelier, this was the place we got our dinner from a few times. I really like the food at the deli counter. The sandwiches were really good, and their curry chicken was good as well. It reminded me of Whole Foods mixed with Trader Joes.

So many vegan options! If you are passing through or visiting Montpelier, check out this co-​op! They’ve got an amazing hot bar that will surely fill you up with good food. They also have a relatively large grocery with beer and wine. You can find the elusive Heady Topper here but it sells out quickly.

I really like the Hunger Mountain Coop. When I go, I always leave with a couple of bottles of awesome, reasonably priced red wines (today was a table wine and petite Sirah) and pre made vegan lunches for the week. They have a great hot food selection that I often visit as well. The cheese and bread areas are always well stocked with local products. While there is quite an assortment of vegetables, the prices in that area always seem super high to me, even for a coop or organic and local item. I don’t usually buy produce from here for that reason as I can get similar produce products at other stores for much cheaper. I have never felt uncomfortable or like a burden. Overall, this is a nice spot for groceries and to grab a bite to eat. The beer and wine selection is awesome.

It seems like majority opinion on HMC is divided into three camps:
1. Out-​of-​staters who came here for Heady Topper and left happy.
2. Out-​of-​staters who came here for Heady Topper and left disappointed.
3. VT residents fed up with out-​of-​staters coming here for Heady Topper and the high prices and low variety of produce/​food.
As an out of stater that has been here for Heady Topper and left happy on most occasions, I have no idea what the prices of local produce /​food around Montpelier, VT should be, but as a former resident of San Francisco, CA where you have your choice of either super-​expensive organic produce markets (Whole Foods and whatnot) versus super-​cheap questionably organic yet fresh produce from Chinatown markets, the price of food here wasn’t ground-​breaking or all that much shocking to me.
The staff here was friendly, but I could tell that they were getting tired of all the people asking for Heady Topper on Fridays (one employee even sabotaged my chances of getting it by telling me to line up at the wrong place), but as a neighborhood CO-​OP, and not a niche organic market, their product stock/​variety was on the higher end.
I did get a chance to try their wraps and sandwiches and enjoyed them tremendously, and yes they do have a great selection of non-​Heady Topper beer as well. My only advice to other prospective Heady shoppers would be to check the HMC Facebook page for updates if you don’t want to leave empty handed on distro day.

Being a Vegan, and a visitor to Montpelier, I needed to find a place for reliable Vegan eats, and since I travel through Vermont quite a bit, and have come to rely on its Co-​ops and farmer stands, I had great hopes for Hunger Mountain Co-​op.
My experience there can be summed up with more than a few anecdotes:
1. I was in a downtown bookstore, was talking to the shop owner.
Owner: «How you liking Montpelier so far?»
Me: «Okay, but, I just got accused of stealing for the first time since I was 16.»
Owner: «Really? Seriously? Where?»
Me: «The Co-​op.»
Owner: «That figures! It’s an asshole factory over there.»
Me: «Seriously! I thought it was just me, but I got accused of stealing a pear, 2 bananas, and an orange that I was eating after I paid for them, in their eating area. They brought me back inside and I had to find the cashier I bought the stuff from, and she had to remember me, and that I chose to not take a receipt, like she offered.»
Owner: «Yeah, they think they are something there.»
Me: «They told me there’s a lot of crime in Montpelier, a lot of crime at the Co-​op especially, can’t be too careful. I’m from Jersey, I currently live in Boston, should I seriously be concerned of getting shanked at the Co-​op?»
Owner: «Na, this is a great place to live, unless you work at the Co-​op, then you think the sky is falling down on you constantly.»
2. I Try to order a Vegan breakfast wrap.
Me: «Um, I’m sorry, but I ordered this vegan wrap and as far as I can tell, this is real sausage and real mayo on my breakfast wrap.»
Sandwich Maker: «Oh yeah, they put stuff in the wrong containers and bottles all the time.»
Me: «So, not only are you incapable of telling real sausage from veggies sausage, and real mayo from veganaise, but you really don’t check and make sure here that you aren’t trampling on people’s choices, religious beliefs, or possibly, life-​threatening allergies. If I had eaten enough this, I could have died.»
Sandwich Maker: «Yeah, that happens sometimes.»
3. My friends get accused of criminal activity.
Backstory: there’s a wine tasting, my friend buys a bottle of wine, grabs three cups so we can have it later on at a reading we are going to at VCFA, tells the clerk we aren’t drinking it there, and we know that we can’t drink it there, before anyone says anything to him. My friend then goes to sit down, with another friend of ours, so we can eat our sandwiches, then head off to the reading (and drink our wine). My friends pay first, a few minutes later I walk up to the cashier to pay for my sandwich.
Cashier#1: «Hey keep an eye on that guy over there who bought the wine and grabbed three cups.»
Cashier#2: «Will do. He’s looks like a jerk.» (mutual snorting and laughing).
Me: «Yeah, who do these people think they are, come here, sit in the seating area, and sneak wine. They got no respect for this place.»
Cashier#1: «So true.»
Cashier#2: «We catch people breaking the law all the time and we always gotta take care of them. Don’t know why they come here if they gotta act like jerks.»
Me: «Well that guys an asshole, he’s not even from here. People come here from other states and think they can do whatever they want here.»
Cashier#1: «So true.»
Cashier#2: «We’ll keep a good eye on him.»
Me: «If you need help with that guy, just let me know, I’ll be close by.»
Cashier#1: «We can take care of him, but thank you for the offer.»
Me: «Man, I’m just saying, that guy over there, his friend, whoever he sits with, don’t trust them, I swear they aint got no respect for this place, you just know they’re gonna drink the wine over there when they think no one’s looking.»
Cashier#1: «We’ll take care of them no worries, you just enjoy your food.»
Me: «Will do! Thank you for keeping this place so safe!»
I then go and sit with my friends. We don’t open the wine until later that night, outside of the store at the reading up the hill. The cashiers turned white as a ghost when I sat with my friends and told them the story.
Over the course of a week I ate at this shit hole of a Co-​op at least twice a day. I was followed by employees, I was accused of stealing fruit, not once, but twice, because I didn’t take a receipt after I paid for something but then sat down to eat it, I was followed by store employees, and people behind the deli counter were either rude, greatly incompetent, or were flippant towards vegans, people with tattoos, people who don’t think you should be treated like shit just to get a cup of coffee and soy milk with a tempeh sandwich that may or may not contain something you can’t eat or could kill you.
It’s a VERY hostile store to visitors, to people who appear different, to people who make more in a week than their employees make in 3 months, and the lack of friendliness, customer service, and the store employees constant state of fear and paranoia, combined with their shitty attitudes, should raise a concern for all who shop there. Whoever runs this place should be fired. This is not the REAL Vermont.

So Vermont… SOOOO VERMONT. When you come here, you «get Vermont» — the lifestyle, the philosophy, the way of life and its connection with the nature that surrounds you. I wanted Vermont maple syrup FROM VERMONT not from the local supermarket. This Co-​op has many national organic and dedicated to real food (gmo free, as close to nature as possible), but its core are the products made from vermont producers — award winning cheeses, maple syrups, honey, breads (OMG!!!), beers, honeys, teas… YOU NAME IT! Whole foods, hearty spices, loose tea leaves, and nuts… Neal gave us a short class on maple syrups. AHHH LIFE CHANGING… (Can you guess what we are having for bfast tomorrow…)… In New Age Vermont, passing by Montpelier? STOP!!! Smell the coffee beans, the tea, the stinky cheeses. And ask for Neal and his maple syrup wisdom…

I am so sad to say that I am consistently disappointed with the Co-​op. The produce section in particular is the most disappointing. The selection of produce is poor, and the entire produce department has a wet, moldy smell. The meat counter also bears noting, mainly because it is NONEXISTENT. If you want to buy meat, you have to purchase it pre-​packaged.
The staff does its best to make itself non-​existent, and I have never been acknowledged by any staff member who wasn’t ringing me out at the register. If I have a question, I have to hunt someone down and usually they don’t know the answer. I have tried to utilize the customer service desk on three occasions and each time, I had to wait unreasonably long for someone to attend to me.
It is very unfortunate that this is the only organic/​local option for grocery shopping around here.

I was told by a friend who makes regular beer pilgrimages to Vermont that this would be the place to come for for cases of Heady Topper and other hard to find beers in Vermont. Sadly, they didn’t have it in stock at the time but we took a look around anyway. The selection of it is pretty vast and pretty frou-​frou for a co-​op.
I thought it would be a smaller place with maybe one or two staff working but it was a giant market-​basically if you had changed some of the signage I probably couldn’t have been able to tell the difference between here and say, a Whole Foods, especially price-​wise. For the most part, the selection-​outside of a lot of their local beers wasn’t something too unusual or comprehensive.
Their hot food counter was pretty… well I mean, I didn’t think so many Vermonters would be into tofu. Fortunately, their sandwich counter still had heartier fare.

The good: Sandwiches, decent beer selection (but not amazing– they carry Lawson’s and Heady Topper, but plenty of places do). Good bread selection.
The bad: very pricey. Some employees seemed detached. Awkward layout– trying hard to be the anti-​supermarket with asymmetrical layout — nice try, but it just means your walking into people all the time, and things are cluttered at aisle junctions.
I did the walk into someone, both step left, both step right both step left thing 3 times in the first 2 minutes in the store! Pretty funny, actually, but a testament to an ill-​conceived, well-​intentioned floor plan!
Seems the place is really upper-​crust crunchy– alternative magazines (Mountain Astrologer anyone?), and random local stuff ($ 8 per pound for Grafton Village cheese SCRAPS– yep, scraps of cheese at a «discount») Overall, it has a thin veneer of earthiness.
This is the new Vermont– more affluent in form, where a co-​op is both well received (reputation-​wise at leasT) while NOT really being a co-​op. Rather, it seems more an overpriced hangout for the well-off…just another vehicle to serve wealthier «progressive» people and their desire for the Vermont experience they’ve envisioned for Montpelier.
But average Vermonters can’t afford to shop there! Way to take the progress out of progressive, Hunger Mountain Co-​op. Maybe it’s time for some soul searching?
I’d go back unless I found a better sandwich shop in town passing through.

First off a disclaimer: I think the whole «eat local» movement is for the most part a bunch of bullshit. While I appreciate knowing where my food comes from, it’s not the sole determining factor in selecting food – especially when this alternative is much more expensive, and not necessarily an indicator of higher quality. Enter Hunger Mountain Co-​op. It’s cool that the employees own the place. It’s nice that they know where all the food is from, and that they try to cater to their clientele in ways a big company never would. But the place is pretty expensive, and I live in NYC. After failing to find the beer I wanted (damn you, Lawson’s), I decided to grab a sandwich for my trip up to Hill Farmstead the next day. Not a bad idea overall.
I decided on the BLT. The woman who made my sandwich seemed to take forever, but she did a good job in the end. The cyrus pringle was a surprisingly good rye bread which complemented the bacon well. I wish I had eaten the bacon fresh, but it was thick and pretty good quality. The lettuce and tomato was fresh as you could expect, but neither were impressive. What brought the sandwich together was the herbed mayo, which again wasn’t amazing but it was solid (see a pattern?). Overall it was a bit sparse on the ingredients for the price and didn’t blow me away; however, it was a good, well made sandwich that did the job the next day.
While I admire the commitment here, Jim R. and Melissa H. bring up some valid points. Hunger Mountain seems worth a splurge but not regular patronage. If you can get past the localvore rhetoric and deal with the downsides of it – or you’re hunting for Lawson’s – then feel free to give this a shot.

I ‘cherry pick’ a very few, specific things as most things at Hunger Mountain are grossly overpriced for me (cheese, veges, meats/​fish). I’m a senior with very limited income. A’ co-​op’ does not conjure up in my mind stacks and stacks of alcohol, $ 20 tiny chickens, $ 17.00+ a lb cheeses and very, very high takeout. ‘Organic schmorganic’ at that price, I say ! I’ve always thought that HMC generally caters to the bottomless pocket people.
Service has moved in the right direction but I have no patience at all with the ‘I don’t feel like being nice/​helpful so I WON’T !! crowd. Some employees are just plain useless on a customer service level so don’t be surprised to find yourself offended. Service is part theater and you’d never tolerate actors being at this level .
HMC could learn a lot from City market in Burlington who cater to a broader spectrum and have awesome, awesome food, sandwiches, sushi and service.

I’ve been coming to this place for many years. At some point it started to detioriate and now it’s terrible. The manager seems to have abdicated control. Take this evening (2÷2÷13 at 6 pm), several deli items were empty and there seemed to be no incentive for the staff to refill them. The tofu had totally dried out — the hot potatoes were cold and almost inedible, the salad bar was even more boring than Pizza Hut and the staff could not even be bothered to wipe the grease from the dressing containers.
Do yourself a favor and ignore this place. Incidetally, they make it really hard to leave feedback!

I am a member owner and joined maybe 5 years ago. I feel like this is only a coop in name. I don’t feel a great sense of belonging as a member– owner. I get the special sale prices, get a 1 percent cash back at the end of the year, voting power, can attend some workshops for free. My biggest gripe is they make each family member join individually. We are a one income family so why should we pay double or be forced to shop together?
It is impossible to shop this coop for all of our food needs although I do buy the majority of our food here. I take advantage of the bulk section, which really does save me money. The speciality prepared foods are outrageous in price, you might as well dine out. They re redoing the deli and I hope they’d redo the attitude of the deli staff. They are consistently unpleasant wont acknowledge my presence and can’t bother to make eye contact so you know you’re there. They seem annoyed with any instruction on how I want my meat cut. I’m not one of those annoying people and I have worked a deli so I totally get how people can get with wanting new packages opened, you’re cutting too thick, too thin, you can’t do anything right. No I’m not like that but I have some standards and don’t need the eye roll or attitude.
In fact, the staff in general are my least favorite part of the coop along side some of the customers who have an uncanny ability to break all basic etiquette. Maybe they feel like they really own the place.

Stopped here with the family to get dinner before hitting the road for RI. Everyone found something appealing, from my vegan wife to my 2 & 4 year olds. They had a nice prepared food section and made to order sandwich counter. We ate at some tables overlooking the Winooski river.
We took a quick walk around the store, and it took serious restraint to avoid buying the local loose tea, honey, and also to keep myself out of the beer aisle. Definitely a place I would frequent if I lived in Montpelier.

I’ve been a member of the Hunger Mountain Coop for years. I suppose all coops are different and where they excel is in offering a terrific beer selection, amazing prepared foods, local meats and specialty meats, and wonderful local produce. The problem is that their baking & gluten free sections are pretty abysmal and the bulk area is not even as good as many of the other coops or even private health food stores. The organization of the store is still mystifying to me. But, the workers are wonderful, it’s convenient, and most of the time I can get what I need here. I love that I get a discount on volume when things go on sale that I will want a lot of. If it’s a special item, though, I’m likely to have to take my business to a different spot. Also, their membership benefits are not as good as other local coops and they all don’t necessarily play nice together, which is a shame.

I wish Montréal would come up with something similar…
As it is (and not counting Marche Jean Talon or Atwater, which are increasingly becoming even more expensive), the organic food, food co-​op and supermarket situation in Montréal is mom-​and pop stores located all over the place, small operations, who generally mean well, but don’t have everything in stock and in one place. Meaning, to get everything you need, you usually have to run around to a few places.
I stop here every chance I get. I love the café and eating area they set up with a view over the river, the sandwiches are super. Many breaks from long drives have been taken here. Staff are very helpful, the place is spotless and I’ve always found what I needed with no hassle.
If they decide to open a Montréal version, let me know, I’d be happy to manage.