RANDOLPH — In the back of her mind, Nora Rice has often thought about opening her own restaurant.
A trained chef who attended culinary school in England, she recently collaborated with her sister Jenna Rice on “The Vermont Farm to Table Cookbook,” a book of recipes that aims to use ingredients exclusively from Vermont.
Over the past couple years, Rice, 25, has kept track of vacant spaces where she could potentially open a restaurant, but none were ever quite the right fit, until she learned that the space at 29 North Main Street in Randolph was available for rent after small plates restaurant Short Notice closed in October.
“I saw this place and it was just great, and I don’t know, things just kind of fell into place really quickly,” Rice, who lives in Windsor, said in an interview at the space last week.
Seasoned Skillet Restaurant, a casual dinner spot with a seasonal menu, is set to open in early February. The restaurant will be open from 4 to 9 p.m. Thursday through Sunday.
Last Monday, the dining area’s thick wooden tables were laden with boxes and candles melted into glass bottles, as Rice readied the space for opening day. Stacks of glasses lined the long bar at the back of the restaurant, which seats 25, and string lights hung from the high walls.
Rice has made some changes to Short Notice’s set up, such as painting one of the walls a sage green while the other has remained a dark teal, but she’s also taken advantage of the kitchen equipment, dishes and furniture that the previous owners Randi Taylor and Lucas Battey left behind.
“It doesn’t feel like an astronomical amount of work to kind of get things going, which I think also made it feel a little bit more achievable,” Rice said.
Taylor and Battey closed Short Notice after struggling to find staff with adequate experience who could work at the restaurant long term.
The pair generally handled service by themselves, but “as we got further along and got busier it just became harder and harder to do,” Taylor said in a phone interview.
Taylor now works a few doors down from the restaurant at Windy Lane Bakehouse, while Battey is taking some time off from work.
Rice hopes to fill the hole that Short Notice left behind following its two and a half years in business by creating a “down to earth,” “cozy” spot for people to share a meal and enjoy a beer or glass of wine, she said.
Seasoned Skillet’s planned menu includes several dishes from the Rices’ cookbook such as the butternut sage gratin appetizer — layers of baked butternut squash, leeks and cheddar cheese — and the maple bourbon crème brûlée. The cookbook’s cheddar broccoli soup also will likely make an appearance at some point, Rice said.
The rest of the menu is a combination of hearty and bright dishes. Entrees include a cider braised pork shoulder served with stewed collard greens and a maple bourbon reduction; chicken pot pie with a flakey crust; and a ginger sesame quinoa bowl with purple cabbage, edamame, cucumber, Halloumi and a ginger sesame dressing.
Rice acknowledges that building a menu that exclusively uses ingredients from Vermont would likely be unsustainable, but she still plans to source the majority of her meat and produce from area farms through direct relationships with farmers and through purveyors such as Black River Produce, a distributor based in North Springfield, Vt.
While the restaurant is Rice’s project, her sister has handled Seasoned Skillet’s marketing including taking photos for the website and creating the restaurant’s logo: the silhouette of a cast iron skillet with the business’s name and a sprig of herbs, a carrot and an onion in the center.
Later on, her sister will also help organize live music at the restaurant. “She’s a singer-songwriter and knows all the people to know,” Rice said.
Rice plans to run the restaurant with minimal staff, at least to start, with one front of house person taking orders and pouring drinks while she makes all the food.
For now, she plans to limit the alcoholic offerings to beer and wine to make it easier for one person to handle, and the menu is designed to be unfussy, with components such as braised meat that she can start cooking before service.
Rice is leasing the space for $1,600 a month from a landlord based in New York. She’s funded the restaurant through a combination of personal savings and a $25,000 loan she received last week from White River Investment Club, a group of Vermont investors that provide financing for small businesses.
The club has previously invested in businesses such as Kiss the Cow Farm, a dairy farm in Barnard, and Roma’s Butchery, a butcher shop in Royalton. It also invested in Piecemeal Pies, a restaurant with locations in White River Junction and Stowe, Vt., that went bankrupt in 2023.
“I think that (Rice) is a very motivated young entrepreneur who’s done her homework on what will work in Randolph, and Randolph keenly needs another restaurant, preferably on Main Street,” club member Jerry Ward said in a phone interview.
Indeed, Randolph has seen some restaurant turnover in recent years. In addition to Short Notice, One Main Tap and Grill, a bar and restaurant located a minute’s walk away from Seasoned Skillet, on Merchants Row, closed in late 2024 after a decade in business. The space has remained vacant since the closure.
“There’s been a lot of coming in and going. That’s just kind of the normal,” Katie Legacy, assistant bank manager at Bar Harbor Bank and Trust in Randolph, said.
Last March, The Forge reopened on Prince Street under new ownership after the former owners closed the casual eatery in June 2024.
Oak & Iron, an upscale restaurant with a steakhouse-inspired menu, also opened last March on Merchants Row, across the street from the now-closed One Main.
Rice, for her part, hopes Seasoned Skillet can serve as a welcoming meeting place in town that takes notes from English pub culture.
“I really want it to be a spot that regulars and people who actually live in town come to, not just tourists passing through,” she said.