The Farmhouse Group, which owns four popular restaurants in and around Burlington, will nearly double its empire of eateries next year, starting with a place in Williston that its owner says will offer healthy fast food.

New restaurants 1 and 2: Bliss Bee

That new restaurant, Bliss Bee, will open in the spring next to Starbucks Coffee at Maple Tree Place, said Jed Davis, owner of the Farmhouse Group. That will be followed later in 2019 with a Bliss Bee at the Larkin Terrace project on Shelburne Road in South Burlington, near the Palace 9 Cinemas. The Williston Observer first reported the plans for Bliss Bee in Williston last week.

Bliss Bee is a new concept for Davis. Unlike the table service at other Farmhouse Group restaurants, Bliss Bee will employ counter service.

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“It’ll be largely takeout, and there will be about 50 seats as well” at the Williston and South Burlington locations, Davis said. “We are going to work very hard to achieve as approachable a price point as we can while still supporting local farmers as much as possible.”

Davis said the menu at Bliss Bee will include beef, turkey and veggie burgers as well as grain bowls and protein-rich salads. “The concept has been on paper for a couple of years,” said Davis, noting that his own dining habits have migrated toward healthy and fast. “The concept was developed first, the menu was developed first.”

Then he settled on locations in the heart of Taft Corners, Williston’s commercial-shopping district, and along busy Shelburne Road in South Burlington. Both sites will offer a “well-curated but limited selection” of Vermont beer, cider and wine, according to Davis.

New restaurant 3: El Cortijo

Davis said the El Cortijo expansion in 2019 to the Winooski Block at the top of the city’s traffic circle will employ 30 workers and have seating for 40 customers. The menu will be the same as the Burlington location that offers items including tacos, enchiladas and burritos, Davis said, but will add a raw bar.

Plans to expand beyond Vermont

The Farmhouse Group has grown enough for Davis to feel comfortable getting three restaurants off the ground in one year. He said The Farmhouse Group has approximately 175 employees, 100 of whom are full-time, including a chief financial officer, a director of operations and a director of purchasing who will all help get Bliss Bee and the new El Cortijo started.

The namesake Farmhouse Tap & Grill opened in 2010 on Bank Street in Burlington. That was followed in 2011 by El Cortijo, also on Bank Street.

The next Farmhouse Group restaurant, the Guild Tavern steakhouse, opened in South Burlington in 2012, followed two years later by the Pascolo Ristorante on Church Street in Burlington. The Farmhouse also had what Davis called a short-lived “little deli that I miss so much” on St. Paul Street in Burlington.

Bliss Bee is owned by the Farmhouse Group and investors including Martti Matheson and Aaron Miller, who have opened 11 Buffalo Wild Wings franchises in five states in eight years, including one on Shelburne Road.

Matheson also owns the Red Square nightclub on Church Street. Miller was a hockey star at the University of Vermont and in the National Hockey League who won a silver medal with the U.S. men’s hockey team in the 2002 Winter Olympics.

Other investors in Bliss Bee include Davis; Mark Bonfigli, former CEO of Dealer.com; Marisa Mora, founder of The Good JUJU Foundation; and Trey Pecor of Lake Champlain Ferries. Matheson said the experience he and Miller have in expanding Buffalo Wild Wings throughout the Northeast should help with Bliss Bee.

He and his fellow investors want Bliss Bee to have a “regional footprint” with food that’s served “good, healthy and in a timely fashion,” according to Matheson.

“The format and what we’re trying to do here is definitely replicable,” Matheson said. Each

Bliss Bee restaurant will employ 40 full- and part-time workers and offer seating for 50 customers, according to Davis.

This article updates a previous version that had incorrect information about ownership of the new restaurants.

Contact Brent Hallenbeck at 660-1844 or bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com. Follow Brent on Twitter at @BrentHallenbeck.