Most weekdays, Amanda Rae Hill preps a couple of hot sandwiches to send over at lunchtime to her two boys at Oxbow Union High School in Bradford, VT. Sometimes, she’ll add in an order for other kids there, or something a teacher requested.

It’s easy to do, because Hill isn’t standing in her own kitchen at home in Newbury, VT. She’s in the back of Rae’s Corner Café, across from Colatina Exit on Main Street in Bradford. Plus, it fits with the whole home-cooking-for-the-community vibe of the place. And maybe, too, it helps assuage a little guilt about dinner. “You know how builders have endless unfinished projects at home and at a housecleaner’s place it’s a mess? Now that I have a restaurant, my kids live on ramen and frozen pizza,” she says.

Rae’s isn’t actually Hill’s first food venture. She’s spent much of her life in food service, as a bartender, waitress, and kitchen staff. But she’d always wanted her own breakfast/lunch place, and last year, she leased the pandemic-casualty Whippi Dip from owner Crystal Johnson and opened Sweet n’ Salty Rae’s for the summer and fall. “It was a little chaotic,” Hill says, “but I was getting my feet wet and I wanted to see if I could do it. It went fine.” When Johnson decided to sell, Hill started looking around for a spot she could turn into a sit-down restaurant. She found the Bradford site, which had sat empty for years after Subway left, and she and her carpenter/builder boyfriend, Jared Shipman, spent spring this year getting it in shape. It opened in early June.

It’s met a need. In the few months it’s been open, Rae’s has attracted its own small crew of regulars. Locals will wander in and sit, sometimes for hours. And this fall’s leaf-peeping crowd kept things hopping. “Every town needs a place like this to go,” Hill says. “They’re just not as common as they used to be. And then, I mean, Covid really screwed everything!”

As for the food itself, there’s nothing fancy: for breakfast it’s eggs, bacon, Belgian waffles, bagels; soups, sandwiches, salads for lunch. “It’s simple, homemade food with good-quality products, and all-American favorites like Reubens, Italians, meatballs… ” Hill says. She makes her own soups and dressings, the produce is local, and she makes at least a few specials every day, maybe lasagna or chili or mac-and-cheese.

Rae Hill

As for what she herself would eat, though… “I haven’t eaten any sandwiches off our menu. I know they’re good because people tell me they are; every single thing on the menu sells every day… well, except the egg salad.” But if she were to sit down in her own restaurant and eat, it would be the breakfast sandwich: an egg and bacon with cheese on a bagel. At which point her lone employee, Rachel Williams, a 19-year-old from Thetford who just got her EMT certification, pipes up: “A plain bagel. It’s so good!”

Hill is already thinking of expanding. For one thing, she wants to open Saturday evenings for dinner. And she and Shipman plan to spend the winter renovating a vintage camper into a grab-and-go breakfast food trailer. Once spring comes, they’ll park it down the road at East Coast Van Builds and sell breakfast burritos, hot sandwiches, and other food that can be prepped ahead of time at Rae’s. “Right now, we’re missing the whole early-morning breakfast crowd,” Hill says. “If you’re a truck driver, you can’t just pull in on Main Street and run in.”

And down the road, maybe, another restaurant, or a small co-op. “I’m not a chef-type person,” she says. “I can cook really good but I’m not a restaurant chef. I’m just a mom that’s making soups and sandwiches. I mean, I love cooking. I love feeding people. It’s the first question I ask: ‘Are you hungry?’”

— by Rob Gurwitt