Quechee Takes Its Pause in Early November. The Holiday Deadlines Come Right After.

Where do you get dinner in Quechee this week when the village's best-known dining room is closed? Simon Pearce's restaurant at 1760 Quechee Main Street is closed Monday, Nov. 2 through Sunday, Nov. 8. Its bar has been closed since Wednesday, Oct. 28. A few days later the Quechee Club's Base Lodge closes Nov. 9 through 12 for fall cleaning. The next date on the calendar is a deadline, not a closure. Public tickets for VINS Forest of Lights go on sale Nov. 10, ten days before the first lit night.

Quechee's November gets settled early. The closures come one at a time, and the holiday decisions are due about ten days before the events. If you plan around both, the month runs smoothly.

The first half of November, by date

The closures and schedule changes don't overlap much, so some kitchens stay open while others rest:

1. Wednesday, Oct. 28: The Simon Pearce bar closes through Sunday, Nov. 8.
2. Monday, Nov. 2: The Simon Pearce dining room closes through Sunday, Nov. 8. The store stays open on shorter hours.
3. Wednesday, Nov. 4: The Quechee Club's Base Lodge goes from 7:30 a.m.–4 p.m. to 7:30 a.m.–2 p.m. daily, and Davidson's starts its winter schedule.
4. Friday, Nov. 6: The VINS online auction ends. Proceeds support the center's programs, research, and wildlife rehabilitation.
5. Sunday, Nov. 8: Both Simon Pearce closures end on the posted schedule.
6. Monday, Nov. 9 through Thursday, Nov. 12: The Base Lodge is closed for fall cleaning.
7. Tuesday, Nov. 10, 9 a.m.: Forest of Lights tickets go on sale to the public. Members could buy starting Nov. 3.

The Simon Pearce break and the Base Lodge cleaning don't overlap. Simon Pearce's dining room reopens on its posted schedule the day before the Base Lodge closes. Through this stretch, the shared dining rooms take turns closing instead of all shutting at once.

Simon Pearce's week off covers the restaurant, not the store

The closure covers the dining room and bar. The flagship store is open this week, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Wednesday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday through Sunday, Nov. 5 to 8. Its regular posted schedule runs until 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. The store carries the newest glass and pottery, home accents, and the Seconds that locals know. If you've been meaning to pick up a gift before the holiday rush, this is a quiet week to go.

Once the dining room reopens, the posted hours are lunch daily from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and dinner Wednesday through Sunday from 5 to 9 p.m. The bar is open Wednesday through Sunday from 4 to 9 p.m. The current menu is the fall 2026 menu. Reservations go through the restaurant's OpenTable link on the Simon Pearce restaurant page.

Where dinner goes for the week

Quechee still has places to eat this week. They're spread between the village, the inn, and Quechee Gorge Village along Route 4:

The Public House doesn't list closing times. Its website says to call or check its Facebook page for the latest hours, so that's the place to check before you drive over on a weeknight. Vermont Spirits offers a free first taste. Harry's Cocktail Lounge, next door, serves charcuterie boxes. Its posted schedule is a couple of years old, so call ahead.

For mornings, the Quechee General Store has fresh-brewed coffee to go, plus local coffee, Cabot cheeses, and Vermont maple to take home.

For Quechee Club members, a schedule of its own

For households in the Quechee Lakes community, the club's own dining rooms change hours this month. Starting Nov. 4, the Base Lodge serves daily from 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., down from 4 p.m. Then it closes Nov. 9 through 12. Davidson's moves to winter hours on the same day: closed Monday and Tuesday, open noon to 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, with Sunday brunch from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Dewey's Deck is closed for the season.

During the Base Lodge's four-day closure, members still have Davidson's on Wednesday and Thursday. That's also when the inn and the Route 4 spots in the table above come in handy. If you're still weighing what club access involves, our guide to buying into Quechee's resort communities lays out how it fits into ownership.

The gorge is fully open to walkers this November

This November the bridge has no traffic signals and no limits on pedestrians. When we wrote about the Quechee Gorge Bridge reopening in August, the work was finishing up. VTrans's Oct. 23 construction update says the signals are gone and there are no pedestrian restrictions. The trail under the bridge, the upstream sidewalk, and the southwest parking lot are all open. The Valley News reported that the sidewalks were widened from about 3.5 feet to 6 feet as part of the rehabilitation. Walking the 165-foot-high crossing over the Ottauquechee River now feels quite different from the narrow edge you remember.

VTrans says one more short lane closure is coming in the weeks after that update, with flaggers directing traffic over the bridge. If you hit a brief one-lane stretch on Route 4, that's probably the reason.

The Quechee State Park campground season ended on the second Monday in October. Vermont State Parks stay open year-round, and off-season visits are free. Water, restrooms, and trash service are shut down, so carry out whatever you bring. Off-season parking for Quechee is at the Quechee Gorge Visitor Center, and you reach the park by the staircase from that lot. The visitor center, at 5966 Woodstock Road, is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily and has light refreshments. The parks department also notes that hunting is allowed on most state lands within the parks during the off-season. That's useful to know before a November walk in the woods.

The holiday deadlines come before the holidays

The second half of the month is mostly about things you have to book or order early.

Forest of Lights tickets. Public sales open Tuesday, Nov. 10 at 9 a.m. The event runs on 26 select nights from Nov. 20, 2026 through Jan. 2, 2027. The November nights are the 20th, 21st, 27th, 28th, and 29th. On most nights you can enter at 4:30 or 5:30 p.m., and the event closes at 7. On Nov. 27 and 28 there's a third entry at 6:30, and the lights stay on until 8. VINS suggests the 4:30 entry for families with young children.

Thanksgiving weekend tickets cost $5 more per adult and $3 more per youth ticket than the other 23 nights. The first two nights, Nov. 20 and 21, are priced like the rest of the season and come before relatives arrive for the holiday. The whole event is outdoors, and some lights flash or strobe. Part of the Forest Canopy Walk, the Tree House and Eagles Nest platform, isn't wheelchair accessible.

A daytime visit to VINS first. VINS holds Raptors Up Close on Saturday, Nov. 14, from 11 to 11:30 a.m. The Nature Center is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily all year, closed only on Thanksgiving and Christmas. There's no café on site, so the table above helps here too.

Wreath orders. The Quechee Garden Club's annual holiday wreath sale has an order deadline of Nov. 21. Pickup is Tuesday, Dec. 1, in the Base Lodge lot. The club's event calendar has the ordering details and the pickup window.

So the November weekend you'll care about most, Thanksgiving at the lights, depends on a Tuesday-morning ticket sale, and a Dec. 1 front-door wreath depends on an order placed before Thanksgiving.

At LIVE UV LIFE, we keep a close eye on how Quechee's calendar works, from the week Simon Pearce takes a break to the day the wreaths come home. If you've been wondering how your place in the village fits into this season's market, we're happy to talk it through. Start with a free home valuation, or browse more of our Quechee neighborhood guide.