Looking for fun on Stowe Mountain Road

STOWE – If you’re heading to Stowe, the thinking goes, you must be in town to ski. Stowe is a company town, and Stowe Mountain Resort is the company, lording figuratively and literally over all from its perch atop Mount Mansfield.

Truth is, though, you can’t ski or snowboard 24 hours a day, especially this winter when snow has been hard to come by. Fortunately, the seven-plus miles known as the Mountain Road from Stowe Village to Stowe Mountain Resort contain plenty of entertaining diversions. I spent last weekend taking in as many arts-and-entertainment events and food-and-drink options as I could.

Here’s what I found regarding the former; look for the latter Friday in Savorvore.

Robert Paul Galleries

If a lack of snow in Stowe gives you the blues, Robert Paul Galleries would like to brighten your day with splashes of color.

“We’re here to help,” said Gail O’Toole, who for the past quarter-century has run the gallery with her husband, Robert O’Toole. “We specialize in realism, but we love color.”

The couple were in the gallery Friday afternoon with their assistant. “This is my vicious guard, Bunker,” Gail O’Toole said of her tiny 10-year-old Havanese, a type of Bichon who also works part-time as a therapy dog at senior centers. Bunker focused most of her effort on being petted by visitors and sniffing for potential food scraps. (Gail said Bunker is especially partial to bagels thanks to the adjacent eatery known simply as The Bagel.)

The paintings on the walls reflect that realism Gail O’Toole was talking about. The work of Mark Boedges, who has a gallery in Burlington, shows covered bridges and farm scenes in literal and Impressionistic settings. Stowe artist Henry Alexander opted for the familiar Vermont landscape as well with a watercolor view of Emily’s Bridge, near a competing depiction of that Stowe landmark by Don Landwehrle.

Other artists at Robert Paul Galleries come from outside Vermont and create images evoking other places. Several glossy, colorful works by Robert Miller of Sarasota, Florida, are on display, including a lively oversized painting of a koi pond.

Robert O’Toole said the goal at the gallery is to rotate in fresh art often enough so repeat customers are surprised the next time they visit. “Every corner you turn there’s something totally different than what you expect,” he said.

Matterhorn Bar and Grill

The Matterhorn is pretty much the last outpost up the Mountain Road before the climb gets steeper and the commercial offerings get fewer heading toward Stowe Mountain Resort. The reverse, of course, is that the restaurant, bar and music venue is the first place skiers see on their way down the mountain after getting hungry and thirsty while burning calories on the slopes all day long.

That’s what Charlie Shaffer counts on. He’s owned the Mountain Road stalwart for 18 years, and welcomes visitors young and old to the Matterhorn.

“We get babies in mamas’ arms to senior citizens,” according to one of Shaffer’s employees, Mike Jewell. He said many of the venue’s winter visitors are second-home owners in town for skiing, and local residents keep the Matterhorn thriving all year long.

The Matterhorn built its reputation years ago when apres-ski partying was all the rage. Stronger drinking-and-driving laws and changing customer interests have led the Matterhorn to adjust its focus. Now Shaffer and his staff tout their sushi, pizza and steak as much as their bar and live music.

They did have live music Friday night, courtesy of local group The Shady Trees. Families began filtering out and an older crowd of music fans and drinkers filtered in as the band started playing a little after 9 p.m. The Shady Trees’ bluesy jam rock was augmented by swirling psychedelic lights created by a guy in the back of the room who manipulated colored gels over an old-school opaque projector.

Mike Grimes of Washington, D.C., and friend Tony Marti of Chicago, two 30-something friends, just arrived in Stowe for the night and were ready for a good time. Grimes said he’s skied at Killington but had never been up to Stowe. He declared the Matterhorn “awesome.”

“We came straight here because we’ve heard such good things about it,” Grimes said of the night spot. “There’s a live band — this is great.”

Rusty Nail

I left the Matterhorn to see another live band, Burlington rockers Gang of Thieves, a five-minute drive down the road at Stowe’s other long-standing music venue, the Rusty Nail. Much of the young crowd was on the dance floor grooving to the group’s mix of hard rock and funk.

The Rusty Nail certainly feels like Vermont with its barn-meets-ski-lodge vibe created by its high rafters and wooden floor built for a hoedown. A balcony lets the crowd get a barn-owl’s-eye view of the happenings down below.

Gang of Thieves plays a blistering form of rock, and the band members’ long hair and tattoos could make them seem like just another bunch of rock ‘n’ roll tough guys. But their instrumentation, including trombone and electric violin, is surprising, as is some of their material, such as a faithful version of The Beatles’ “Come Together.”

“We’re gonna take a quick break and we’re gonna be back to rock ‘n’ roll all night long,” singer and violin player Michael Reit told the crowd just before 11 p.m.

I decided to skedaddle home so I could come back at a decent hour Saturday for more fun on the Mountain Road. On my way out the door I passed a woman on crutches and realized pretty much every place I had been on the Mountain Road I saw someone on crutches.

Such is life in a ski town.

Stowe Cinema 3 Plex

My wife joined me on Saturday, and our first entertainment stop was Stowe Cinema 3 Plex. Part of the appeal of the theater is the movies, of course  —  we caught a 2:30 matinee of the Great Recession-themed film “The Big Short”  — but another is that it’s the rare film venue that lets you enjoy an adult beverage while relaxing in your seat.

We sipped from bottles of Long Trail Ale as we sat near the rear of the theater watching a film that makes high finance compelling and understandable. That’s the case even for someone like me whose accounting abilities peak at calculating 20 percent of a restaurant bill.

It’s refreshing to be in a theater that treats adults like responsible people who can be trusted to have a beer without getting drunk and disorderly and disrupting the film. Sipping a beer is certainly more satisfying than polishing off a box of Milk Duds.

Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center

We finished our night by driving in Saturday’s rain/snow/sleet mess to the top of the Mountain Road. Just off the road, on the grounds of Stowe Mountain Resort, sits the comfortable 420-seat venue known as the Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center.

We arrived a few minutes late for the concert by the Vermont-based Chad Hollister Band, as Spruce Peak sent out an email only 24 hours earlier saying that parking would be off-site (thanks to plentiful ongoing development at the resort) and attendees would have to take a shuttle. That made it tough for those of us who had 6 p.m. dinner reservations to get there on time, so we joined in progress as Maine singer-songwriter Jason Spooner finished an amiable set of acoustic music.

I’ve been to Spruce Peak for concerts by the Cowboy Junkies and James Taylor, and always sat near the front. This time we had tickets in the very back row. We could watch the crowd assemble and mingle, yet still see the stage easily and hear the sound filter clearly between the venue’s acoustically pleasing wooden walls.

Hollister, who lives in Worcester, told the crowd he has sold out Spruce Peak three years in a row. His 10-piece band (including a four-man horn section) played upbeat rock, and Hollister also broke out a string quartet for more subdued material.

The show felt like a living-room concert, partly because of the intimate feel of the venue but also because Hollister seemed to know everyone in attendance. He told several stories about his family, including one of his mother always saying when something is going good “Stop the world, I want to get off” — which segued into his similarly named song.

Hollister drew his nearly two-hour set to a close with a cover of “Let’s Dance,” in honor of the song’s creator, David Bowie, who died a few days earlier. Much of the crowd followed the song’s orders and did indeed dance, sending us all out, thanks to the clearing skies, into some serious moonlight.

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

If you go

• Robert Paul Galleries, 394 Mountain Road, 873-3791, www.robertpaulgalleries.com
• Matterhorn Bar and Grill, 4969 Mountain Road, 253-8198, www.matterhornbar.com
• Rusty Nail, 1190 Mountain Road, 253-6245, www.rustynailvt.com
• Stowe Cinema 3 Plex, 454 Mountain Road, 253-4678, www.stowecinema.com
• Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center, 122 Hourglass Drive, 760-4634, www.sprucepeakarts.org
• Read about the food-and-drink scene on Stowe Mountain Road in Friday’s Savorvore.