Demolition of Canal Street landmarks closes a long chapter in Brattleboro

The changes are taking place at the 201 and 209 Canal St. locations have long stirred up memories for residents.

Work crews have started tearing down the former Burton Car Wash and the old Jad’s Restaurant building on Canal Street, clearing away two properties that have been tied to Brattleboro life for generations.

The changes are taking place at 201 and 209 Canal St., locations that have long stirred up memories for residents of errands with relatives, first paychecks, and neighborhood get-togethers. Connie Burton, who owned the car wash business with her late husband, Ron Burton, said the names alone still prompt stories from people who grew up visiting the sites.

Burton bought the operating car wash in December 1975. After Ron Burton died in 2008, she kept the business going until 2015, when she moved the operation, including the detail shop, to the Touch Free Car Wash on Putney Road. The Canal Street site later reopened in 2016 as Green Mountain Car Wash, then closed in 2022 and has sat unused since.

For Burton, the car wash was never just a place to rinse vehicles. Over the years, she said, it became an early workplace for teenagers, a landing spot for people rebuilding their lives, and a place where customer relationships often lasted for decades.

The neighboring restaurant carried an even older history. The building began as a diner brought from Rhode Island to Canal Street in 1967. It later changed owners several times before becoming Jad’s Family Restaurant in 1980. An expansion followed in 1986, and the restaurant stayed a familiar stop until it closed under the Jad’s name in 1999.

In later years, the building housed the Pink Flamingo, which served its last meal in December 2022. Burton bought that property earlier in 2022.

Although the restaurant building is being removed, Burton said one important piece of its past will remain. Once the outer structure comes down, the original diner that was moved to Brattleboro nearly 60 years ago will be visible again. She has been working with a preservation specialist who focuses on saving historic diners and plans to move the old structure instead of letting it be destroyed. A final destination has not yet been selected.

As the site is cleared for future development, Burton said she is thinking about both what has been lost and what may come next. After more than five decades connected to one of Brattleboro’s best-known business sites, she said she is prepared to let someone else shape the property’s future.