The Portland Food Map archive provides a chronicle of the past 17 years of the Portland restaurant scene. While a lot of the reporting here is about what’s happening now and coming next, we thought it would be fun to take a look back each month at what the hot topics were from 5, 10 and 15 years ago.
Here’s are highlights from October 2009, 2014 and 2019:
- Shima opened for business on October 2nd in 2009 in the space in Boothby Square that’s now the home of Mami.
- Binga’s Stadium held their grand opening on October 8th.
- Dawn Hagin launched her food blog (remember those!) called Appetite Portland. These days you can follow her world travels through her instagram account WayfarerDawn.
- Veranda Noodle Bar opened for business on October 12th.
- Word was out that the owners of Bangkok Thai were going to convert the Longfellow Square restaurant into a “a new Asian fusion eatery similar in some respects to their other Congress Street restaurant, the Green Elephant Vegetarian Bistro” called Boda.
- Lindsey Sterling wrote about learning how to prepare Bulgarian Bean Soup & Spanikopita from Svetla Popova for her blog Inside Immigrant Kitchens.
- Stephen Lanzalotta launched The Baker’s Gallery on Market Street. It served as a gallery for his art and a retail space for his Italian pastries and cookies.
- Rachel’s L’Osteria closed their Woodford Street restaurant.
- Chef James Tranchemontagne and members of his family began planning to launch a multi-roaster coffee shop and cafe in Westbrook called The French Press Eatery.
- Bramhall held their grand opening on October 9, 2014.
- A new restaurant that we now know as Isa Bistro was under development on Portland Street.
- The Muthah Truckah food truck launched on October 6th.
- We all learned that the owners of Eventide and Hugo’s were working on a new restaurant called The Honey Paw that promised to be a “non-denominational noodle restaurant.”
- Bao Bao opened on October 21st.
- Briana Warner shut down her business Maine Pie Line, and went on to a roll at the Island Institute. These days she’s the CEO of Atlantic Sea Farms.
- A lot of changes were taking place in the landscape of Italian restaurants in 2019.
- Flying Fox Juice Bar closed on Washington Ave, and news broke that the space was going to become the home of a new restaurant being launched by Josh Sobel and Chad Conley. The name and concept were TBD at the time but we now know it was slated to become Ramona’s.
- Candy’s, a coffee shop, bar, cafe and queer community hub, opened for business on Portland Street.
- The 6th Annual Heirloom Apple Tasting took place. It brought under one roof 213 apples varieties gathered from 21 orchards in 4 states. The event featured New England ciders from Bent Bough, Rocky Ground, Cornish and Citizen and heirloom apple-based dishes by Ilma Lopez at Chaval, Josh Berry at Union and Krista Kern Desjarlais at The Purple House. The apple tasting took place at The Oyster Shop on Washington Ave and the following week was reprised at the Blaine House in Augusta.
- Pliny and Melanie Reynolds leased the former Silly’s buildings on Washington Ave with plans to move their restaurant Terlingua to that location.
- The ownrs of the food truck Falafel Mafia leased 1 Monument Way where they began the development of their restaurant Nura.
- A emerging topic of discussion was that lack of staff was becoming a challenge for hospitality businesses.