Category: General News

Grab a cup of coffee and get caught up on some recent food writing about the Portland/Maine food scene:

• Bloomberg interviewed Little Woodfords owner Andrew Zarro about the relocation of his coffee shop and his advice on running a small business.
• WMTW aired a segment on the impact cooler weather will have on restaurant seating capacity during the pandemic.
• The West End News has taken a look at food truck/trailer/cart options in Portland.
• Yesterday’s Press Herald reported on the long delayed re-opening of bars in Maine.
• Today’s Maine Sunday Telegram muses on the long term effects the pandemic will have on the restaurant industry, and takes a look at The Well as an example of a restaurant set up well to operate under the current situation.

The Press Herald reports on the concerns of tasting room operators as cooler the seasons change.

When the state adopted new rules for businesses to reopen this summer, tasting room operations were lumped in with bars, because their licenses are the same, and told they could only operate outdoors. But Bodine and others are worried about the future of tasting rooms if the rules aren’t changed before cold weather hits in another month or two.

Kate and Steve Shaffer, co-owners of Black Dinah Chocolate, have announced the new name for their Westbrook-based business.

Ragged Coast Chocolates (website) “pays homage to our hardy island roots while also celebrating Maine’s unique beauty and traditions which we work hard to reflect in our handmade chocolates,” shared Kate Shaffer in a release issued this morning.

Ms. Shaffer announced the intent to change the company’s name to their newsletter subscribers and in a public statement on the their social media pages on June 9th. In the statement, Shaffer explained that the timing was in response to and support of the Black Lives Matter movement and the nationwide protests for racial justice. The Shaffers named the company for Black Dinah Mountain on the island of Isle au Haut, Maine. However, the name “Black Dinah” can also refer to a generic term for Black female slaves. There is no recorded history as to why the Isle au Haut landmark bears the name Black Dinah (also spelled Black Dina on some maps).

In a public statement on her social media pages on June 19th, Shaffer wrote, “I have always imagined that if Black Dinah Mountain was named for an actual person or persons, she was strong and powerful and wise. But I’m beginning to understand that it is not my place, nor the place of my brand – perceived or actual – to use her name…for profit or to push my own unrelated agenda.”

The Food & Dining section in today’s Maine Sunday Telegram talks with business owners about the current state of the restaurant industry, and explores the need for federal and state programs to help them survive.

In Maine, especially in Greater Portland, small, independent restaurants are a huge part of both the economy and culture, drawing visitors from all over the country who come here to explore the city’s food scene, named the best in the nation in 2018 by Bon Appetit. Many of these restaurants, often owned by the chef, have suffered enormously during the pandemic, and say that efforts to help them so far have not been enough. The state shut down restaurants in mid-March and allowed them to reopen in June, initially only to outdoor dining in Maine’s more populated counties, then two weeks later to indoor dining with requirements for capacity, spacing, mask-wearing and sanitization – measures that cost money to implement and reduced the number of customers that could be served, on top of those unwilling to dine out because of the health risks.

Restaurant critic Andrew Ross tries to identify “what made Drifters Wife and Piccolo so special“.

Both restaurants shut their doors permanently last month – Portland’s first high-profile casualties of the novel coronavirus pandemic. But it’s only now, after weeks of thinking about their absence, that I’ve started to see why the two restaurants were so important, and how their example can become a model for whatever sprouts from the fallow of the city’s locked-down food scene.

Today’s Maine Sunday Telegram includes an article on options for shaved ice treats available this summer.

When the temperature rises in Maine, Mainers typically turn to ice cream for a little cold comfort. This unusually sweaty summer, though, when so many people are working from home without air conditioning, calls for bigger ammunition to fight the heat and humidity – icy treats such as shave ice, snoballs, and boozy ice pops.

Featured in the article are: Belfast Shaved Ice, Brrrr! Harbor, Haole Ice, Hawaiian Jim’s, Little Easy Snoballs, Snowology 207, and Vena’s.

The Food & Dining section today’s Maine Sunday Telegram includes articles on:

• Perspectives from servers on working at restaurants during a pandemic
• Increased use of technology by restaurants and other food service businesses during the pandemic
• How the pandemic is impacting the food truck business
• The changes in business climate for Maine veggie burger producers
• A new food truck finder app called Food Trux, which recently merged with Maine Food Truck Finder

Leigh Habegger, executive director of Seafood Harvesters of America, and Andrew Taylor, Arlin Smith and Mike Wiley, the co-owners of Eventide, Hugo’s and The Honey Paw have co-written an article for the Press Herald advocating for passage of the Restaurants Act and funds to support the seafood industry.

The connection couldn’t be clearer: Without restaurants, many fishermen have nowhere to sell their catch. Without fishermen, many restaurants have nothing to offer. We’re proud to harvest and serve the best-managed, most sustainable seafood in the world, especially when it comes on a steamed bun or slurped down with a squeeze of lemon. By passing the RESTAURANTS Act and providing additional assistance to the commercial fishing industry, Congress would make sure fresh oysters, lobster tails and haddock filets continue to make it to consumers, returning hundreds of billions of dollars and millions of jobs in the process.

For more information on the challenges faced by restaurant during the pandemic visit the Independent Restaurant Coalition website.

A bill has been proposed for the Maine Legislature which would enable restaurants to sell alcohol to go through 2022, according to a report in the Press Heraldi.

But Sen. Louie Luchini, D-Ellsworth, who sponsored the bill to extend the to-go law until April 2022, said it has helped prevent many restaurants from going out of business during the pandemic.