Category: General News

Owner Kevin Sandes has decided to put Eighty 8 Donuts up for sale.

Greetings friend,

I’m writing to you today regarding my future with Eighty 8 Donuts. Something personal and relevant you may not know about me, this July will mark my 10th year as a kidney transplant patient – or my 10th second birthday as I like to call it. To be blunt, facing death as I have and receiving a second chance at life has taught me (more than anything else) the significance of ‘now’ and my misconceptions of ‘later.’ Unfortunately kidney transplants are not cures. They do not last forever and the chances of receiving just one are pretty slim. So…time being what it is…. this chapter of my life has been outstanding and as much as I want to hang on to it, I know that the time has come for me to let go.

It’s important to me to say that although I will no longer be making the donuts ‘that make ya go nuts’ I will in fact remain grateful that our lives happened to come together, if only as brief as it may have been. Moving forward, the plan is to find a passionate new owner for Eighty 8 Donuts. From there, I will continue to explore some other passions of my own while I seek out future medical care possibilities abroad. Until then, please pass my contact info along to any interested parties and please always, always eat well.

Kevin

The Food & Dining section in today’s Maine Sunday Telegram includes an article about the fees restaurants have to discourage reservation no-shows and the reasons for them,

Restaurateurs say that when you skip out on your reservation, it can have a big ripple effect on supplies, staffing and finances, especially for smaller restaurants. Knowing how many diners to expect helps the chef determine how much food to buy, and what size staff to have on the floor that night.

“It hurts everybody here,” said Niko Regas, chef at Emilitsa, a 48-seat Greek restaurant on Congress Street in Portland. “It doesn’t just hurt the business. It hurts my employees as well.”

Servers may go without tips, Regas said, and the back-of-house staff might be sent home an hour early.

and an article about program some restaurants have put in place to encourage Winter business.

Winter has always been a tough season for Maine restaurants in seasonal communities along the coast. Once tourists go home, making enough money to get through until spring can be a challenge. Towns like Yarmouth, where snowbirds fly south for the winter, can also suffer. This year has been especially difficult, since winter started early with snow on Halloween. Keeping diners in the seats requires creativity – cue the special events, exclusive dinner offers, and happy hour specials that run only during snowstorms.

Avery Yale Kamila has put together a list of new (mostly) vegan products that are now available in Maine.

Maine chefs and entrepreneurs have been busy making new vegan products to serve the growing plant-based food market. I wrote about new vegan meats being made in Maine last spring and the state’s growing group of vegan ice cream makers in July. Yet those just scratch the surface of the new items on Maine’s vegan food scene.

The Hilltop Superette, formerly Colucci’s, has changed hands. The new owners hail from Augusta where they opened and run the Twins Country Store. Here’s an excerpt from their announcement on Facebook,

We have nearly 10 years experience owning and running a very similar store in Augusta called Twins Country Store. Our motto at Twins which is our goal for Hilltop is to be a friend to the community and to provide our customers with high quality foods and fantastic customer service. We want you to come into Hilltop and leave smiling.

Erik Neilson with the Portland Phoenix has highlighted 5 restaurants due out in 2019 that he’s most looking forward to.

Even discounting Bon Appétit magazine’s “Restaurant City of the Year” honors and the aftermath, 2018 was yet another stellar time for the Portland dining scene. It was also a good year for openings, with Lio, Drifters Wife (in its new space) and Crown Jewel leading the pack in terms of new and worthwhile experiences. And while the list of establishments set to open in 2019 is sparser than recent years, there are still a handful of interesting developments to keep an eye on in the coming months. 

Forbes magazine talked with Andrew and Briana Volk for some New Year’s Eve entertaining advice.

1. Pre-batch your cocktails
“Not every drink needs to be made one at a time,” says Volk, “just multiply the numbers and make a big batch. People will get excited pouring their own Old Fashioned directly from a pitcher. Overall, stick to about three cocktails — too much choice can be its own problem, and it also encourages people to overserve themselves. Better to have two great things than five ok things, and save the 12-ingredient cocktails for another time.” See Briana’s recipes for batching a Slow Gin Fizz and Mexican Trike below.

The Press Herald has published their alphabetical take on the past year’s food trends and events.

No doubt, the new year will bring plenty of fresh food news. But before we ring in 2019, let’s hit the pause button and review the biggest Maine food news, events and trends of 2018. What restaurants opened this year? Which closed? Which foods captured our hearts, minds and taste buds? Here’s a recap, from A to Z…

The big news from MaineToday Media (the parent company of the newspaper) is their decision to discontinue the Source section of the Sunday Telegram, and to fold the Wednesday Food & Dining section and food coverage from Source into a single weekly Food & Dining section which will be published on Sundays.

The Press Herald has published a round-up of Maine ciders, beers, wines and meads for pairing with your Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow.

Choosing a Maine-made beverage celebrates more than Thanksgiving. It shows just how far Maine has come in 30 years. In the late 1980s, Maine had just one winery that made fruit wine. The state had no other wineries, meaderies, no craft brewery scene, or distilleries of its own. Today there’s a wealth of options. So when you serve a Maine-made beverage with your turkey, you’re celebrating Maine along with the holiday.

At my holiday table I’ll be serving Armenian sparkling wine, pinot noir from Saint Innocent Winery in Oregon, German beer, some excellent Maine cider from Bent Bough, Tandem Coffee and Q Tonic. What beverages are you having with your Thanksgiving meal?