Category: General News

The Forecaster has published a report on food trucks in Portland,

Task force members and participants like Sutton also agreed that food trucks are no more guaranteed to be successful than traditional restaurants, and that the city has a stake in the continued health of the dining industry and Portland’s reputation as a foodie city.

as has Mainebiz.

Preliminary recommendations would allow food trucks to operate in any part of the city from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. with the exception of residential zones. Prior to 10 p.m., food trucks would be allowed only on private property in certain parts of the city. They’d also have to be 65 feet from established restaurants, or 100 feet outside the downtown area. Trucks would be allowed in certain city parks including Deering and Compass as long as they apply with the city.

The recommendations also encourage a “cluster” model where food trucks would gather in one location, setting up something of a food court in private lots around the city.

Maine a la Carte has posted a report on today’s launch of Union Bagel Company.

Crispy on the outside and chewy inside, the bagels garnered positive reviews in the foodie corner of the newsroom.

The bagels are being produced in the Community Kitchen at the Public Market House by a team that includes Nina Murray, Dave Tozeski, Paul Farrell and Abby Williams. They worked all last night until 6 a.m. producing 20 dozen bagels for distribution today. The team raised the money needed to start the venture with a Kickstarter campaign.

The Forecaster reports that the South Portland Farmers Market may be moving to Hinckley Drive.

This year, the South Portland Farmers Market Association proposed moving the market to Hinckley Drive, along Mill Creek Park, an area members feel will provide more visibility and foot traffic.

One proposal has 24 farmers and their stands occupying about half the street, from Ocean Street to the first curb cut in front of Town and Country Federal Credit Union. The second would close all of Hinckley Drive and allow 41 farmers to sell their wares.

Today’s Portland Daily Sun includes an update on the Food Truck Task Force,

The city’s Food Truck Task Force met yesterday to continue discussing possible regulations for the mobile restaurant industry. The group managed to reach a consensus on allowing food trucks to operate late in the evening and letting them set up on private property as long as they stay a certain distance away from established restaurants.

and an interview with Perry Mogul, owner of the food cart known as Perry’s Sidewalk Cafe.

The city’s pursuit of food trucks causes some head scratching for Perry Mogul, a food cart vendor who’s a familiar face around the Port City. Perry’s Sidewalk Cafe, as he calls his cart, features kosher hotdogs, baguettes, barbecue ribs and other delicacies.

According to a short piece in Maine a la Carte, both Saveur and Bon Appetite have recently published praise for Standard Baking.

 

Yankee magazine has included Emilitsa, Maine Foodie Tours and Little Lad’s in the 2012 list of the Best of New England.

The Portland Daily Sun has published an article about theft in restaurants.

People steal stuff from restaurants all the time, and surprisingly enough, not just the people who work there. It’s true that restaurant employees have been known to behave poorly or retaliate for a number of reasons by eating and drinking as if they were Robin Hood storming the castle, but a great deal of outright theft comes externally, from restaurant patrons themselves.

 

Food Coma TV has posted their latest episode, a visit to Westbrook.

For Episode 7 we went to Westbrook, ate ice cream, drank in a secret bar, discussed the downsides to quitting cocaine, did shot after shot, and ate meat out of a truck.

The Saturday Portland Daily Sun has published an update on the food truck task force.

While the task force previously kicked around the idea of figuring out the distance that a food truck ought to be from a bricks-and-mortar restaurant, Friday’s conversation shifted to where the trucks ought to be allowed to operate rather than where they can’t.

The idea that came out of the discussion was creating an overlay zone for parts of the Portland peninsula that would be suitable for food trucks.