Category: Openings

The new Sissle and Daughters (website, facebook, instagram) all-day cafe is set to open this week. It’s located at 634 Forest Ave, and starting Friday, November 1st, Sissle & Daughter will be open daily 8 am – 8 pm.

The new Woodfords Corner business is a coffee shop by day, a wine bar in the afternoons and evening, and a food retail and grocery shop that stocks wine, pantry goods, prepared food, take-and-heat meals and their wonderful sandwiches all day long.

In the morning Sissle and Daughters serves brewed and espresso-based coffee drinks made with whole or oat milk as well as tea, iced tea and chai. Daytime snacks include a frittata, blueberry coffee cake, and other baked goods. They source the coffee for the cafe from Precipice Coffee in Ellsworth.

During the afternoon and evening the menu features house-made pates and rillettes prepared by chef Joe Gaudet along with cheeses and charcuterie, olives, and other wine bar fare. The menu is complemented by a selection of 14 by-the-glass pours along with draft and packaged beer, non-alcoholic beverages and a few wines by the bottle.

The furniture and bar for ~20-seat cafe were designed and built by Studio 89 and design elements including the two portraits were selected with help by Jenny Bravo from Viand Mercantile.

Owners Mary Chapman and Will Sissle opened their first business The Cheese Shop of Portland on September 28, 2018 and moved it into larger digs in 2019. They recently renamed the Washington Ave store Sissle & Daughters Cheesemongers and Grocers. At the new Forest Ave location the Chapman-Sissles run the business with the help of Adelia Scheck who leads the front of office staff and chef Gaudet who manages the kitchen.

Next Tea (instagram) has opened their Arts District tea shop. It is located at 543 Congress Street near Another Round and Regards. The space has a variety of table seating options and a children’s play area stocked with toys.

A wide assortment of hot and iced tea-based drinks (menu below) are available to enjoy including fruit teas like their Hong Kong Lemon Tea and an assortment of milk teas. Six different options for toppings are on the menu including brown sugar and crystal boba. They also have a selection of baked goods like egg tarts and tiramasu.

Next Tea is open weekdays 11 am – 7:30 pm and until 8 pm on the weekends.

A new West End ice cream shop will open for business today. Maine Flavor (website, instagram) will be launching their new scoop shop and retail store on Spring Street at 3 pm. They’re located at 175 Spring Street/144 State Street.

They’ll be serving eight ice cream flavors on opening day: Lemon Shortbread, Maine Wild Blueberry Crisp, Maine Butternut Chai, Milk Chocolate and Vanilla Bean (all dairy-based, organic and gluten-free) as well as three vegan and gluten-free options Coffee Crunch, Cranberry Chocolate Chunk and Maine Strawberry (shown above).  The Maine Flavor kitchen is a certifiable gluten-free facility and their house-made dark chocolate and ginger bread ice cream bowls are vegan in addition to being gluten-free. Pints of their ice cream to take home and ice cream sandwiches and cookies will also be available.

Owners Susan Purcell and Andrew Applegate leased the space next to Chocolats Passion in the former Mercy Hospital building back in July and where they have built out a new ice cream production facility in addition to the retail shop.

Maine Flavor has been in business since 2016. Their ice cream is available at a number of Portland area retail locations like Montes, the Portland Co-op, Union Wharf Market, Lighthouse Bikes and Barber Brothers market in South Portland, and Lois’s in Scarborough in addition to being for sale at their new shop.

Maine Flavor will initially be open Friday through Sunday, 3 – 6 pm.

Also under construction the former Mercy Hospital building is a new Two Fat Cats bakery/cafe.

Winona’s (instagram) has opened for business. The ~20-seat restaurant is located at 31 Elm Street in Camden in the space formerly occupied by Goods. It’s being launched by Hannah Adams and chef Devin Dearden.

They’re serving a menu of six dishes (see menu below) along with beer, wine and non-alcoholic drinks. Shown above are the Egg Custard which is plated with shaved cabbage and topped with a sunflower chili crisp(top left), Sumac Cured Salmon with carrots and seasoned yogurt (mid left), and a Cod en Papillotte prepared with mushrooms and tomato butter and plated with shaved and whole radishes.

Prior to Winona’s Dearden had been the chef at The Alna Store since the acclaimed restaurant launched in late 2022. He’s previously worked in Cambridge, New York, and in Portland where he was on the staff at Scales and Evo. Adams had also been on staff at The Alna Store and previously worked front of house in Portland at Little Giant, The Honey Paw, and Evo.

Winona’s will be open Thursday through Saturday, 4 – 8 pm. Reservations can be made online.

Finestkind (website, instagram) is scheduled to open on Thursday. The 26-seat breakfast and lunch cafe is located at 17 Pepperell Square in Saco. It’s being launched by Victoria and Tom Barthelmes along with their business partners Chris and Paige Gould.

Finestkind will serve (see menu below)  a wide range of house-made baked goods like Pumpkin Cake, Mudslide Cookies and the Tiny Debra’s. Breakfast sandwiches, lunch sandwiches, salads and other cafe dishes are available all day. Shown above is the Maine Grains bowl (warm farro over cabbage, charred corn, shishitos, cherry tomatoes, pepita, salsa verde vinaigrette) topped with crispy chicken. Finestkind is serving Tandem Coffee, as well as beer, wine, brunch cocktails and non-alcoholic drinks.

Pastry chef Kim Rodgers has joined the team at Finestkind. Rodgers is a cofounder of Little Spruce Baking Company was previously the executive pastry chef at Big Tree Hospitality. The Goulds are the owners of Central Provisions and Tipo. Victoria Barthelmes was the GM of Tipo and remains the wine director of both restaurants. Tom Barthelmes has transitioned to fully focus on Finestkind from his position as the kitchen manager at Central and Tipo. The Barthelmes met when attending The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park and worked together at the Apple Pie Bakery Café. In New York City, Victoria worked in the pastry department at Lincoln Ristorante where she produced pastry for the Metropolitan Opera and wedding cakes for the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Tom worked at Lincoln before moving to Per Se where he worked for Thomas Keller.

Finestkind will be open Thursday through Monday, 7:30 am – 2 pm.

WCYY reports that the Old Port bar Lincolns has opened a new location in Denver.

Lincoln’s Denver officially opened over the weekend. While it’s a new location on new turf, the concept hasn’t changed. The menu remains five bucks. And as with the other two Lincoln’s locations, it’s a speakeasy whose location needs to be found, not told.

The Portland location launched on June 15, 2015.

Owner Sai Guntaka plans to open the new Taj (website, facebook, instagram) restaurant on Tuesday. The new location for his well-loved Indian restaurant is in the Clarks Pond Shopping Center very close to its current spot on Gorham Road in South Portland. It’s been under construction since this past winter.

The restaurant will seat ~70 people with an 11-seat bar, a larger space for the lunch buffet, and a dedicated area for takeout pick-up. A much bigger kitchen will enable the staff to not only handle the dining room but also prepare takeout food quicker than at their current location.

Chef (and Sai Guntaka’s mother) Hema Latha Guntaka will be adding a selection of street-style appetizers like panipuri and frankie to the offerings on the current Taj menu.

The cocktail menu (see draft menu below) will also be a new addition at Taj. Sai Guntaka has long had a vision for a Indian cocktail program at the restaurant and the move to the new location has created the opportunity to bring that to life. Jim Baldi has joined the team as the restaurant’s bar manager, he formerly worked at the Bar of Chocolate in the Old Port.

Woodhull handled the build out of Taj, the mural in the buffet room (bottom right) was created by Mike Rich and the neon Taj sign at the end of the bar was created by David Johansen (aka Neon Dave).

The kitchen will be open Monday through Friday, 11 am – 9 pm, and Saturday/Sunday 11 am – 9:30 pm. The bar will stay open until 11 pm on Friday through Sunday.

Lucky Cheetah (website, instagram) is scheduled to open in August (tentatively planned for August 6th). The 110-seat restaurant is being launched by Wills Dowd and Jared Dinsmore, the owners of Bird & Co, in the former Old Port Tavern space on Moulton Street.

Lucky Cheetah bar manager Ben Bozeman is creating a cocktail list that showcases Asian spirits. The restaurant will have a sparkling wine list with a 20+ bottle selection of champagnes including the 2013 Dom Perignon and Laurent-Perrier La Cuvee Brut. Bozeman had previously been the bar manager at The Honey Paw.

Chef Zachary Johnson will serving a menu of Cantonese-style dim sum like xiaolongbao and char siu bao. The menu will also include some dishes with modern twists like a foie gras blackberry dumplings topped with a brown butter miso crumb. Johnson has previously worked at Central Provisions and Bird & Co.

Ana Jovic will be the general manager for Lucky Cheetah. She was previously the food and beverage manager at Earth at Hidden Pond in Kennebunkport.

Dowd and Dinsmore have worked with Susie Smith Coughlin on the renovation and interior design of the 5,000 sq ft space. It now features a 10-seat Italian pink marble bar, a lounge area, a dining room with circular corner booths and a 16-seat private dining/event space. Displayed throughout the dining room are a collection of large format prints by photographer Slim Aarons.

Lucky Cheetah will be open Tuesday through Sunday, 5 – 10 pm. Reservations will be available via OpenTable.

Leisure Time Cocktail Company (instagram) is set to open on Wednesday next week.  Owners Kai Parrott-Wolfe and Matt Noyes have renovated the 1,400 sq ft former Rwanda Bean coffee shop on Thompson’s Point into a 50-seat bar with a mix of bar, banquette and table seating.

The Leisure Time drinks menu (see below) will feature a range of draft and freezer cocktails like the Strawberry Rhubarb Lemonade (top left), Teeny King’s Tea Martini and Negroni (both bottom right). There’s also a selection of wine and beer. The food menu (see below) prepared by chef Emma Reed includes pierogis, salads and house made hot dogs and sausages. Shown above are the Kielbasa sausage sandwich and the wild mushroom and kraut pierogis.

Leisure time will be open Wednesday/Thursday noon – 9 pm,  Friday/Saturday noon – 10 pm, and Sunday noon – 8 pm.

Owners Deen Haleem and Carol Mitchell are ramping up to reopen Tiqa (website, facebook, instagram). The pan-Mediterranean restaurant on Commercial Street had announced they were temporarily closing back in April 2023 while they “consider all possible future options.”

Haleem shared that after “a year of contemplation and self-reflection” they’ve decided to relaunch the restaurant. Philip Sokowolski will be the new chef at Tiqa. Sokowolski has moved to Maine from Annapolis where he had been the chef at Libations Tavern and previously at The Severn Inn.

Tiqa will be launching with a new menu but with the same concept of exploring the various cuisines of the Mediterranean region. Haleem and Mitchell hope to reopen Tiqa sometime in the next few weeks.

Tiqa originally  opened on January 21, 2015 and the  Tiqa Cafe in the Deering Oaks Castle (now closed) launched the following year.