Taytene Cafe (website, facebook, instagram) is scheduled to open on June 1st. The new business has been under construction at 863 Broadway in South Portland since early 2019.
According to the awning signage, their offerings will include coffee, boba tea, smoothies, house-made bread, banh mi and pho.
Restaurants in 12 of 16 Maine counties could re-open yesterday. Both the Press Herald and Kennebec Journal caught up with restaurant owners to hear what their thoughts and plans were. Some definitely are re-opening and others are sticking with takeout for now.
Chef/proprietor Sara Jenkins didn’t have to think long and hard about whether or not to open Nina June’s dining room to customers on Monday. Her upscale Italian restaurant, which overlooks Rockport’s picturesque harbor, has been serving takeout all spring. Located in one of the 12 counties cleared by Gov. Janet Mills for dine-in service this week, it was eligible to open its doors.
“I am not reopening,” Jenkins said on Friday, having weighed the regulations and the risks and done the financial math. “No friggin way.”[PPH]
The Bangor Daily News checked in with some restaurant workers on their perspective.
In contrast, Landyn Severino is ready to return to work. The bar manager at Sportsman’s Kitchen and Keg, a bistro her family owns in Sebago, has been helping out with the restaurant’s limited takeout capacity, but is ready to return to full operations come June.
Maine Calling on Maine Public Radio dedicated yesterday’s 1-hour show to taking calls from industry staff and the general public about re-opening. There’s also additional report on WGME, and on WMTW.
Mainebiz has published the results of a restaurant customer survey conducted by Eat Drink Lucky which asked about their perspectives on eating at home and dining out post-reopening.
In terms of going back to dining in restaurants when restrictions are lifted, 23.2% said they would do so immediately, while 17% said they would wait two months or longer.
Eat Drink Lucky publisher Gillian Britt told Mainebiz that she was surprised by those findings, saying: “Considering how frightening COVID-19 is, we expected that number to be higher. We were encouraged to see that 23% said they would return immediately, and another 42% said they’ll be back within a month.”
Mainebiz reports that new owners have bought the Long Island Store on Long Island and have renamed it Byers & Sons Long Island Bakehouse.
The operation will be open seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. from May to October. It will offer breakfast and lunch, daily baked goods, such as hand-cut cinnamon donuts, muffins, scones, whoopee pies and cookies. Take-home meals such as lasagna, chicken pot pie, lobster pot pie and lobster quiche are also in the plan.
The plan is to use as many local suppliers as possible, to install a lobster tank and buy from island lobstermen, and to offer local beer, wine and produce, she said.
The Bangor Daily News has taken a look at what’s in store as restaurants begin re-opening their doors for in-house dining over the next few weeks.
In a public health crisis, many restaurant owners are not seeking a path back to normalcy, but they are forging ways to evolve that may bring lasting change. They are wary of a spike of disease. They also fear that missing a vital summer season will destroy their livelihoods.
A new Maine food publication Resurgam Mag (website, instagram) has published their first issue online.
Resurgam is the creation of Josh Lemay, Harper Fendler, and Sean Connerty as “an attempt to document and celebrate the prolific food community of Maine while giving back to those in need”. Resurgam is written and created by people from the hospitality industry.
Copies of Resurgam can be purchased on their website on a donation basis. “[A]ll proceeds will go to benefit unemployed hospitality workers. Pay what you feel comfortable giving and know your donation will go to support others in need”
Wine shops, like all food businesses, have had to adapt to the current reality. Many offer curbside pick-up and a number of them have launched delivery services including Maine & Loire, Eighteen Twenty Wines, Lorne Wine. Just this weekend, Wine Wise, a wine tour and education company, launched its own retail wine delivery business Wine Wise at Home.
If beer and spirits are more to your tastes check with your favorite brewers and distillers. You might also want to visit delivery services CarHop and Drizly for other options.
A new initiative called Save Our Shifts (website, facebook, instagram) launched this week. It’s designed to provide “an opportunity for bartenders to create educational content about their craft and a platform to deliver it.”
Save Our Shifts was created by Round Turn Distilling, Might & Main, photographer Zack Bowen, and the Portland chapter of the United States Bartenders’ Guild.
You can see the first few videos on Youtube.
For an article in today’s paper the Press Herald interviewed restaurant owners, managers and staff to understand the plans they’re making and uncertainties they’re working through as they decide how and when to re-open.
[Matt] Chappell [owner of Gather in Yarmouth] still has a lot of questions: Does the state-set limit of no more than 50 people gathering in one place at a time include the 10 cooks and servers who usually work a dinner service? Can he serve 50 people in his dining room and 50 more outside? What kind of limits will be set on the distance between tables, and the number of people allowed to sit at any one table? Will the public be skittish about dining out again?
As reported earlier this week, Maine restaurants and bars can now move ahead with curbside cocktail takeout. Businesses are in the process of figuring out their plans and menus. No doubt many more venues will jump on board over the next week.
For right now here are the first few out of the gate with cocktails ready to order:
Local 188 plans to have cocktails ready for their Sunday brunch takeout on May 3rd.