Chez Okapi held their grand opening on September 26 and is now open for business. The restaurant is located at 249 Saint John Street in the space formerly occupied by Taqueria Tequila. Owner Raphael Kabata serves a dishes inspired from the cuisine his native country of Congo.
953 Congress Street opened last night. 953 is located on the corner of Congress and Saint John Streets in what had been Dogfish Cafe.
Update: 953 Congress is holding a Grand Opening on October 1st.
Taco Trio(website, twitter, facebook) has announced they plan to open their new Riverton location Tuesday morning at 11 am.
The new Taco Trio is located at 1706 Forest Ave, the former home of India Bazaar (and Nina’s Variety and Papa’s Place.
A new food cart called Le Petit Thé is now in business. The diminutive shingled wagon serves a variety of cold and iced tea plus, hot cocoa, lemonade and limeade. They were located today in Post Office Park but for the past couple weeks have been on Commercial Street.
Rabelais Books and Bowdoin College announced today the acquisition by the college of The Esta Kramer Collection of American Cookery—more than 700 titles spanning from the Colonial Era to the 1960s.
Rabelais is very pleased to have placed the cookbook collection of Clifford Apgar with the Bowdoin College Library. The placement was made possible through a donation to the College by Esta Kramer, and to honor that generosity the college has named it The Esta Kramer Collection of American Cookery. For the first time, there is an important resource for the history of American cookery in the State of Maine. It’s only fitting that a state with such a long history of food production, and with an exciting current dining scene, should also have the materials for students and scholars.
According to the release from Rabelais, the collection,
…contains more than seven hundred culinary titles, from the Colonial Era through 1900, but a selection of important works from 1900 until 1960 – the year of the publication of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking – is also integrated. Beyond cooking, the collection illuminates the development of American culture, encompassing American social movements and historical events.
Update: The Press Herald has published a front-page article on the Kramer Collection.
Ocho Burrito (website, twitter, instagram) is now open for business. Ocho is owned by Mike Keon and Anthony Allen who also run Otto Pizza. There were 4 options on the menu from yesterday’s test run: Braised Beef, Moroccan Chicken, Curried Cauliflower and The Classic.
Ocho is located at 654 Congress Street, adjacent to Blue.
Iced coffee fans take note: starting today Bard Coffee on Middle Street is selling their cold brew ice coffee in growlers. $15 gets you 32 ounces of cold-brew, refills are $10.
The Old Port Slice Bar opened earlier this week. The new pizza shop is located at 420 Fore Street in the space that had been the home of Joe’s NY Pizza before a fire damaged the building in 2013.
A pair of new mobile food vendors have recently launched:
The Morsel(website, facebook, twitter, instagram) food truck serves flavored “artisanal kettle corn”. You can see a menu of their standard flavors on their website.
This summer the Friends of Deering Oaks is running a bake sale in the park during the Saturday Farmers’ Market. Baked goods are sourced from Standard Baking, Bam Bam, Ten Ten Pié and C-Salt and the coffee is from CBD.
The bake sale has been getting a steady stream of customers the first couple weeks they’ve been in business from farmers and market customers. Bake sale manager Norine Kotts tells me the hope to soon have some patio furniture set-up at the Castle as well.
The City and Friends of Deering Oaks also hope that having the building open and in use may inspire some local food entrepreneur to lease the space and open a year-round cafe in the park.