Vinland (website, facebook, twitter)opened tonight. The restaurant is located at 593 Congress St, adjacent to Congress Square Park.
For Friday and Saturday dinner chef/owner David Levi is serving a “$40 three course menu, your choice of starter, main, and dessert” with a full bar. For reservation email info@vinland.me.
Update: See this article from the Huffington Post for more info on Vinland.
Mainely Wraps (website, facebook) will open their Portland cafe at 339 Fore Street in Boothby Square today. This will be the 3rd location for Mainely Wraps which also has shops in Old Orchard Beach and Scarborough. Mainely Wraps was founded by Rich & Naphtali Maynard.
In separate news, Bangor Daily News reporter Kathleen Pierce has tweeted that Daily Greens, will also be opening today in the Public Market House. Presumably this is the much improved name of Azure, the new salad booth that’s been under construction since late August at the Public Market House.
Five Fifty-Five created a beautiful new private dining room on the 3rd floor of their building. The room can be set up in a number of different configurations and seats a maximum of 30-35. A projection screen is available for business presentations.
There are only a handful of private dining rooms in Portland and so this space begins to address that need. Hopefully some of the other restaurants in town also follow Five Fifty-Five’s lead.
For more information on the room contact Sarah Allenby, Five Fifty-Five’s manager of marketing and events at sarah@fivefifty-five.com.
Photo credit: Jeff Roberts Imaging
The Bangor Daily News has posted a report on Otto’s opening of their new restaurant in South Portland.
“This is wicked good,” said City Councilor Linda Cohen, grabbing a butternut squash, ricotta and cranberry slice at the soft opening Monday night.
Judging by the turnout, OTTO’s eighth store, in a renovated garage, and second new shop in two weeks, is in the right place at the right time.
“They wanted us here,” said co-owner Anthony Allen, mingling with customers and handing out free pizza. “It’s nice to be wanted.”
Otto Pizza’s new South Portland location is open tonight serving “Free pizza and $5 beer/wine (cash only)”. They’ll be going into full operation for lunch tomorrow starting at 11am.
SoPo Otto is located at 159 Cottage Rd just across the street from Red’s Dairy Freeze.
The Little Jamaica (facebook) food cart launched last week. The cart is owned by Derrick Anderson.
You can see a full menu online, it includes items like jerk chicken, escovitch fried snapper, curried goat and oxtail.
I came across them over the weekend in Post Office Park (instagram photo). They typically announce where they’ll be each day on their Facebook page.
A new bakery, Mainly Grains Bakers (facebook), opened this past week in South Portland. Mainly Grains is run by Deb and baker Carlos Garcia. Carlos Garcia comes from a family of bakers and its been Carlos Garcia’s ambition to open a shop of his own.
Mainly Grains Bakers sell a range of breads (I recommend the seeded Prairie Bread), danish and turnovers (apple, blueberry, raspberry) and cookies.
The bakery is located at 904 Broadway and they’re open Tuesday through Sunday. They’re open today until 1 pm.
There are a number of changes taking place on Exchange Street:
El Tipico, a new Dominican restaurant, has opened on 539 Deering Ave in the space formerly occupied by StarEast Cafe. The owner is Julio Vinas. The restaurant opened a week and a half ago on Saturday, September 14.
Two other changes worth noting on outer Forest: Euro Market has closed and Al Huda has changed its name to Babylon.
Oscar’s New American opened this past Friday. The restaurant is located in Yarmouth in space formerly occupied by the Sea Grass Bistro. Chef/owner Nick Krunkkala was formerly the chef at Fog Bar and at Rock City Cafe in Rockland.