Category: Openings

Wannawaf (website, facebook, twitter) opened for business today (photo) and will be staying open until 2am this evening. They’re located at 15 Monument Square in the space formerly occupied by Cobblestones.

Owner Anya Arsenault (aka Waffle Girl) opened the original Wannawaf in Boothbay in 2003. The menu for the Portland store includes a selection of savory and sweet waffle-based options such as The Kitchen Sink (“egg, home fries, your choice of meat all baked inside a warm waffle”) and the Grand Tradition (“hot waffle, vanilla ice cream, real Maine maple syrup, whipped cream & cinnamon”).

Maine a la Carte has published an article about Regina Spices, the second act by the creator of the Portland Spice Co.

Jessica Regina Moore is back selling her original spice blends under the name Regina Spices (reginaspices.com). She does not have a storefront, but her products are available at K. Horton’s Specialty Foods in the Public Market House in Monument Square and at Maine’s Pantry on Commercial Street.

Regina Spice is also part of an article in today’s Maine Sunday Telegram.

A new food cart called GoGo Crepes (facebook, facebook, twitter)  has recently started operating in the Old Port. I’ve heard they serve a variety of sweet and savory crepes all priced around $5 and can often be found during lunch time in Monument Square.

Mi Sen (facebook) the new Thai “small portion noodle soup” bar is now open for business. Mi Sen is located at 630 Congress Street in the space formerly occupied by Korea House.

The restaurant is owned by Darit Chandpen who’s family runs Sala Thai on Washington Ave.

The new LeRoux Kitchen retail store in Scarborough is scheduled to open today. The new store is located at 448 Payne Road.

Krista Kern Desjarlais’s new venture in New Gloucester, Bresca and the Honey Bee, opened for business on Saturday with a limited menu of ice cream and drinks. When I stopped by on Sunday she had available a beer-flavored ice cream made with honey porter in honor of Father’s Day.

Krista will be getting the kitchen fully operational over the next few days and will have a full menu ready for Wednesday and the coming weekend.

Small Axe Truck (website, facebook, twitter, instagram) opened this morning in the parking lot beside Tandem Coffee and Bunker Brewing (aka the Bunker/Tandem Campus). Small Axe is the creation of Karl Deuben and Bill Leavy. It will be very interesting to see how they translate fine dining skills honed at Alinea, Hugo’s, Miyake, Back Bay Grill to a more informal and mobile platform.

After finishing up breakfast, Small Axe will drive around the corner to Rising Tide be the brewery’s featured food truck starting at noon.

A new pop-up venture called Cong Tu Bot (Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter) quietly got under way earlier this Spring. The creation of Vien Dobui and Jessica Sheahan, Cong Tu Bot’s specialty has been a type of Vietnamese chicken noodle soup known as Mi Ga.

So far Cong Tu Bot has held a pair of “friends and family” trial runs in April and early June that have mostly remained below the radar, providing the culinary team the chance to scale up their process in preparation for opening to the public.

I’ve been lucky enough to go to both and recommend you take the opportunity when the next pop-up takes place. The broth is well balanced and full bodied and is paired with some really excellent hand-crafted noodles making for a very satisfying meal.

Watch the Cong Tu Bot Tumblr site for more info on upcoming events.

Flora Bliss, Broadturn’s farm stand in Aurora Provisions, opened for business on Monday. On its first day the stand had some early summer farm produce, flowers, seedlings for the garden and house plants.

The Munjoy Hill News has published a report on yesterday’s opening of Union Bagel.

It was almost closing time this afternoon at the brand new Union Bagel Co. and the bagel baskets were all but empty – only about 6 baked-on-site bagels remained unsold.  In other words, THIRTY-FIVE dozen bagles were sold on the opening day of the company.