Category: Under Construction

The Bangor Daily News has published a report on the growing number of juice bars serving the Portland market.

Smoothies and juice bars are to 2016 what espresso bars were to 2003. Not entirely new, but taking off and here to stay. While Greater Portland is a far cry from San Diego, where liquid kale in a cup is dispensed from every streetcorner, new concepts abound this spring. They promise health, vibrancy and vitality by the ounce.

Farm Truck Juice opened earlier this year, Fly Fox and Blake Orchard are under development, and a new firm called the Maine Juice Co recently leased production space in Biddeford.

The City Council approved a 5-year lease of the Deering Oaks Castle to Deen Haleem and Carol Mitchell, the owners of Tiqa restaurant. Their plan is to operate a year round  cafe called Tiqa Cafe serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. They hope to be open in time for the summer.

Tiqa has approval to make modification to the building to put in a small kitchen and also has been granted a beer and wine license for the establishment.

Urban Eye has posted an update on Solo Italiano (website, facebook), the restaurant taking the place of Ebb & Flow on Commercial Street.

Solo Italiano, which translates to “only Italian,” will feature authentic Northern Italian cuisine, something this food city could use more of. An Italian native from Genoa, Paolo Laboa will shake things up in the kitchen.

A new food cart called Maker’s Mug Coffee (website, instagram) is under construction. Owner Jacob Perry plans to launch in the next few weeks. He’s sourcing coffee from Crossroads Coffee, a small roaster in Gray, Maine run by his father-in-law. Perry has been building the cart at the Open Bench Project facility on Thompson’s Point.

A new food truck called The Sugarbird Coffee Truck is under development. Owner Justin Dewalt  plans to provide seating, music, wi-fi hotspot and other items to create a cafe-like feel in the immediate area around the truck.

Sugarbird will serve coffee from Unrest, a small Mid-Coast roaster founded by Micah Beaulieu, that roasts their coffee outdoors with specific hardwoods matched to the qualities of the beans.

Dewalt recently spent time in South Africa running the tasting room for Springfontein Wine Estate and it was while he was hiking in the Western Cape region that he came across a Sugarbird that became the inspiration for the name of the business. Prior to his time in South Africa he worked as the wine manager at Central Provisions.

Watch for Sugarbird to be out serving coffee and baked goods on Commercial Street and the Eastern Prom sometime next month.

The Bangor Daily News has published an article about the Fork Food Lab.

“It is a co-working facility for food,” said Holstein.

The lab will be open 24/7, but instead of printers and standup desks, double-deck ovens, stoves, mixers, kettles and tilt skillets will be available for all. The only thing members need is creativity and their own knives.

“We take care of nearly everything, even the rubber gloves,” said Holstein, chief operating officer and Colby College graduate. “We have staff on site to do the deep cleaning and heavy mopping — all these things you don’t think about when you are starting a business.”

Fly Fox Juice Bar (instagram) is under construction at 98 Washington Ave. Owner Birch Hincks tells me that she’s “couldn’t be more excited to share my passion of fresh juice and smoothies with my favorite city”.

Her vision is to run “a fresh juice and smoothie bar, using a range of local and non-local ingredients. Our focus is to provide products that are delicious, healthy and accessible. Most of our juices and smoothies [will be] more heavily vegetable based, aiming to reduce the amount of sugar content. Our set menu [will be] small, allowing for more space to create rotating seasonally influenced items.”

Hincks hopes to open Flying Fox by early June.

Love Kupcakes (website, facebook,  twitter, instagram) has leased 469 Fore Street, the space immediately next to Dean’s Sweets and across from Miyake.

Owner Amy Alward tells me that while they renovate the space LK will continue to be for sale on the second floor of the Public Market House and at their food truck in Millcreek next to Bull Moose.

Love Kupcakes is also going through a process to rebrand their business to broaden the menu of products they sell.

Blake Orchard (website, instagram, facebook) has successfully completed a $18,250 kickstarter campaign to open a “locally sourced artisan juice shop” in Portland.

Owner Alexandra Blake Messenger started Blake Orchard about a year ago and sells 9 raw juices and nut milks at farmers’ markets in Worcester and Somerville. She has identified a retail space in Portland and is raised funds on Kickstarter to help with build-out and equipment costs.

Harding Lee Smith is adding two more establishments two his series of Room restaurants:

• Smith is in the early stages of developing The Front Room – Falmouth. He hopes to open a restaurant a little bit larger than it’s namesake on Munjoy Hill with a function room on the 2nd floor. He hasn’t leased a space yet but if all goes according to plan he’s aiming to open in the fall.
• Smith is also working on a restaurant called The Mountain Room at Sunday River in the Peak Lodge at the top of Chondola  lift. The Mountain  Room will have an outdoor deck, stone fireplace, open kitchen/raw bar, 20-seat bar and communal-style dining room. It’s a seasonal restaurant and plans are for it to open in time for the 2016-17 ski season.

Smith shared that it has “always been my plan to have 5-6 places” and been on the lookout for locations that are a fit for the types of restaurants he’d like to open. His first restaurant, The Front Room, opened in December 2005. The Grill Room and The Corner Room opened in quick succession in 2008 and 2009. Finally Boone’s Fish House & Oyster Room opened in 2013.