Category: Under Construction

The Forecaster has published an interview Bob and Laura Butler about their new restaurant, Enio’s. According to the article, the Butlers hope to open Enio’s sometime next week.

Located in the former Buttered Biscuit, Enio’s is named after Laura Butler’s father. The restaurant, with a Tuscan flair, will be a return to the greater Portland dining scene for the Butlers.

“I’m sure it will be like riding a bike for us,” Laura Butler said. “We were familiar with the building and neighborhood, and I think Portland is saturated.”

The couple operated Rachel’s, first in the Old Port and then on Woodford Street for 15 years.

Chef David Turin tells me he’s working to launch a Kennebunk location of David’s and a David’s Opus Ten. He hopes to have the new restaurants open sometime in May. That will make for a total of five David’s restaurants in three cities.

According to an article in today’s Press Herald, The Porthole is under new management and is scheduled to re-open this spring.

Ken McGowan, whose family owns Custom House Wharf, said he will own and manage the Porthole Restaurant and Pub.

“It will be run to every inch of the health code,” McGowan said Tuesday. “I’m not skimping on anything.”

Two of Portland’s best known restaurateurs continue to extend their reach in the city:

• Jay Villani launched Local 188 in 1999, opened Sonny’s 2010, and has a barbeque restaurant under construction at 915 Congress Street called Salvage BBQ & Smokehouse. He’s now leased 742 Congress Street and is turning the space into a bakery he hopes to open sometime this summer. The space was most recently the Bubble Room Laundrymat.
• Harding Smith’s newest restaurant under development on Custom House Wharf is going in a location that for 107+ years was the home of Boone’s Restaurant. According to an ad in the March issue of Maine magazine, he’s naming it Boone’s Fish House & Oyster Room.

For more details on all the new food businesses under development see the Under Construction List.

Maine a la Carte reports that baseball broadcaster Jerry Remy (aka “RemDawg”) is considering opening a Jerry Remy’s Sports Bar & Grill in Portland.

“We have looked into the Portland area,” he told the radio hosts. “It seems like a natural with the minor league ball club here. We’ll see if we can get some kind of a deal worked out.”

The North Point has published a set of photos of their newly completed interior. They began interviewing potential new staff over the weekend and hope to open in mid-February.

Chef Chris Gould is making progress on the new Portland restaurant he has under development and is aiming for a July 1 opening day. Gould tells me he’s very close to signing a deal for a location in the Old Port. In the meantime he’s spending time lining up contractors, suppliers and key staff so the work of building and fitting out the restaurant can get off to a fast start once the space is secured.

Gould plans on serving a menu of international small plates that will in part draw on his interest in Spanish cuisine. 44 North will be creating a custom blend for the coffee service. The name for the restaurant is still under wraps. Might & Main, the folks who developed the branding for Eventide, have been hired to handle marketing for the restaurant.

Gould is currently working at Eventide with his friend and former colleague chef Andrew Taylor. He moved to Portland last year from Boston where he worked for Ken Orringer’s restaurants Uni and Coppa.

He was the winner of the 2012 Shucks Maine Lobster Chef World Series with a dish of “butter-poached lobster with ragout of sauteed knuckles, roasted fingerling potatoes, cinnamon-roasted carrots, roasted corn and sweet miso puree, and piquillo pepper”.

A new shop called Cia is under construction at 72 Ocean Street in South Portland. Cia will be selling Coffee, Ice cream and Art, hence the name. They plan on opening this spring.

Eater Maine and Maine a la Carte posted reports today about two Damian Sansonetti projects:

• Taco Escobarr – Sansonneti is working with owner Tom Barr to revamp the menu “trying to bring in more bold flavor to (Taco Escobarr), almost a little more street food…We’re trying to give it a little bit more of a deeper soul”.
• Blue Rooster Food Co. is the official name (or not depending which article you read) of the restaurant Sansonetti and partners (including Barr) have under construction at 5 Dana Street.

The Insurance Guy Beer Blog has put together an interesting list of all the breweries he knows of that are under development in Maine—20 in all.

In the Portland area, in addition to In’finiti, he also lists Austin Street Brewery, Bissel Brothers Brewery and Brasserie Ici.