Category: Under Construction

The owners of the Bru-Thru Coffee Shack (facebook, instagram), a drive through coffee shop in Cumberland, are taking over the former Coffee by Design location on Congress Street where they plan to open a new coffee shop called the Model T Coffee Company (facebook, instagram).

Matthew and Stephanie Morgan and their family will be serving Coffee by Design coffee, donuts from Tony’s Donuts as well as baked goods from some other local producers. The full food menu is still under development. Renovations are underway with plans to give Model T a vintage vibe. The Morgans hope to launch the cafe sometime in April.

Mainebiz reports that the owners of The Dunn Bar in Biddeford have leased the space adjacent to their Washington Street restaurant. In the new space at 12 Washington Street Doug Darby, Ciel Caldwell and Angela Napolitano will be opening an Italian restaurant called Vin Santo.

“Doug is Irish, and his dream was to open an Irish pub,” said ” said Napolitano. “Ciel is Italian, and I am Italian. We just started talking and thought this space would be perfect for branching out and doing Italian. This has been in the works for the past two months. We wanted to expand into the space to have one team and one entity. I can share my staff. We have a joint kitchen, and now it’s just pulling the pieces together to make it all work as one.

12 Washington Street in Biddeford was formerly occupied by Sublime Taco. The taco restaurant recently announced they’re taking over operation of the kitchen at Mick’s Sports Bar in Biddeford.

According to the Mainebiz article, Vin Santo is slated to open in mid to late April.

A new business called Gunnar’s Icelandic Hot Dogs (instagram) is taking a new twist on the food cart by serving a locally made version of an Icelandic hot dog.

Since Icelandic hot dogs aren’t exported to the US, owner Pete Grebowski is working with The Sausage Kitchen in Lisbon Falls to produce a version of them here in Maine. They’ll be primarily made with ground lamb with some beef and pork mixed in. A loaded Icelandic hot dog is topped with a remoulade, sweet brown mustard, and type of ketchup sweetened with apples instead of sugar as well as crispy fried onions and finely diced raw red onions on a brioche bun. The full Gunnar’s menu is still under development.

Grebowski hopes to launch his food cart June 1st and plans to locate the cart at the corner of Congress Square Park. He plans to be in operation on the weekends and some weeknights, 4;30 to close.

Mainebiz reports that Luke’s Lobster will be opening a pair of concession stands at Fenway Park this season.

The deal, announced on the MLB website, gives the seafood wholesaler and restaurant group two locations at Fenway, one situated inside the first-base concourse and the other on Jersey Street near one of the entry gates.

“We are thrilled to partner with the Boston Red Sox and bring our lobster rolls to Boston’s beloved ballpark, Fenway Park,” said Luke Holden, CEO and founder of Luke’s Lobster.

Bissell Brothers is launching a second restaurant on Thompson’s Point. Called The Garden, the new 58-seat restaurant will operate out of the adjacent space that had been the home of the Rosemont wine bar. The restaurant will be a complementary experience/concept to the existing Bissell Brothers Kitchen pub menu and brewery tasting room.

Chef David Rinaldi and his team will be serving a pan-Adriatic menu which will include dishes like charred caraflex cabbage and taleggio, cavatelli with braise lamb neck and cherry pastissada, a porchetta sandwich, bavette steak with grilled cauliflower in saor and a crema rosada with rum raisins and almonds for dessert.

Bissell is finishing up some renovations to the space and hiring additional staff for the restaurant. An opening date is still TBD.

Chris Wilcox, the chef/owner of the former Judy Gibson, has announced plans to launch Flash’s Barbecue (instagram) this summer. Wilcox will be serving Saint Louis-style barbecue.

Meats are cooked high above slow burning embers very slow giving everything a more grilled and less smokey flavor. Growing up in St.Louis, barbecue has always been a love of mine and I’m excited to cook A LOT of it. I’ll be popping up around Portland cooking my take on St.louis style barbecue while still giving everything the same JG touch we strived for in South Portland. Stay tuned for more details!

A new business called Backwoods Burger Shack (facebook, instagram) is under construction in the space formerly occupied by Curbside Comforts at 680 Gray Road in Gorham.

Chef/owner Rick Boyd (linkedin) will be serving a menu (see below) of salads, sandwiches, hand cut fries, and burgers along with milkshakes, beer, wine, cocktails and frozen drinks. Ice cream sandwiches will be available for dessert. The Backwoods menu will be available for takeout or to enjoy on their outdoor seating area.

Boyd hails from East Texas and attended the New England Culinary Institute in Vermont in the early 1990s. He owned and operated several restaurants first in Idaho and then in the Lake Tahoe area before moving to Maine.

Boyd hopes to launch Backwoods Burger in mid-April, and has plans to expand the patio for next year to include an outdoor bar, fire pits, stage and year round seating.

Bowman and Anna Brown have bought the building at 34 Portland Street where they plan to relocate their acclaimed restaurant Elda (website, instagram). A recent instagram post shared,

In the course of the last [CRAZY] six years we have learned so much about our adopted home state. This summer we invite you experience an even more personal and intimate deep-dive into the beauty, bounty, and magic of the woods and waters of Maine. Please stay tuned for info and inspo as we continue to learn, build, and connect. We hope to welcome to the table soon.

The new restaurant will feature an integrated kitchen/dining room on an expanded main floor of the building. Elda will be offering a shorter version of the chef’s tasting menu with a focus on utilizing indigenous ingredients. Diners will have the option of two different beverage pairings: one featuring on reserve wines, and another exploring cider and sake.

34 Portland Street was most recently the home of Candy’s which closed in 2020. The Browns hope complete the buildout of the restaurant in time to launch the new Elda in late summer.

Elda initially opened in Biddeford in December 2017, and moved to its most recent location at 14 Main Street in the summer of 2021. In January the Browns announced the closure of their Scandinavian cafe Jackrabbit.

Brown was a 2011 Food & Wine Best New Chef, and a multi-year Beard Awards semifinalist for Best Chef: Southwest for his former restaurant Forage in Salt Lake City. In addition he was a Best Chef: Northeast Beard Award semifinalist in 2020 and 2022 for Elda. Eater named Elda to their list of the Best New Restaurants in the country in 2018 and the New York Times reported on Elda in the same year.

Shown above are the building that will house the new version of Elda, chef Brown in his kitchen at 14 Main Street in Biddeford from 2023, and a dish served at Elda in October 2021 featuring a Merrit Island oyster, cherrystone clam, lobster ceviche and a smoke mussel.

Huong Le will be launching a vegetarian and vegan Vietnamese takeout restaurant this Sunday called Mama Le’s.

Le is just back from a month long visit to Vietnam and will be folding recent dining experiences from her trip along with her decades of experience in the restaurant experience into the menu for the restaurant. The menu includes appetizers like vegetarian Cha Gio (egg rolls filled with mushrooms, carrot and taro root), a choice of vegan banh mi, and main dishes like Pho Chay (vegana pho) and Mi Xao Rau (lo mein with mixed vegetables).

Mama Le will operate out of the Banh Appetit shop at 171 Cumberland Ave, which is owned and operated by her daughter Snow Thi Le. Mama Le will be open Sunday 11 am – 3 pm, and Monday through Friday 5 – 8 pm.

The Maine Sunday Telegram published a very good feature article about Huong Le this past May. Le opened Portland’s first sit-down Vietnamese restaurant Huong’s Vietnamese Food in 2000. Below is a photo of Huong Le and her three daughters.

Blue Lobster Urban Winery (facebook, website, instagram) has announced plans to move their production facility and tasting room to 200 Anderson Street where they’ll be taking over the space that was formerly the Urban Farm Fermentory tasting room.

This will house a larger production space to handle our growth, an expanded tasting room, parking lot and outdoor space. With so much new room for activities, you can expect that we will be introducing new weekly events, an expanded wine cocktail program and other options we hope to announce soon!

Blue Lobster will continue to be open at 219 Anderson Street through March 22nd. Opening date for their new spot is still TBD.

UFF closed their tasting room on February 24th. Blue Lobster launched in 2017 and opened their tasting room in 2018. They have been located since then at 219 Anderson Street in the Rockingham Electric building.