Category: Under Construction

A 52-seat country music bar called The Whiskey Barrel (website, facebook) is under construction in West Bayside at 82 Hanover Street.

Owners of Quiero Cafe (website, facebook, instagram) in Saco have announced plans to open a second location in Portland this Spring. Quiero will be located in Bramhall Square at 3 Deering Ave in the space most recently occupied by Trattoria Fanny.

Quiero serves a menu of “Latin American cuisine” featuring “Empanadas, Burritos, and Tamales. We also serve several kinds of coffee, smoothies, and Tropical juices”.

Eighteen Twenty Wines and Blue Lobster Lobster Wine Co. will be trading the spaces they currently occupy at 219 Anderson Street. Blue Lobster has shared this comment on the move on instagram,

This move to a larger space will allow us more room to operate as a winery while simultaneously having the tasting room open — meaning more tasting room hours for you! Our plan is to close down our current space at the end of this year. We’ll be making some modest improvements to the new space and hopefully opening the doors around the beginning of March. We are very excited about the move!

Gross Confection Bar (website, facebook, instagram) owner Brant Dadaleares has announced plans to open his new dessert/cocktail bar in the first week of January.

Gross Confection Bar has been under construction for the last few months in the 2,000 sq ft subterranean space in the former location of Christmas Noel at 57 Exchange Street.

Strata (website, instagram) a cutlery retail business and knife sharpening service that launched earlier this year, has leased unit 4  of the The Black Box container building on Washington Ave.

Owner Evan Atwell sells specialty Japanese, French and New England made cutlery, as well as sharpens knives using a traditional Japanese whetstone process. Atwell moved to Portland from California where he worked for the Bi-Rite Market group.

He plans to open the new Strata retail store on February 1st.

A new Mexican restaurant called Bird & Co. is under construction at 539 Deering Ave in the space formerly occupied by Abilene.

The cover letter supplied by owners William Dowd and Jared Dinsmore indicates they’ll be serving a menu of “reasonably priced entrees drawing on Mexican and American Southwestern cuisine”. You can see the draft menu supplied with the liquor license application on page 85 of the City Council materials for Monday’s meeting.

Dowd and Dinsmore plan to open Bird & Co. 6 days a week, 11 am to 10 pm for lunch and dinner. They hope to open the restaurant in January.

Eighteen Twenty Wines is planning to move from their current location to the adjacent space at 219 Anderson Street which is currently occupied by Blue Lobster Wine.

Mainebiz has published an update on Monte’s Fine Foods which is slated to open on Washington Ave in May.

The plan morphed into a retail operation selling local and imported food products, mostly Mediterranean. Plus, they’ll have in-store dining featuring Roman-style pizza made on the premises. There are several types of Roman pizza, he said. In this case, they’ll make Roman “pinsa,” a rustic multi-grain flatbread that’s crispy and light, he explained. Toppings will feature the local and imported ingredients sold in the store.

Today’s Press Herald reports on a 175-seat Luke’s Lobster planned for Portland Pier.

The restaurant at 60 Portland Pier will be the seafood chain’s largest by far, with 175 indoor seats and a patio that seats 25, according to company founder Luke Holden, a native of Cape Elizabeth. The typical Luke’s location seats about 25 patrons.

Holden hopes to have the restaurant open at the start of Summer.

Maiz (website, facebook, instagram) owners Martha Leonard and Niky Walter have leased 621 Forest Ave where they plan to open a second location in 2019.

Maiz opened their original location in the Public Market House July 2, 2017 where they serve a menu of arepas and other Latin American street food.