Category: Under Construction

Benkay has announced plans to move from their current location  on Commercial Street to a new building under construction at 16 Middle Street. They expect to be open at the new restaurant this summer.

 

A new seafood shack called Miller Brothers Seafood is under construction at 849 Forest Ave in the space formerly occupied by Fishermen’s Grill.

Fishermen’s Grill itself is in the process of renovating 650 Main Street in Westbrook, the space formerly occupied by Rosen’s Deli, and hope to reopen soon.

A mini ice cream shop called Casco Bay Creamery (instagram) is slated to open in the information booth along the walking trail opposite 17 Commercial Street. The freezer equipment is installed and there’s a Help Wanted sign in the window.

The bio line for CBC’s instagram account indicates they’ll be serving organic ice cream.

Mainebiz reports that Lewiston’s Forage Market is looking for space to expand into Portland.

“We’re trying to find another location now,” Smith, owner of the five-year-old market at 180 Lisbon St., told Mainebiz. “We’d like a spot on the peninsula, ideally with a good neighborhood feel. We are looking for 3,000 to 4,000 square feet.”

Smith expects the Portland location, once it is built out with a wood-fired oven, will triple current revenues. He declined to discuss numbers except to say that revenue grew 30% last year and 20% this year.

Blyth & Burrows (website, facebook, instagram) has hit the home stretch of construction and fine tuning their space. The Exchange Street cocktail bar is hoping to open sometime in early/mid-June.

Yobo owners Sunny Chung and Kim Lully are planning to open their 35-seat Korean restaurant on June 1. Yobo is located at 23 Forest Ave in the space formerly occupied by BiBo’s Madd Apple Cafe.

Ian Driscoll, a former chef de cuisine at Central Provisions, has joined the team launching the restaurant.

If you’ve been to Tandem Bakery the last few months you’ve  no doubt noticed the construction going on across the street where The Francis, a boutique hotel, is under development.  The Francis will include a 1500 sq ft, 40-seat restaurant called Bolster Snow & Company (instagram).

Nicholas Verdisco is joining the team as the chef for the restaurant. Verdisco plans to serve a menu of contemporary American cuisine with possibly some influence from his family’s Italian heritage. He’s moving to Maine from New York State where he’s worked as the executive sous chef at The Inn at Pound Ridge, a Jean-George Vongerichten restaurant. He came to his culinary career later in life after working in investment banking.

Bolster Snow & Co. is named after the company founded by the original owner of the building and his business partner Lucien Snow. The Francis along with Bolster Snow & Co. is expected to open sometime this Fall.

The building at 747 Congress Street is the Mellen E. Bolster House designed by Francis Fassett and John Calvin Stevens.

Anders Tallberg, Mike Fraser, and Guy Streitburger have leased 769 Congress Street where they plan to reopen the Roma Cafe (facebook, website) as a “full boat, Italian American restaurant” with a “mostly Italian wine list and classic cocktails” in August.

The original Roma Cafe was founded by Dominic Marino at 489 Congress Street in 1924 and moved to 769 Congress in 1935. The restaurant remained in the Marino family until 1985 when it was bought by Peter Landrigan. The restaurant closed sometime in the early 2000’s.

Urban Eye has posted an article about Eighteen Twenty Wines which is producing rhubarb wine and cider in East Bayside and set to launch early this summer.

“We are over excited to have a good Maine-based wine. We’ve had wine professionals try it and they don’t think it tastes like a fruit wine, they think it tastes like a good white table wine. That is a major opportunity,” said O’Brien, who grew up on Peaks Island and is the director of business development at flyte new media in Portland. She calls their rhubarb vino “crushable porch wine.”