Category: Under Construction

Eater has included Krista Kern Desjarlais’ upcoming bakery/cafe The Purple House in their list of the most anticipated restaurant openings of the fall.

At the aptly named Purple House, cooking will be fueled only by the small bakery’s wood-fired oven; mornings will begin with Montreal-style bagels and a serious coffee program, really the only one in town. Other “rustic breakfast pastries” will follow suit, and as the oven’s temperature cools down, more delicate baked goods will be prepared mid-morning. Come lunch time, the menu will switch to Roman-style pizza, hearth breads like boule and baguettes, and vegetables.

A new Thai restaurant called Cheevitdee is under construction at 363 Fore Street on the corner of Fore and Market.

Urban Eye reports that Scratch will be converting one of the buildings at their new Broadway facility into a toast bar,

Is this the greatest thing since sliced bread? A toast bar run by Scratch Baking Co. opens this fall in a former garage that happens to resemble a toaster. “It will have black handles soon,” says a buoyant Bob Johnson, co-owner of the Willard Square bakery a few blocks away.

The one-two punch includes the takeover of a Getty Gas Station on Broadway in South Portland’s Ferry Village for Scratch’s new bread and bagel production HQ. A few steps away a former oil and lube shop is converting into a toast bar.

For more information on Scratch’s expansion plans see this article in the Press Herald from back in April.

Nicholas Nappi and fellow Local 188 restaurant group colleague Gary Bowcott  are holding a pop-up for Black Cow on September 5th to share their “vision for a return to good old days of the soda fountain”. The menu for the pop-up will include burgers, fries and ice cream floats.

Nappi and Bowcott have been working on their project to launch a “re-imagining of the classic soda fountain” for the last year. Nappi is current a consulting chef for the restaurant group and in the past has been the chef de cuisine at Local 188 and has worked at Eventide and Hugo’s.

Tickets for the Black Cow pop-up are for sale on BrownPaperTickets.com for $20 per person.

Vien Dobui and Jessica Sheahan have leased a 1600 sq ft space at 55 Washington Avenue where they plan to open Cong Tu Bot (Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter), a Pho noodle bar. Dobui and Sheehan ran a few Cong Tu Bot pop-up dinners back in 2013 and I can say from personal experience that Vien’s noodles and soup are outstanding. I am very excited to see opening day for this new venture.

They’re planning a casual, moderately priced restaurant that customers want to, and can afford to make a regular destination. Cong Tu Bot will be open 10am to 10pm serving primarily lunch and dinner items but with some breakfast dishes in the mix and takeout will be available.

Vien was the first employee and a former partner at Tandem. He’s currently cooking at Palace Diner. A fellow Blue Bottle alum, Joseph Zohn, will be moving to Portland from Los Angeles to work as the sous chef at Cong Tu Bot. Zohn has also cooked at Reynard and at Marco’s in Brooklyn.

Jessica will be the GM for Cong Tu Bot. She has 9 years of experience both in front and back of house in the restaurant industry, both in  San Francisco and Portland.

Dobui and Sheahan are hoping to open sometime in early 2017.

Tandem Coffee is planning to expand into the original Bunker Brewery building later this year when Bunker moves to their new location in Libbytown.

Owners Will and Kathleen Pratt intend to use the 1,200 sq ft building to grow their coffee roasting and packing facility. The space freed up next door will become additional seating for the original Tandem cafe and a small bakery to augment the capacity of the main kitchen on Congress Street.

A new sports bar called Mark’s Sports is slated for the space on Wharf Street currently occupied by Buck’s Naked BBQ. The owner of the new business is Mark Deane, who also launched Mark’s Place on Fore Street.

According to an article in the Press Herald, Buck’s is slated to close on August 20th. Their other locations in Freeport and Windham will remain in operation.