Here’s a look at the top food news from 10 years ago in March 2008:
- Forbes Traveler recognized The Great Lost Bear as one of the Best American Beer Bars, “Maine is a craft-brewing mecca, and there’s no better place to sample the Northeast’s bounty than this nearly 30-year-old institution offering a mind-boggling 52 taps.”
- Mayor Suslovic welcomed to town a master distiller from Bushmills Irish Whiskey.
- Hilltop Coffee moved across the street leaving the space that’s now occupied by Willa Wirth.
- the 2nd edition of Deathmatch took place.
- Foley’s Bakery closed.
- Olive Garden was ranked 2nd in the Best Restaurant category in the Press Herald readership poll.
- Blogger Beer, Maine & Me complained that, “We have a ton of great breweries, brewing lots of great beers, representing all different styles, but no IPAs that we can really brag about in the arena of holier-than-though hoppiness.”
- Rob Evans was a nominee for the 2008 James Beard awards in the Best Chef: Northeast category.
If Olive Garden was #2, what was #1?!
My recollection is that it was Fore Street but I didn’t document that. The results (and the focus of my post 10 years ago) was that brand awareness seemed to play a huge role in the ratings. Here are some of the other results, “Olive Garden was #2 in the category for Best Restaurant, McDonalds was #1 in Best Cheap Eats and Dunkin Donuts was #1 in the Best Coffee”.
I was randomly thinking of restaurants that were named
but never opened. Like Luna rossa? In where urban outfitters is and
There was 54 market or maybe 46 market where petite Jacqueline is.
Remember any others?
Beer, Maine, and Me was my old blog. Boy has the IPA landscape in Maine changed since I wrote that post 10 years ago!
Deathmatch!
I remember fondly the curiosity and need to render interesting dishes in a home because the local restaurant arena was just not ready to experiment like it is now.
Many of the guests that night now run some fabulous eateries in town. Bravo!