Category: History

Pepperclub co-owner Eddie Fitzpatrick takes a walk down food memory lane for a retrospective article on the 25th anniversary of Portland magazine.

Twenty-five years ago, a new wave of restaurants in Portland dazzled diners and earned raves from The Atlantic and New England Monthly. Among them: Swan Dive, Alberta’s, L’Antibes, Brattle Street, The Vinyard, and 34 Exchange. At the time, Eddie Fitzpatrick was editor of the Maine Sunday Telegram. Today, he co-owns Pepperclub…

In the later part of the article Fitzpatrick also offers his perspective on the last few years of expansion in the restaurant industry in Portland.

A second article later in the magazine also provides another point of view on Portland restaurant past and present.

Back in the ’80’s, Portland had “just about a dozen feature restaurants,” radiating from the restored brick wharehouses of the Old Port, recalls Dick Grotton, president and CEO of the Maine Restaurant Association…

The second article isn’t available online but the new issue of Portland magazine should be available at your local newsstand and you can read the article on page 84.

A pair of vintage photos of Chinese immigrant waiters taking an “Americanization Class” have recently been added to the Maine Memory Network website. The men all worked at either the Empire and the Oriental in Portland. The Empire stood on the corner of Forest Ave and Congress Street where Empire Dine and Dance is today. The Oriental was located at 28 Monument Square in the spot that now houses the Public Market House.

An article in Tuesday’s edition of the Portland Daily Sun writes about the history of chewing gum in Maine and research that shows chewing gum boosts academic performance by 3%.

Eventually demand grew beyond what the Bangor kitchen could produce so Curtis and family set up a facility in Portland. The business continued to grow, eventually employing 200 people who produced 1800 boxes of gum a day. the three-story factory was located on Fore Street in the building now occupied by Hub Furniture. By the late 1870s, Curtis had earned enough from the masticating masses that he was able to build a home in Deering Center that was the largest and most expensive home at the time.

In 1977 the Maine Times published an article entitled “Why are so many restaurants opening in Portland and will it ever end?” According to the article,

Ten years ago [1967], Portland was practically without restaurants. The Roma . . . was almost alone in trying to serve food that was not pre-portioned and pre-packaged. Then came the Gaslight on Exchange Street, then the Old Port Tavern and then it seemed to explode.

Author Mark Mogensen asked several restauranteurs about whether a “saturation point” had been reached—quite ironic given the ever growing number of eateries to be found in the city in 2010.
Opinions ranged from “it’s fast approaching” from the owner of the Hollow Reed* to “I think the saturation point has been reached” from Charles McGee, co-owner of the Old Port Tavern.
I wonder what they would say about the Portland restaurant scene of today?
The Maine Times article also includes the earliest reference I’ve ever seen to the “most restaurants per capita” stat.

“Christ there’s a lot of them” [Portland license inspector Ed] Newbegin said. From a survey, Newbegin said he learned that “Portland Maine, per capita, has the highest population of restaurants in the U.S.”

*Reportedly Portland’s first vegetarian restaurant.

The Portland Farmers Market has published an overview of its 242 year history.

In 1768, the town, voted to establish a public market in the lower part of the Town Hall. A town ordinance provided that all fresh meat could be offered for sale only at this market. The market served 136 families on the peninsula.

Provisions were carried into town in large leather saddlebags or paniers on horses backs and it was not until about 1815 that horse wagons were generally used.

I’ve added the Farmers Market, B&M, Schlotterbeck-Foss, Mister Bagel, Zeitman’s Grocery, and George’s Delicatessen to the Portland Food Timeline.