Category: Openings

The Velvet Dog (facebook, instagram) has opened for business. The 70-seat restaurant and bar is located at 24 Preble Street next to Dutch’s and across the street from Za Pizza. They’re open Wednesday through Sunday, 3 – 9 pm, and until 10 pm on Friday and Saturday.

Chef Matt Burns and his family are serving a menu (see below) of small plates like fried sardines and corn ribs, entrees like the grilled white fish with butter bean and sausage ragu shown above. The bar menu includes wines by the glass ($9) and bottle ($32), beer, seltzer, cider, non-alcoholic drinks and a selection of classic cocktails. Shown here are the Paper Plane and Almond Sour.

Burns has has worked at a number of Portland area restaurants including Nonesuch River Brewing in Scarborough, and most recently Paper City Barbecue and Legends Rest in Westbrook. He envisions The Velvet Dog as a restaurant for local residents. “We are here for the people of Portland. Tourists are nice but I care about the people in the apartments next door, the industry workers and the people that commute in and out of this town a lot more. I want those people to always feel welcome and to get to know us as we know them.”

It’s a banner year for new food trucks. In addition to the two Ugly Duckling trucks (1, 2), Terlingua Sidecar at Oxbow, and Reef’s Real Fruit Ice Cream at Rising Tide, there are three other food trucks to tell you about:

Sammy’s Scoops (instagram) on Ocean Street has launched a new food truck on Washington Avenue. They’re located in the parking lot next to Sissle & Daughters. Hours will be Monday through Thursday, noon –8 pm and Friday through Sunday, noon –9 pm.

Matcha Mood on Congress Street has launched a food truck called Matcha Mood on the Go (instagram). You can find them today on the Western Prom near Maine Med.

Hank & Arties (instagram) is soon to launch a second food truck. When it does you will be able to find them alongside the Bard Coffee and Not a Bakery food truck near Twelve and Eastern Prom walking trail.

For daily accurate tracking of all food trucks in Portland download the Food Truckalico app.

Barkada (website, instagram) is opening for business on Saturday May 30th. The new Filipino fast casual restaurant is located at 425 Fore Street in the space formerly occupied by Paper Tiger. It will be open Tuesday through Sunday, 11 am – 9 pm and until 10 pm on Fridays and Saturdays.

Chefs Nicole and Ben Bowers and business partners Margaret and Luka Dow are serving a menu house designed bowls like the Spicy Baddie shown above as well as a Build Your Own option where customers select a base of grain or greens, a protein, toppings and sauce. Lumpia rolls and a noodle dish called pancit are available as sides.  In addition to soft drinks Barkada also serves an ube pina colada slush, and Singha, Tsingtao and Sapporo beer.

Nicole and Ben Bowers are the chefs for Barkada. Nicole Bowers is originally from the Philippines. She and Ben Bowers met while attending the Institute of Culinary Education in NY. They’ve worked in Michelin-starred restaurants including for Daniel Boulud. Prior to moving to Maine they worked as private chefs in Florida. The Dows also have a background in the hospitality industry including operating a cafe in Boston and in food distribution.

Barkada initially launched as a food truck late last June.

Isaac MacDougal has announced he’s relaunching Cocktail Mary (instagram). It will now be located at 30 Market Street on the third floor of the building above Oun Lido’s. Cocktail Mary will initially be open Fridays and Saturdays at 9 pm. In June MacDougal expect to expand the hours of operation to Thursday through Saturday, 5 pm – 1 am.

In an interview with the Press Herald, MacDougal shared,

“One of the thing that’s important about having queer spaces is the broader community coming in and experiencing queer joy,” he said. “I don’t want to be a gatekeeper. I want everyone to feel comfortable coming in and being a part of what we’re building here.”

Cocktail Mary first launched at 229 Congress Street in 2019 and MacDougal closed that location in January 2025.

Chefs Melody Medina and Quinn Williams are launching Chérie (instagram) on Thursday. Chérie is located at 249 Congress Street in the space formerly occupied by Quanto Basta.

The menu (see below)  includes dishes like steak frites (shown above), roast chicken, and halibut with tarbais beans as well as desserts like creme brulee and strawberry sorbet (shown above). Chérie also features a full bar program run by Lucie Anderson. The beverage menu includes wines by the glass and bottle, local beer and cider, appertifs and a cocktail program as well as non-alcoholic options. The Chérie Negroni as well as the asparagus and snap pea salad, and the leek vinaigrette are shown above.

Williams and Medina have made some light renovations to the 20-seat dining room but otherwise retain the same general layout—including the Fiero Forni oven. Cherie also has a 20-seat enclosed patio located behind the building.

The couple moved to Portland from Brooklyn in 2024. They met when both were working at Frenchette New York City. Medina is a 2011 graduate of the French Culinary Institute and helped launch the bread program at Frenchette and open the Frenchette Bakery in Tribeca. Williams’ career began in his hometown of Pittsburgh and once in NYC worked at Le Rock and Lords. Since last fall they have been holding a series of Cherie pop-up events at Lambs, Hunt & Alpine and the Big Tree event space.

Chérie will initially be open Thursday through Monday, 5 – 10 pm with plans to expand hours this summer to offer lunch and brunch on the weekend.