Porttown Now Open

The Porttown Public House & Coffee Bar (facebook, instagram) opened on Friday. The coffee shop and pub is located at 123 Commercial Street next to Olive Cafe. Porttown serves baked goods, breakfast sandwiches and coffee in the morning, and transitions to a bar with pizza and paninis for the rest of the day.

When Pigs Fly Breads

York-based bakery When Pigs Fly (websitefacebookinstagram) opened their Portland retail shop this week. They’re open 10 am – 6 pm daily.

The shop is located at 65 Hanover Street in West Bayside. It carries the full range of the breads they produce at their central bakery as well as other baked goods like cookies, muffins, and scones, and oils, jams, butter, and other pantry items that pair well with their breads.

The bakery was founded by Ron Siegel in 1993. When Pigs Fly has retail shops in Kittery as well as Somerville, Jamaica Plain, Lexington and Brookline in Massachusetts.

La Benedicion & Asia Eats

Two new businesses have moved into the second floor of the Public Market House in Monument Square.

La Benedicion (facebook) opened just last week. They’re located in the space formerly occupied by the Frying Dutchman. The menu includes dishes like pollo con tajada, monjarra frito, burritos and tamales.  La Benedicion is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 am – 8 pm.

Rathanin Chhloeum is just about to open Asia Eats (facebook) in the space formerly occupied by Pho Co. The menu includes buns, dumplings, soups, rice plates (katsudon, teriyaki, orange chicken, etc) and boba tea. Chhloeum hopes to open Asia Eats within the next week.

Tao Yuan Has Re-Opened

Tao Yuan (website, facebook, instagram) in Brunswick quietly re-opened Thursday night. It’s been closed since 2020. Tao Yuan will be open Tuesday through Saturday, 5 – 9 pm. Reservations can be made on the Tao Yuan website.

The menu (see below) features a variety of small plates and dim sum—the restaurant recommends 3-4 dishes from the main menu per person. Shown below are the Celery Cloud Ear Salad (top left), Coho Salmon Tataki (top right), Soy Marinated Lamb Loin (middle right), and from the dessert menu a banana and chocolate dessert (middle left) prepared with miso, sesame and dulce de leche.

The Tao Yuan website speaks to the overall approach guiding their menu,

The cuisine of Tao Yuan is guided by fresh ingredients that are available locally, infused with Asian flavors and a mixture of modern cooking techniques, to produce food that is unique and delicious.  Flavors vary from upscale versions of Asian street food, to some of the chef’s more sophisticated signature dishes. All dishes are served on small plates to allow each diner to sample several courses in a single meal.

Tao Yuan was founded by Cara Stadler and her mother Cecile in 2012. Chef Leon Vuong has joined the Stadlers in the re-launch of Tao Yuan.

Cara Stadler is a James Beard Awards nominee and was a 2014 Food & Wine magazine Best New Chef honoree. After opening Tao Yuan the Stadlers launched Bao Bao in 2014, and the now closed Lio in 2018 (both in Portland) and Zao Ze Cafe in Brunswick in 2020. Their aquaponics greenhouse (bottom left photo) is located in Brunswick immediately behind Tao Yuan.

 

Cantina Calafia Takeout Window

Cantina Calafia (instagram) opened their takeout window today. Owners Dominique Gonzalez and Justin Grey are serving: rolled tacos (chicken or beef), potato tacos, and a Caesar salad with an optional chicken add-on. The menu will continue to develop in the coming days.

The takeout window will be open this week Thursday through Saturday, 11 – 3. Next week they’ll be open Monday through Friday.

Grey and Gonzalez continue to work on the renovations to the former Bonobo Pizza location. They don’t have a firm date yet for the full launch of the restaurant. For more information on Cantina Calafia see this article from March.

6 Openings

Six new restaurants have recently opened or will soon do so:

  • A new takeout restaurant called Asian Combo (facebook) is scheduled to open on October 9th in Biddeford. The restaurant is located at 169 Pool Street. Owner Phiangchay ‘Tui’ Dubois will be serving a menu of Thai, Laotian and Vietnamese food that will include banh mi and boba tea.
  • A new banh mi shop called BiddoBanh (instagram) is scheduled to open on October 13th. They’re located at 299 Main Street (bottom right) in Biddeford in the same building as Fish & Whistle and Vickie’s Veggie Table. The menu includes a Banh Mi Lobster Roll (homemade lobster pate, sweet Maine lobster meat, a hint of tangy pickled ginger and topped with fresh chopped scallions).
  • A new tea shop (upper left) recently opened in downtown Westbrook. HoneyBoba (instagram) serves a variety of tea-based drinks including matcha lattes and boba teas. HoneyBoba is located at 947 Main Street. The strawberry with black tea and muddled lime and crystal pearl boba was thoroughly enjoyable.
  • Jodie’s Cafe and Bakery (facebook, instagram) held the grand opening for their cafe, bakery and restaurant on Friday (bottom left) in Wiscasset. Jodie’s is located at 45 Water Street in the space formerly occupied by Sarah’s. Owner Jodie Roquemore moved to Maine from Georgia and opened the first iteration of Jodie’s in 2022. The breakfast and lunch menus includes standards like pancakes, corned beef hash, burgers, BLT, club sandwich, as well as daily specials and house-made baked goods. Jodie’s is also adding a new dinner service.
  • A new restaurant in Bethel called The Watershed (facebook, instagram) held a pre-opening pop-up on Saturday (upper right). They’re in the final stretch towards an opening day in the next couple weeks. The menu will feature house-made pasta, wood-fired pizza as well as kebabs, grain bowls, and salads.
  • Yolked Farm to Table (website, instagram) opened on Tuesday in Windham. Nearly all the items on their menu are gluten-free or can be prepared gluten-free. Yolked began as a food truck in 2019 and has now moved into a building at 868 Roosevelt Trail. Reservations are available online.

Check back for updates on more openings. In the meantime see the Under Construction page for details on other businesses under development.

Barber Brothers Now Open

Barber Brothers Meat & Provisions (website, instagram) opened today. The new market is located at 101 Ocean Street in the Knightville neighborhood of South Portland. Customers were lining up on the sidewalk today in anticipation of the opening at noon.

Barber Brothers has an in-house butcher shop, a produce section, refrigerated and frozen products, wine and beer and stocks a wide range of national and local brands of packaged goods. Additional stock is still arriving to fill out the remaining shelf capacity.

The new market is being launched by Max and Jack Barber the co-owners of Mainely Burgers and the grandsons of Gus Barber who founded Barber Foods.

101 Ocean Street was the longtime home of Smaha’s Legion Square Market which was originally founded in 1939 by John Smaha. The Smaha family had sold the market to Alan Cardinal in 2012 and it closed in January 2023.

The market will initially be open Wednesday through Saturday , 11 am – 7 pm.

Peng’s Now Open

Peng’s Pizza Pies (website, instagram) opened for business in Biddeford Wednesday. It is located at 128 Main Street in the storefront adjacent to Sweetcream Dairy.  There was a strong interest in the new pizzeria and they sold out within 90 minutes of opening their doors.

Peng’s is serving crispy thin-crust pies made with naturally leavened dough which stylistically owner Chris Daniels describes as New York meets New Haven. The opening day menu (see below) included six signature pizzas along with a Caesar salad and Basque cheesecake.

Primarily a takeout business, Peng’s also has 8 seats for indoor dining. You can order online.

Daniels has been a professional baker since 2008—in Maine he’s worked at Tandem Bakery, at Belleville and at Rover Bagel. The restaurant is named for Daniels’ father Bill whose nickname was Peng.

Peng’s will be open Wednesday through Sunday, 4 – 9 pm.

Midcoast Openings: Yonder & Alsace

A pair of new restaurants opened this past week in the Midcoast.

Yonder (website, instagram) opened Wednesday in Wiscasset. The sandwich shop is located  just across Middle Street from Treats. The menu includes a selection of sandwiches as well as daily soup and salad specials. The sandwiches are available in three sizes (small/large/big) and served on focaccia bread.

Yonder is owned by Kelsey and Jonathan Turcotte. They’re open Wednesday through Sunday, 11 am – 4 pm.

Alsace (website, facebook, instagram) opened Wednesday night in Union. As the name suggests the menu features dishes from the Alsace region of France like choucoute garnie and tarte flambé. They also serve some traditional German dishes like jaeger schnitzel and ones whose origins are closer to home like the seafood chowder and grilled lobster. The wine list is weighted to Old World wines with most originating from France.

Chef Fabrice Roux (linkedin) and sommelier Jennifer Roux are new to Maine but not to the industry. They previously operated three restaurants in the Monterey region of California.

Alsace is open for dinner Wednesday/Thursday, 4:30 – 8 pm, Friday 4:30 – 9 pm and Saturday/Sunday 10 am – 2 pm.