Roost House of Juice Opening Today

Roost, a  vegan juice and biodynamic wine bar, is opening for business at 11 Free Street this morning at 8 am. Roost’s owners Kathleen Flanagan and Jeanette Richelson partially funded their new venture with a successful fund raising effort on Kickstarter.

For more information on Roost, read the Natural Foodie column in today’s Press Herald.

Kathleen Flanagan and Jeanette Richelson, yoga teachers with experience in the restaurant industry, have been planning this eatery for a year and a half. They worked with a large community of vendors, farmers, business consultants, family members, friends and artists to fine tune the restaurant into a space unique for this foodie town.

Tandem Coffee Roasters Opening on Wednesday (UPDATED)

Tandem Coffee Roasters on Anderson Street in East Bayside is will open for business late Wednesday morning at 7 am.

Tandem is co-owned by Will and Kathleen Pratt. The Pratts and staff member Vien Dobui are all former employees at Blue Bottle Coffee, one of San Francisco’s leading coffee roasters.

For more on Tandem view their Tumblr, visit them on Facebook or read this article in Sprudge.

Maine Beer Tours

A new company, Maine Beer Tours, is offering tours of Maine breweries on Friday and Saturday each week. MBT is run by Mark and Nichole Stevens.

Mark and Nichole have been dreaming of getting into the beer scene for years, and finally decided there was no time like the present.  They love craft beer, and know there are many people just like them.  Mark started homebrewing back in 1998, as a freshman in college, with his first batch brewed through his Mr. Coffee.  While it may have been pretty horrible, the love affair with all things beer was born…

The Friday tours visit Shipyard, Sebago, Maine Beer Company and Bull Jager. The Saturday tours go to Allagash, Urban Farm Fermentory, Rising Tide and a 4th stop which is TBD. Tickets are available online.

Portland Maine Chef’s Table

Portland, Maine Chef’s Table: Extraordinary Recipes From Casco Bay, a new book by  Margaret Hathaway & Karl Schatz is now available. The book includes profiles and recipes from 48 Portland restaurants. Everyone from Artemesia and Aurora Provisions through to Vinalnnd and Zapoteca (see entire list) are included in the book.

Hathaway and Schatz are the owners of Ten Apple Farm in Gray, Maine. Their first book The Year of the Goat: 40,000 Miles and the Quest for the Perfect Cheese, tells the story of how these folks from NYC ended up owning a farm in Maine.