Mainebiz has published a Q&A with Maine Foodie Tours that explores how they’re adapting to operating their business during the pandemic.
Category: Profiles
Little Lad’s at 25
The Maine Sunday Telegram has published a profile of Little Lad’s.
In 1995, Little Lad’s opened for business as a cafe and bakery on Route 1 in Woolwich, and it was there that its famous popcorn was developed as an alternative to corn chips. The company began making its Herbal Corn and many other food products by hand in Corinth in 1999, after relocating from its home in Woolwich. Over the years, Little Lad’s evolved — among other changes, the cafes are gone now — but its roots remain in that first Woolwich restaurant and its food.
Cooking for Community
The Christian Science Monitor has published an article highlighting the good work of Cooking for Community.
Today, Cooking for Community (C4C) provides just over 2,000 meals a week. In its first two months, the grassroots initiative raised about $220,000 from individuals, foundations, and corporations. It is buying crops from farmers, seafood from fishers, and keeping many of Greater Portland’s kitchen crews employed while cooking for hungry people.
For more information or to make a donation visit: www.cookingforcommunity.org
Restaurants aiding in the work of C4C are: Chaval, Gather, Istanbul Cafe, Leeward, Little Giant, Maggie Mae’s, Mama Mo’s, Mainely Burgers, Mr. Tuna, Nura, Union, Zu Bakery.
Flood’s in the NYT
Flood’s received a shout out this week in the New York Times Style Magazine.
Like Palace, Flood’s offers creative comfort food like juicy burgers and pancetta toast with apple butter, as well as a laid-back environment personified by several unofficial and irreverent mascots from the minds of the Atlanta-based design and consulting group Office of Brothers, Inc., such as a beanie-wearing, cigarette-smoking fish. “I’m not in the business of challenging people with my space or my food,” Mitchell told me. Rather, Flood’s is about feeling like you’re a regular.
Lib’s Midwinter Dairy Experiment
The Portland Phoenix has published an article about Lib’s Dairy Treats and their recent mid-winter opening on National Eat Ice Cream for Breakfast Day.
“I know other places open in the winter, but it’s new for us. We have seven dogs and we each work other part-time jobs off season,” Palwoski said. “We were blown away by how busy we were this past Saturday. We intended to stay open until 8 p.m., but ran out of ice cream around 5. We completely underestimated it. And really, the best part was seeing all the familiar faces and people I’ve known for years with their own kids who have grown up in line here.”
According to the article Lib’s will be open again this Saturday.
Three of Strong
The American Rum Report has profiled Three of Strong, a distillery located in Bayside.
In other words, Three of Strong had focus, experience, and novelty on its side from day one. So I was optimistic and interested in what they were making.
Plucked Salsa
The Press Herald has published a profile of Plucked Fresh Salsa, a Fork Food Lab success story.
Now the brand and its whimsical name can be spotted at dozens of Hannaford and Whole Foods stores, as well as on colleges campuses, across the Northeast. It just passed the $1 million mark in sales. Not bad for a business that started in her kitchen, moved to her basement and then nearly cost Towle and her husband their home.
Portland Food Truck Fleet
The Blueberry Files has posted an overview of the local food truck fleet.
It’s been a few years since my last survey of the food truck fleet in and around Portland, Maine, and as you’d expect from these mobile eateries, a lot has changed since then. Here’s an update of who’s slinging food from a truck/cart this summer and where you can expect to find them.
Strata & Vegan Cakes
The Food & Dining section in today’s Maine Sunday Telegram includes articles on the Strata cutlery shop on Washington Ave,
Strata, which opened Feb. 1, is located in one of the shipping containers that entrepreneurs are renting for retail space on Portland’s East End, a busy neighborhood of restaurants and bars. Knife shopping there is an education and an experience unlike anything you’ll get at Williams-Sonoma or other big stores that sell knives by the block. Atwell trades in artisanal Japanese and French knives, but also knives crafted here in Maine – beautiful handmade pieces that look as if they belong in a museum. “I try to stay away from machine-built stuff as much as possible,” he said.
and one on the availability of vegan cakes in Maine.
But vegan cakes aren’t just a Portland thing. They are coming out of the oven at bakeries across the state. It’s a trend fueled by two factors: more people eating vegan, and more people avoiding dairy products and eggs due to allergies and intolerances. This availability of vegan cakes is a marked change from even a few years ago.
Traditional Italian
The Maine Sunday Telegram has published an article about the Portland area’s traditional red-sauce Italian restaurants.
Instead of starkly decorated dining rooms with lines and lighting reminiscent of an industrial site, these old-school restaurants keep flowers, candles and linens on the tables. The soothing tones of Frank Sinatra and other old-time crooners add to the atmosphere instead of drowning out conversations. In these places, the long-gone Village Cafe – a popular Italian-American family restaurant in the Old Port that was driven out by urban renewal and is still mourned by Portlanders on social media – is remembered with reverence, and the Olive Garden is dismissed as irrelevant.