Interview with Heather Sanborn

The Portland Phoenix has interviewed Heather Sanborn, co-owner of Rising Tide.

KB: You have a small rack of barrels aging in the back of the brewery. Will that be a bigger part of your model going forward, or are your barrel-aged beers more of a side project?
HS: I think that remains to be seen. Right now we don’t have more space for barrel aging, but that’s about to change. We have a 8,000 square foot warehouse in Westbrook that’s coming online in about three weeks. We just hired somebody to manage it and we leased a box truck that we’re going to use to bring things back and forth. So we should have a lot more space for barrel storage soon. Then it’s really just a process of ramping up that barrel program over time. It takes a long time to build up a successful barrel program at any kind of scale.

Peak Organic’s National Reach

The Boston Globe has a report on Peak Organic’s expansion into markets across the country.

Peak products are now available in cities beyond New York; they’re all along the East Coast and in California, reflective of their 29 percent overall growth in 2014. Cadoux credits the expansion to thriving restaurant scenes in Miami, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Boston, and a sales staff focused on selling the brew as a good beer for food.

Interview with El Rayo

The Portland Phoenix has published an interview with El Rayo general manager Kate Poze.

LO: What do you tell your wait staff the secret is to excellent service?
KP: Always make eye contact, be attentive, accommodating and personal, know the menu. Control the chaos and be ahead of your tables, ask if they would like another drink before their glass is bone dry, mark their table, and don’t serve them soup without a spoon.

OAD Fresh List

Central Provisions (30), Eventide (32) and Caiola’s (97) have made it on to the Opinionated About Dining Fresh List.

The FRESH List celebrates the 100 best American restaurants that feature; F – Farm-to-Table cuisine; R – Regional American Cuisine; E – Ethnic Cuisine; S – Sustainable Ingredients; served with American-style H – Hospitality.

The list is a response to readers who regularly ask for dining advice about where they can find reasonably priced restaurants that offer an interesting take on American regional and ethnic cooking. It’s the perfect list to use to help plan your summer vacations.