The Press Herald has published the final article in their 5-part series on the pandemic’s impact on the Portland restaurant industry. Today’s article looks back at the factors that contributed to the success of the hospitality industry pre-pandemic and shares confidence that the restaurant scene will rebound albeit changed by the experience of the past year plus.
For more than a decade, Portland has enjoyed a national reputation as a food town, a place to go for its impressive restaurants, expansive craft beer scene and independent groceries trading in local food sourced from nearby farms and the adjacent sea. Looking for a cider house, an upscale knife store, a well-stocked cheese shop, an Eritrean restaurant or a hummusiya? Portland’s got those and much more. Its status as a bustling, walkable food town may be hardly a blip in the city’s almost 400-year-old history, but to many of its residents today, its intertwined food, drinks and restaurant scene is a source of pride, jobs, community, entertainment – even a reason they moved here.