The Portland Food Map archive provides a chronicle of the past 16+ years of the Portland restaurant scene. While a lot of the reporting here is about what’s happening now and coming next, we thought it would be fun to take a look back at what the hot topics were from 5, 10 and 15 years ago.
Here’s are highlights from April 2009, 2014 and 2019:
- A program called the Maine Food and Drink Ambassadors got going with a class on beer, wine, mead and spirits.
- Bard opened their Middle Street coffee shop on April 6, 2009.
- Grassroots Organic opened for business. The cafe featured raw and low temp cooked dishes that promised to be healthier than food prepared with traditional cooking methods. Cornucopasetic reported they enjoyed “the almond, cacao, banana and nut milk smoothy; a miso sea veggie “soup” with shitaakes; an excellent sea veggie salad with ginger-miso dressing”
- Construction got under way at The Salt Exchange. The restaurant was located in the present day home of the Old Port Noodle House.
- Construction also was progressing for El Rayo at their original location in a former gas station at the intersection of York and High Streets.
- Cara Stadler was named by Food & Wine to their 2014 Best New Chefs list.
- The City Council denied Sangillo’s application to renew their liquor license. The former Sangillo’s building is now home to Tomaso’s Canteen.
- Kate McCarty’s book Portland Food: The Culinary Capital of Maine was published, as was the book Eating in Maine: At Home, On the Town, and On the Road by Malcolm and Jillian Bedell.
- Chefs Masa Miyake and Rob Evans collaborated on a 6-course dinner, a “celebration of Maine-raised pure breed heritage pork”.
- Cheevitdee began serving breakfast.
- Lone Pine Brewing opened a new larger brewery in Gorham.
- The Maine Sunday Telegram published an article about the Minervino family which operates several Portland area restaurants across two generations of family members.
- The Other Side Diner opened for business in April 2019.
- Atsuko Fujimoto launched Norimoto Bakery working out of the Two Fat Cats location in South Portland.
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