![]() ![]() We took out the old freezer that had been there for years and was rotten. “We’ve basically remodeled and done everything we can kitchen-wise to make it as clean as possible,” Macgowan said on a recent tour of the space. All of the sheetrock in the kitchen had to be replaced. Most of the work has been done in the tiny, maze-like kitchen, which has been opened up and now covers about the same square footage as the 76-seat dining room. Macgowan says he’s spending about $100,000 on renovations, including rat-proof flooring. He has hired Poirier to run the kitchen, and the general manager will be Beth Poitras, who is also manager of Casablanca Cruises and has worked in the restaurant business since she was 15. Macgowan turned to close friend Steve DiMillo, owner of DiMillo’s on the Water, for advice on turning the Porthole around. If they’re not going to Becky’s, they were going to the Porthole.” Saturday and Sunday brunch was a hit, and the breakfast for the people working down here. “They wanted to make it lunch and nighttime atmosphere,” he said, “and I always felt the thing that made the Porthole the Porthole was its brunch. When former owner Oliver Keithly decided he’d had enough, about seven or eight other restaurateurs contacted Macgowan wanting to take over the Porthole, “and I did get the feeling from every one of them that they didn’t want to make it a breakfast place,” Macgowan said. I don’t think he was open at breakfast time.”īut it’s breakfast that the restaurant ultimately became known for, and that’s the reason Macgowan wants to bring it back to life. “You had a couple of pinball machines and a jukebox, and you came in and got your bottle of soda and a toasted cheese sandwich or a hot dog and got your butt out of here. “Back then, people could come down here and wait for the ferries, and it was more like the old (Miss Portland) diner, just a long, skinny room with a counter,” Macgowan said. (Family rumor has it the Porthole first opened in 1929.)Īt that time, the Casco Bay Lines ferries were docking at Custom House Wharf. First of all, Custom House Wharf has been in his family for decades, and his stepfather, John Macgowan, was one of the original owners of the Porthole, running the place after the Korean War, through the 1950s and early 1960s. Macgowan had a couple of reasons for wanting to buy the Porthole. Why would a businessman like Macgowan want to tackle reopening the Porthole when he’s never owned a restaurant before, which is something like going to bat for the Sea Dogs when you’ve seen plenty of baseball but have never actually played the game? And what are the challenges he’s facing? “I’m very excited to be a part of this,” he said, “and kind of help rebuild what we lost over the last year.” Poirier said he thinks the re-opening of the Porthole, along with the efforts of his former boss, Harding Lee Smith, to open a seafood restaurant at the old Boone’s on Custom House Wharf, will “bring some new life” into the area. After stints as executive sous chef and executive chef at some restaurants in Florida, Poirier returned to Maine in 2010 and helped re-open and redesign the menus at Diamond’s Edge and the Falmouth Sea Grill. ![]() The chef at the new Porthole Restaurant & Pub will be Jesse Poirier, a Portland native who has worked at some of the city’s best-known restaurants, including Miyake, Cinque Terre, Vignola and the Front Room Restaurant and Bar. If anybody wants to go out and meet the chef, he’s going to be fully available.” ![]() We’re going to have a nice kitchen, and it’s going to be open. We’ll welcome you into our kitchen and you can see what we’re doing in there. “If someone comes in and says ‘What about the rats?’ we’re going to tell them what we did to take care of that issue. “We’re not afraid to bring up the rat issue,” he said. His target opening date? April 1, a choice he says is “the greatest April Fool’s joke in the world.” He adds, laughing, that’s he’s considered putting something like ratatouille on the opening day menu.ĭespite the jokes, when it comes to turning the Porthole back into one of the city’s most popular breakfast and brunch spots, Macgowan is completely serious. New restaurants opening in Portland this spring. ![]()
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