SOUTH PORTLAND – Two national chains have opened their first

Maine stores in the area around the Maine Mall, just as a number of

formerly empty storefronts have been filled in time for the holiday

season.

SOUTH PORTLAND – Two prominent national restaurant chains are introducing their menus to Maine for the first time.

Chipotle Mexican Grille is opening near the Cracker Barrel Old Country Store and Restaurant, which just opened at 357 Maine Mall Road. While the two restaurants are completely different in terms of menu options – Cracker Barrel is focused on southern comfort food and Chipotle on burritos and other Mexican fare – the openings mark the first restaurants in the state for both companies.

Chipotle, located at 359 Maine Mall Road, is expected to open its 73-seat restaurant on Dec. 17.

In addition to those two well-known chain restaurants, a number of other new businesses already have opened or are planning to open soon in the mall area. Another, Bull Moose Music, recently completed a sweeping expansion.

Maine Mall General Manager Craig Gorris said companies such as Cracker Barrel and Chipotle naturally gravitate to the Maine Mall area because of the infrastructure that is already in place.

“For companies looking for a presence in Maine, they are looking at the Maine Mall area first because of all the critical mass that is around the mall,” Gorris said.

Julie Davis, a spokeswoman with Tennessee-based Cracker Barrel, said the Maine Mall and the commercial activity associated with it was what drew the company to South Portland. Cracker Barrel, she said, had been looking to move into Maine on and off for more than a dozen years.

“There is a significant office population in the area, which is good during the day for breakfast and lunch,” Davis said. “There is a number of hotels nearby so we’ll get the guests staying in town who may be familiar with Cracker Barrel in other parts of the country. There is pretty easy access to Interstate 95. All those things considered, this looks like a good location to us.”

The restaurant, located next to the Wyndham Portland Airport Hotel, opened earlier this month. Before the South Portland location opened, the closest Cracker Barrel was 92 miles away in Londonderry, N.H.

The company had been looking to move into the Gateway Shoppes on Payne Road in Scarborough in 2007, but negotiations between the company and the town fell through.

The Gateway Shoppes, just off Exit 42 of the Maine Turnpike and three miles from the Maine Mall, includes a number of shops and restaurants built around the 130,000-square-foot Cabela’s, a hunting, fishing and outdoor equipment store that opened in May 2008.

Another restaurant chain, Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, is expected to move into the nearby Scarborough Gallery, which is anchored by a Wal-Mart Supercenter and Lowe’s Home Improvement. The company has signed a lease agreement with KGI Properties, the owner and developer of the property, and is in the permitting process with the town of Scarborough.

Red Robin would join a host of other restaurants in the complex, including Kentucky Fried Chicken, Little Caesar’s Pizza, Taco Bell and Texas Roadhouse. It would be the second Red Robin in the state and the first in southern Maine.

Meanwhile, Gorris said, Maine Mall management has also been able to plug up some of its existing vacancies this fall. In early October, Super Shoes moved into a 15,000-square-foot space that was at one time part of a 40,000-square-foot space occupied by Linens ‘n’ Things until that store closed in December 2008.

In early September, Ulta, a cosmetics store and salon, opened its second Maine location in the former Vinny T’s restaurant next to Chuck E. Cheese. In late fall, Gorris said, the first Maine Papyrus stationery store opened in the Maine Mall.

Just down the road from the Maine Mall, Brett Wickard, owner of Bull Moose Music, has expanded his 456 Payne Road location to add books to the music, movies and video games the company already sells at the location. The 13,000-square-foot expansion was unveiled on Nov. 13 after a month of construction.

As construction was ending at Bull Moose, it was just beginning on another development near the Maine Mall. A shopping plaza at 85 Western Ave., by developer Vinny Maietta, is anticipated to open this spring. The complex, in between the Sea Dog Brewery and Ricetta’s Brick Oven Pizza restaurants, will house a Subway sandwich shop and the first Maine location for Buffalo Wild Wings, which has more than 600 locations across the country.

A number of new businesses have opened in and around the Maine Mall recently. (File photo)

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