Shannon and Tom Bard, the owners of Zapoteca Restaurant in Portland, plan to open a new Spanish tapas restaurant and cooking school in Kennebunk this spring that also will include catering services, an on-site market, a bistro, and a barn for weddings and other events.
The project fulfills a culinary dream for chef Shannon Bard, who has always wanted a cooking school, and will allow the couple to have at least one of them close to home to be with their four children, ages 17, 16, 15 and 12.
“It’s so many different pieces,” Bard said. “I’m really excited about all of it, especially having it so close, where I can see my kids a lot more often and being able not to miss football games or parent-teacher conferences because I have to work.”
The new project will be located in the old Kennebooks at 149 Port Road, just a bike ride away from the family’s home. They will close on the real estate deal Monday and hope to have the restaurant and bistro, which will seat 100 diners between them, open in June.
The bistro and market will be located on the ground floor. Salud Bistro will not have table service, but customers can order gourmet sandwiches, fresh-baked pastries, beer, wine and coffee to enjoy on site. The market will sell anything summer visitors might need for a picnic on the beach, Bard said, including gourmet cheeses and charcuterie, wine and lots of local foods. There will be a craft soda bar and outdoor seating. A wall of windows will separate the bistro and market from the kitchen, catering business and cooking school space, Bard said.
The cooking school will be an off-season venture geared toward locals, including children.
Don Holt, the sous chef at Zapoteca, has been hired to run the catering business, Bard said.
The second floor will house Toroso, an “upscale but accessible and local” Spanish tapas restaurant, Bard said. Although she’s calling it a tapas restaurant, larger plates of steak and seafood will be on the menu as well.
The third floor will house offices and overflow space, as well as apartments for Spanish interns who want to come to the United States to work in an American kitchen.
Behind the restaurants, the Bards are planning a 120-seat, post-and-beam barn venue called “The Barn at the Kennebunks” for weddings and other occasions. They’ve hired a builder from New Sharon but plan to hold an old-fashioned barn raising in mid-to-late May to finish the building. Bard said they plan to start booking events there for July. The Barn has already been listed as accepting reservations on the popular wedding site theknot.com. (Curiously, it already has one review.)
Bard spent some time in Spain two years ago and is returning next week for a three-week culinary refresher course.
“I just need to reacquaint my palate with the Spanish flavors,” she said. She’ll work for free in her favorite tapas bar in Seville for a week, then meet friends in Madrid. Her husband will join her for some time in Barcelona.
“It will probably be our last few days off before we hit the ground running,” Bard said.
Once the new bistro, tapas restaurant and other businesses are open, Bard and her husband likely will switch off days working at Zapoteca in Portland so that one of them can be near their children in Kennebunk every day. Their children, especially the two older ones, have regularly washed dishes and helped with prep work at Zapoteca, and Bard said they’ll probably do the same at the new place when they aren’t busy with school or other activities.
The Bards tried for the past year or two to find a new restaurant space in Portland, with no luck. Bard said she hasn’t ruled out the idea of a second Portland restaurant, though.
The Bards’ partners in the Kennebunk project are Amanda Howland, a marketing director, and Marc Christensen, who tried last year to open a bed-and-breakfast and cooking school at Mirabelle House, his home in Falmouth. That project ran up against local zoning regulations.
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