Earlier this month, we spotlighted bars and restaurants you’ll want to check out when they launch later in 2024. Now, we’re featuring popular spots to hit up this winter while the tourists are away.

In summer, if you want to eat at an in-demand restaurant, you might have to book a table weeks in advance, or wait an hour or more for a table as a walk-in. Moreover, you’ll likely be stuck with undesirable times like 5 p.m., or 8:45 p.m. or later.

But over the winter – the relatively quiet stretch many restaurateurs refer to as “locals season” – the dining scene changes dramatically. Weekends stay relatively busy at the most bustling places, but Greater Portland restaurants are your oyster on weeknights, and Friday and Saturday night reservations are still very doable with a little forethought.

While preparing this story, we heard from several regular restaurantgoers in the area who said they make a point of using the offseason to dine as often as possible at their favorite places. They touted casual spots like Bissell Brothers, Duck Fat, The Highroller Lobster Co. and Hot Suppa; cafes and bakeshops like Tandem Coffee and Bakery and South Portland’s Scratch Baking Co.; and gourmet venues like Central Provisions, Fore Street, Scales and Kennebunk’s White Barn Inn.

Here we offer a sampling of 10 places where tables in high demand during tourist season are much easier to score now. Our list isn’t meant to be comprehensive, but rather a conversation starter for you and your dining partners: Now is the time to draw up a bucket list of restaurants to hit before they fill up with tourists again.

Some of the chefs, restaurateurs and industry observers we talked with stressed the importance of visiting Maine restaurants in the winter not only for your own enjoyment, but to help the places you love stay afloat.

“Frequent your favorite places in the winter, because it is a very difficult time of year,” said Evan Richardson, chef-owner of Cafe Louis in South Portland and Costa Media in Camden. “It’s definitely getting harder and harder to be a good restaurant and foot the financial bill, between labor increases, food costs and utilities.”

“My recommendation is for people to dine out routinely in the winter,” said Gillian Britt, organizer of Maine Restaurant Week. “It’s important to remember that all of Maine’s restaurants suffer in the offseason, from the small cafes to the long-established destinations, so if you love a restaurant, support it. And if there is a restaurant you’ve been curious about, go visit it.”

Editor’s note: These restaurants are in Portland unless otherwise noted. 

Cafe Louis, South Portland

This Knightville restaurant, which opened in 2021, has carved out a niche for itself in the Greater Portland area – and built a strong clientele base – by focusing on top-quality Costa Rican and Caribbean cuisine. The team’s efforts earned the restaurant a four-and-a-half star review from the Portland Press Herald in 2022, making it that much busier.

During peak tourist season, wait time for a table can be 45 minutes or longer. But while its capacity drops down to 33 seats in the winter (when the 16 outdoor seats are not in play), for locals who don’t care for crowds and do like to be seated promptly, now is the time to visit Cafe Louis.

“We’re pretty consistently at like 60 percent (capacity) in the winter, but any time in the winter is a good time to visit, honestly – we’re never that full,” said chef-owner Evan Richardson.

Cafe Louis doesn’t take reservations by phone or through online systems, but you can reserve tables by emailing the manager: manager@cafelouis.me. Richardson said walk-ins will have better luck at off-peak days and times, like 6 p.m. on a Monday or Tuesday, rather than 7 p.m. on a Friday.

Like many area restaurants, Cafe Louis offers creative specials on their winter menus to attract customers, along with their regular incentives, like a daily happy hour from 3-5 p.m. and $1.50 oyster night on Mondays.

“We definitely try to put some money back in the customer’s pocket at this time of year, especially,” Richardson said.

Eventide Oyster Co./The Honey Paw

These Big Tree Hospitality properties, adjacent to each other on Middle Street, are two of the area’s hardest restaurants to get into during the summer.

“As any small popular restaurant in Portland knows, you’ve gotta get it while the gettin’s good,” said Big Tree co-owner and general manager Arlin Smith. “So when the town is full, you expect to be full. There are no apologies on our end for being busy and having three-hour waits (in peak season).

“If the weather is good in the summer, we know we’re going to be busy pretty much before we even open the door,” Smith added. “The line for Eventide starts around 10:30 a.m. and goes around the building, and then it’s basically a wait list until 8 or 9 in the evening, or until close.”

But the winter is a very different story. “In the offseason, you can pretty much come in at any time,” Smith said, noting that they take reservations and accept walk-ins. “If there is a wait, it would be short. Offseason, both spots are pretty easy to get into.”

Smith said in the winter, these Big Tree venues go into “survival mode,” like most other restaurants in our highly seasonal region. “This time of year, we hunker down, lower our spending, and try to make it as accessible as possible to our customers,” Smith said. “We start doing these promotions when we feel like it’s slowing down, usually around November or December, and they run into the spring.”

Special winter offerings include Eventide at Night, which Smith described as a late-night happy hour featuring drink and food discounts like half-priced oysters from 9-11 p.m. every night except Friday and Saturday. The Honey Paw has a happy hour Monday through Thursday from 3-5 p.m.

Also, whenever there’s a significant storm, Eventide offers buy-one, get-one-free oysters. “That works,” Smith said. “It’s always fun to see because people ski in, roll down the hill, any way possible.”

Isa Bistro

This eclectic Bayside bistro seated customers on a first-come, first-served basis for its first five years in business.

The restaurant started taking reservations during the pandemic so staff could better manage the number of people inside the cozy space. “The reservation has been well received, so we have continued offering them,” co-owner Suzie Perez said.

Perez said Isa has limited space for walk-ins, including half of the bar, so reservations are recommended.

“As a small restaurant, the 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. prime reservations always fill up quickly,” Perez said. “But if you are flexible on the time, we can usually find you a spot, so call us up after 3 p.m. anytime to speak with the staff.”

Perez said the bonus for any early-bird diners is that they can usually find a parking spot in Isa’s private, 10-space lot.

“The winter months can still be busy on the weekends, but Wednesdays and Thursdays offer space,” Perez advised. Isa also offers lunch on Fridays from 11:30 to 4 p.m., and an extra Mexican special every Monday for its “Mexican Monday” theme nights.

Izakaya Minato

With just 30 seats inside, this Japanese small-plates gastropub fills up fast in the summer and stays that way for most of the season.

“We often have a line of people waiting to get in at five o’clock when we open up,” said co-owner Elaine Alden. The restaurant takes reservations for parties of four or more, while reserving the rest of its 30 indoor seats for walk-ins, and the wait list can stretch for a couple of hours.

“It always hurts my heart when I see a local and I have to quote him a two-hour wait time, and there’s not much you can do about it,” Alden said.

Weekends at Izakaya Minato stay busy over the winter, and the restaurant still has a wait list, Alden said. Tuesdays there are also relatively busy because many other area restaurants are closed.

But Wednesdays (their slowest days) and Thursdays are both excellent nights for locals to visit this winter, according to Alden. ‘They can definitely just walk in. Most of our guests do,” she said. “We keep all of the bar and about half of our tables open for walk-in guests.”

This winter, Izakaya Minato also aims to open one Monday a month, starting Jan. 22, for a “neighborhood night” featuring a slightly different menu and new specials. The monthly event is meant to draw both ordinary locals and hospitality industry workers who are typically off on Mondays.

“I always like working in the winter,” Alden said. “You get to see a lot of people you don’t see in the summer, or even if you see them, you don’t get to talk to them when they come in to eat. We like locals season.”

Leeward

Tables at this James Beard award-nominated, pasta-centric Italian eatery on Free Street are usually fully booked in the late summer.

All year-round, Leeward keeps seats available at the bar for walk-ins. “In the summertime, a line usually starts forming for those bar seats at a quarter to five,” chef-owner Jake Stevens said. “Sometimes, we’ll have 20 people in line.”

In winter, Leeward stays pretty busy on Friday and Saturday nights. “But it gets way easier to get in on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday,” he said. “And even on the weekends, our bar seats won’t fill up right away.”

Stevens said if you’re looking to dine a little on the early or late side, it’s even easier to get a table.

Leeward’s winter menus feature hearty, warming dishes like meaty ragús. The offseason also gives the kitchen staff time and space to prepare more complicated pasta dishes, like anolini in brodo, a meat-stuffed pasta served in clarified broth that takes three days to make.

“That’s the kind of thing we just can’t do in the summer,” Stevens said.

Luke’s Lobster Portland Pier

During peak season, people might wait more than an hour for a table at this seafood mecca set on the working waterfront. Wait-listed customers can grab a drink from the bar and bide their time on the restaurant’s patios or top deck, soaking in the panoramic water views.

“It’s a pleasant wait, but it’s still a wait,” Luke’s co-founder Ben Conniff said.

In the offseason, you’re much less likely to face a wait for one of the 150 seats inside. “We do have a lot of space, so in the winter, you’re going to have a pretty good success rate getting a table any day and time, even at peak meal times,” Conniff said.

And without the summertime throngs – some of them standing and gazing out over Casco Bay while they wait for a table – your own water views are less likely to be obstructed.

Even in winter, though, the best way to avoid a wait is to reserve a table through Luke’s website or on Resy.

“The other cool thing is, we often get a little creative with the menu over the winter,” Conniff said.

New winter menu items include Cambodian lobster egg rolls, as well as smoked local pollock dip made at Dunstan Smokehouse in Scarborough, in partnership with the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association.

“The slower pace of the winter allows us to do fun things like that,” Conniff said.

Miyake

This refined Japanese restaurant is more subject to seasonal lulls than its sister restaurant, Pai Men Miyake.

General manager and co-owner Emily Phillips explained that Pai Men’s steaming ramen bowls pull in plenty of customers in the colder months. “The middle of winter is when Pai Men really calls to people, I think,” she said.

Miyake is “pretty much booked solid from mid-June through mid-September,” Phillips said. Recent renovations to make the working space more efficient – so the team can focus on delivering special, top-quality dishes – cut the number of seats at Miyake down from 43 to 28, making it even harder to get in.

But in the winter, it can be much easier to get a seat. Miyake takes reservations and also saves a portion of its bar seating each night for walk-ins.

Winter menus at Miyake also feature in-season Maine uni, along with ankimo, a monkfish liver pâté. And it’s not all sushi, either: Miyake offers some warm dishes, like Lobster Egg Drop Soup, steamed duck buns, and a nabe hot pot featuring wagyu beef in a rich broth.

Phillips said midweek is the best bet for booking a Miyake table, and definitely for going there without a reservation. “Our weekend nights still book up more regularly, but our weeknights tend to have some space available for walk-ins,” Phillips said.

Palace Diner, Biddeford

Featuring elevated diner classics from James Beard award-nominated chefs, Palace Diner makes it onto just about every national media list of places you have to eat when visiting Biddeford, or even Maine in general. So it’s no surprise that free spots at the 15-seat counter are very hard to come by during the tourist season.

“During peak season at peak times like weekends, our waitlist can be an hour or more,” co-owner Chad Conley said. “From Fourth of July through Labor Day, almost every day is like that.”

Conley said many of Palace’s regulars from Biddeford and Saco studiously avoid the place during the height of tourist season. “We won’t see them once in July or August,” he said.

“We’re so much slower this time of year,” Conley said, noting that Palace doesn’t take reservations, but it’s not much of an issue on winter weekdays. “During the weekdays, it’s very rare we have a wait.”

In both summer and winter, Palace is open every day from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.

“We haven’t shrunk our hours at all because it’s important to us to maintain consistency and staffing levels,” Conley said.

Terlingua

At this busy neighborhood restaurant, tables book up about two weeks in advance in the summertime. Terlingua takes reservations in the summer, while many area restaurants do not.

“We (take reservations) so the locals have an opportunity to get in, because they’re our bread and butter,” co-owner Pliny Reynolds said. “Reservations aren’t the most financially prudent thing to do when you’ve got a line out the door. But if you’re a local, you can get on the docket a week or two in advance and not have to fight through the crowds.”

Terlingua, which serves a blend of Texas-style barbecue and creative Mexican dishes, still accepts reservations in the winter, but they may be more for the diners’ peace of mind.

“In the wintertime, the ability to walk in is awesome,” Reynolds said. “Typically on any given night, even the weekends now, you can just walk right up and get in without a reservation.”

For outdoor dining diehards, Terlingua is now taking large group reservations for its fully covered, heated outdoor Corral area, while the covered deck and margarita garden are also heated as needed and open year-round.

Twelve

One of Portland’s most sophisticated fine-dining experiences, Twelve is on the must-try list for many tourist season visitors.

“During the summertime, we’ll be at max or near max capacity every night,” Executive Chef Colin Wyatt said. “We’re always having the issue of trying to get our local clientele in.”

Wyatt said Twelve starts to see more Mainers in their dining room starting in October. “We have a lot of local people come in and be like, ‘Now that the summer is over, I am here now.’ There is definitely that feeling that people don’t want to be involved in that summer crush.”

To entice locals to visit over the winter, Twelve runs food and drink specials, like a steak frites night on Jan. 27, or the delectable Twelve Burger – made from a 50-50 blend of prime-grade ground N.Y. strip steak and short rib –  offered Tuesday through Thursday exclusively at the bar.

Wyatt said while walk-in seats are available at Twelve’s bar, they still recommend making a reservation, which can often be same-day in the slower winter season. Getting a table is easiest Tuesdays through Thursdays and Sundays, he said, “but you can still get a weekend reservation if you want.”

“I like to tell our staff that our VIPs are our locals,” Wyatt said. “And anybody who comes in now who lives in Portland or the surrounding areas, this is the time to really get to know our guests, their likes and dislikes. Our goal is to make them feel special. It’s really important to us this time of year.”

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