The buffet area at the new Taj in South Portland’s Clarks Pond shopping center. Photo by Benjamin Delong/Dlong Digital

South Portland Indian restaurant Taj reopened Tuesday in its new home in the Shops at Clarks Pond, a much roomier and updated space that has allowed the popular venue to add a bar program.

The relaunched Taj is located at 333 Clarks Pond Parkway in a 4,800-square-foot former Jenny Craig Weight Loss Center. The original Taj, on Gorham Road, was just 1,300 square feet. Owner Sai Guntaka said the new restaurant can seat 70 customers, compared with 44 on Gorham Road.

Guntaka said he bought all new kitchen equipment, leaving the former equipment in the Gorham Road space, where he plans to launch a new restaurant concept to be announced later this year.

“I’m giving my staff the nicest kitchen that I could afford for them, with AC inside,” Guntaka said. “For 12 years, they’ve stuck with me without AC, so they deserve a nice kitchen.”

Guntaka has been particularly excited to add a bar to Taj’s offerings. “This bar program has always been one of my visions,” he said. “We wanted to do cocktails with Indian flavors in a modern space.”

Jim Baldi, formerly of Portland’s Bar of Chocolate, was hired as beverage director. Guntaka said Taj’s cocktail list includes drinks like a mango lassi martini and an Indian espresso martini using beans from Tandem Coffee and Bakery. The bar also serves beer and wine, and Oxbow Blending & Bottling will be creating a signature lager for the restaurant.

Guntaka called the aesthetic for the new Taj “modern Indian,” noting that it features details like a white tin ceiling and a mural of the Taj Mahal by local artist Mike Rich. The space was designed by Woodhull architects and builders.

“My old restaurant was just a restaurant with typical yellow and red paint,” Guntaka said. “Here we’re making it modern. This is like my dream, and Woodhull made it come true.”

Though the new space is snazzier, Guntaka said he took pains to offer the same menu at the same prices. “Eighty percent of my customers are middle class, so that’s why we’re not increasing prices a single penny on the buffet or the menu,” he said. “I just want to give them a modern experience without paying a lot.”

Taj is open seven days a week for the lunch buffet from 11 a.m. to 2:15 p.m. Dinner is available Monday through Thursday from 4:30-9 p.m., and Friday through Sunday from 4:30-9:30 p.m.

TWO FAT CATS COMES TO THE WEST END

Two Fat Cats Bakery is scheduled to open a new location with a café and market in the West End this fall.

Located in a 2,500-square-foot space at 175 Spring St. next to Chocolats Passion in the former Mercy Hospital building, Two Fat Cats West End may open in mid-October if construction goes smoothly, according to owner Stacy Begin.

The new venue will offer the bakery’s pastries, as well as soups, sandwiches and a small market of staples and sundries.

The seating area at Two Fat Cats Bakery on Lancaster Street. A new bakery/cafe is slated to open in the West End this fall. Photo by Peggy Grodinsky

“We have learned at our Lancaster (street) location that people really need and want a third place,” Begin said, referring to the sociology concept that beyond work and home, people need a place to connect with one another. “I see this as a primary purpose of the new place, with generous seating and a community table as well.”

The new venue’s café menu will feature a variety of Maine and New England-themed specialties, including a New England Brown Bread Board with homemade jams, a Maine Wild Blueberry Latte, a Cape Cod Chicken Salad Sandwich, Maine Baked Beans, and a Banana Fluffernutter Sandwich with homemade marshmallow fluff.

Begin said Two Fat Cats’ Lancaster Street location will remain both a retail and production facility, and serve as the company’s commissary and working bakery. Two Fat Cats closed its South Portland location earlier this month after five years, according to a social media announcement, a move Begin said was in support of the launch of the West End venue.

To start, Two Fat Cats West End will be open Tuesday through Saturday, from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

HOLY DONUT OFFERING NATIONWIDE SHIPPING

Holy Donut plans to launch a nationwide shipping program in September.

The new service will allow locals to send some of Maine’s favorite donuts to friends and family around the country, and Mainers living out-of-state to enjoy a taste of home on demand.

“This is the biggest request we’ve ever gotten from our guests,” said Holy Donut CEO Jeff Buckwalter, noting that when the company teased the new program on social media recently, fans were ecstatic.

“We’re excited by the response. It’s been our most responded-to social media post that we’ve ever had by a mile. We’re a little bit concerned we might get run over on September 1 when it starts,” Buckwalter chuckled.

Buckwalter said Holy Donut, which launched in 2012, didn’t have the facilities or capacity for a shipping program until recently. But in 2021, the company opened a new store and production facility in Arundel, and has since added manufacturing equipment and made other operational improvements that allowed them to scale up.

Six to 8 flavors will be available to ship when the program starts. The donuts will be shipped frozen, and the company has been sending test shipments around the country (including to locations where the temperatures now hover around 100) to make sure they’re still top-quality when they arrive.

Holy Donut sells 1.5-1.8 million donuts a year. Buckwalter said he expects the shipping program will provide a huge boost for the company’s sales.

“I’d be shocked if we didn’t sell an extra quarter of a million donuts in the next 12 months,” he said. “I really believe this is going to be a game-changer for our brand.”

NEW DINING CLUB FOR SOUTHERN MAINE

The former owners of Rick’s Lobby Café are starting a dining discount club called Votemeal for Southern Maine.

Molly Wood, who is launching Votemeal with her husband, Rick, likened it to the former Portland Dine Around Club. Wood said a $50 annual membership fee entitles Votemeal members to a variety of discounts at participating restaurants around southern Maine. The name Votemeal refers to how members will also be able to vote for their favorite venues.

“It’s a mission to love your locals, let the locals get a little discount,” Wood said. “We’re trying to be a part of the restaurant world, but also to help people who live here to afford to eat out.”

The Woods have already signed on a number of restaurants and cafés including Blazes Burgers and The Daily Grind, both in Westbrook, and Leonardo’s Pizza and Marcy’s Diner in Portland, and are hoping to bring as many venues into the mix as possible.

“As a former restaurant owner, I know the thought of giving a discount to potentially hundreds of people sounds a little scary, but we’re just trying to get people to think ahead to when restaurants are struggling in the winter and spring,” Wood said.

The Woods also plan to donate $5 of every membership fee to local food charities, starting with Westbrook Families Feeding Families.

Wood said Votemeal will start selling memberships online this month, and the program will go live in September.

PRODUCE GUIDE FROM LOCAL AUTHOR

A Hannaford produce department supervisor has self-published “Simply Produce,” a home cook’s reference guide to fruits and vegetables.

Diana Currier of Windham, who works at the West Falmouth Hannaford, said she started writing the book during the pandemic, when she was working at the Windham Public Library. Published under her pen name, Diana McInnes, “Simply Produce” is available on Amazon and at local stores, including Sherman’s Maine Coast Book Stores.

“I really do love produce,” Currier said. “One of my favorite parts of the job at Hannaford is when people ask me questions about produce. I love giving them the answers they need.

“I’ve always been an advocate for good health, and this book was kind of a good start for people,” she added.

The book offers succinct produce information and tips for selecting, storing, slicing, preparing and freezing 77 fruits and veggies.

“I wanted to keep it as streamlined as possible, because most people don’t have a lot of time to read about the history of potatoes, for instance,” she said. “But the book can be really helpful and useful for people. I was really fussy about making sure the information was accurate.”

Currier is now at work on another book, “Wholesome Foods,” which spotlights nutritious whole foods other than produce. She hopes to publish “Wholesome Foods” next summer, and also aims to write two more books in this food-focused “series,” including a cookbook and a book about nutrition.

PARLOR’S SALTY HONEY IS BACK!

Fans of Parlor Ice Cream’s Salty Honey, rejoice: The company is producing its signature flavor again, starting with a small-batch release for a “pint pop-up” event this Saturday in Biddeford.

Salty Honey has been out of production at Parlor since December, as the growing company was challenged to find ways to produce enough honeycomb candy to work into the salted sweet cream ice cream base. Owner Jacqueline Dole said Parlor has since retooled its production process to ensure they can maintain quality as they scale up and work with a larger distributor with regional reach.

“I really miss Salty Honey and so do our fans,” Dole said. “We get a couple messages asking for it every single week.”

Dole said the plan is to start offering Salty Honey on a limited basis, such as the upcoming pop-up, then get the beloved flavor back on store shelves later this year.

With pre-orders alone, Parlor sold out of its first batch of Salty Honey in one day after announcing the pop-up on Instagram, requiring Dole to make still more pints. The pop-up event, at Parlor’s headquarters at 90 Saco Falls Way in The Counting House, will also feature one of the company’s most popular seasonal flavors, Sweet Corn and Blueberry.

“We got our start as a pop-up-based business, and we grew to wholesale, so it’s kind of nice to get back to our roots,” Dole said.

Parlor will have a limited number of pints of the two flavors for sale at the pop-up, which runs from 12-2 p.m., though they’re also taking preorders on their website to guarantee availability. Dole said she expects Parlor will have more pop-up events in the months to come.

CAMP ALLAGASH

Allagash Brewing Company is transforming its Portland facility into a summer camp with a week-long slate of activities including tie-dying, making friendship bracelets, throwing toy axes and a visit from the animals at Cape Neddick’s Center for Wildlife.

“Camp Allagash” runs from Sunday, Aug. 11, through Saturday, Aug. 17, at Allagash headquarters on Industrial Way.

Most of the programming will be free for all customers visiting the tasting room, while some special events will be ticketed. Find more information on each day’s schedule of camp events online.