Inside the new Stacks Pancake Co. on Route 1 in Scarborough, scheduled to open in November. Courtesy of Stacks Pancake Co.

Stacks Pancake Co. of Portland plans to open a second location early next month, this one on Route 1 in Scarborough.

The new Stacks will launch in a 4,000-square-foot space at 183 U.S. 1, formerly home to Tequilera’s Mexican Restaurant, and before that, The Egg & I. Stacks co-owner Josie Papanikolaou said she and her partner and husband George have been working on the venue since July.

Papanikolaou said the Scarborough location will have 148 seats, slightly smaller than their Portland space, which is on Riverside Drive, because it doesn’t have a meeting room. Stacks launched in Portland in July 2021.

The Papanikolaous decided to open in Scarborough because they felt the town was in need of breakfast restaurants. They aim to keep the menu and style of the restaurant just like the original. “Everything will be the same,” Josie Papanikolaou said. “It’s just another location, closer to other people and more south.”

Stacks Pancake Co. be open seven days a week in Scarborough, serving breakfast and lunch from 6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

MAINE BAGEL TO CLOSE IN NOVEMBER

Maine Bagel on Route 1 in Scarborough announced recently that its last day in business is Wednesday, Nov. 27.

Maine Bagel’s Chief Operating Officer Nick Lancaster said the space his family had been leasing for 19 years was purchased in the past year. The new owners plan to open a pizzeria, he said, so they didn’t give Maine Bagel the option to renew their lease.

Lancaster said he’s been looking “from Wells to Yarmouth” for a spot where Maine Bagel can relocate, but hasn’t yet found a suitable site. “I have a broker that’s helping me, and it’s just a matter of finding the right place,” he said.

In 2005, Nick’s father John bought the Mister Bagel that had been operating at 172 U.S. 1 in Scarborough since the 1990s. They changed the name of the business to Maine Bagel in January 2019.

“We’re so grateful to our employees and customers over the years,” Lancaster said. “The Scarborough community has definitely been home for us. We’ve been able to serve generations of families, and got to know people on a personal level.”

VICKIE’S VEGGIE TABLE CLOSES 

Biddeford vegetarian restaurant Vickie’s Veggie Table closed Monday after two years in business. The owners said financial and staffing constraints made it impossible to stay open and maintain standards.

Co-owner Vickie Charity said she and her partner, daughter Melanie McGuirk, wanted to be able to hire full-time staff to help them, keep the store open more hours, expand their catering services and advertise more widely. “It really needed a boost of more capital to be able to actually make money with the very slim (margin), considering the cost of food and what we can actually charge people without feeling terrible,” she said.

Charity said sourcing top-quality ingredients at affordable prices became an overwhelming task.

“Shopping was insane,” she said. “We used three different distributors, and we always also shopped at Whole Foods, Hannaford, Market Basket, Sam’s Club, Costco and farmers markets, always looking for the lowest cost that we could find, but the highest quality. But with just the two of us, there wasn’t enough people power, and there wasn’t enough money. And we don’t want to go into any more debt with loans.

“We really feel like we were providing a good service to the community,” she said. “We had a vision to bring wholesome food to the community, and we just didn’t have enough energy and time and people to do as much as we wanted to do.”

NEW COFFEE ROASTERS IN PORTLAND

Coffee roasting company Lay Day Roasters opened Tuesday in West Bayside.

The business is located in a 1,500-square-foot space at 150 Preble St., former home of a carpentry studio. Lay Day sells coffee beans, specifically from the Huila region of Colombia, roasted light, medium and dark. They plan to eventually introduce beans sourced from other global coffee regions.

Customers can buy beans ($15/12-ounce bag) online from the store’s website for shipment or in-store pickup. The store has a bulk station, in partnership with GoGo Refill in South Portland, where customers can fill their own vessels with beans at a discount. Co-owner Cashel Stewart said Lay Day will also have cold brew coffee on tap for sale in the store next week, and a growler system for cold brew refills.

Stewart and his business partner Corey Koch, former owner of Buzz Coffee in Old Port, hope to get wholesale accounts to sell their coffee at other local venues. The pair also aim to operate a cold brew coffee truck at special events next spring.

Lay Day is open this week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday from 7 to 10 a.m. and also from 3 to 6 p.m. Wednesday. Stewart said the store’s hours will change from week to week, and be posted on their Instagram page.

GOLDEN FORK WINNERS

Three Golden Fork award winners were named at last week’s Main Food Producer Showcase, held on Thompson’s Point.

Salty Toffee Ice Cream by Parlor Ice Cream in Biddeford won Retail Best in Show; Maine Seared Scallops by Fishermen’s Net in Brunswick won Foodservice Best in Show; and Peanut Butter Coconola by Grandy Organics in Hiram won Best New Product.

Event organizers said 28 of the 55 companies participating in the showcase entered products for Golden Fork consideration. Entries spanned a variety of categories, including grains and produce; proteins and sides; condiments and spices; sauces; snacks and sweets; and beverages.

Winners were chosen in a blind tasting earlier this fall at Southern Maine Community College’s Culinary Arts Center by a panel of food industry judges that included chefs, retail buyers and industry experts.

The winners were announced before an audience of about 500 at Brick South. The event was hosted by the Maine Center for Entrepreneurs and Focus Maine.

MAINE LOBSTER CHEF WINNERS

Chefs from brunch venue Ocotillo and its sister restaurant Terlingua took top honors at Harvest on the Harbor’s annual Lobster Chef of the Year competition Friday.

Terlingua Chef Wilson Rothschild and Ocotillo’s Al Zoni won the $1,000 judge’s award at the event for their Maine Lobster and Corn Blini with guajillo hollandaise, crispy potatoes and chives.

Boothbay Craft Brewery won the event’s People’s Choice Award. Chef Lori Mitchell’s winning dish was a mini soft pretzel filled with lobster meat in a “supreme cream sauce,” and finished with sea salt, lemon zest and roe. Chef David Brown of Sea Glass at Inn by the Sea in Cape Elizabeth was named People’s Choice runner-up for his Cape Elizabeth Lobster Samosa with potato, English pea, scallion chutney and tamarind.

The People’s Choice winners were awarded $500 each. The popular event took place at O’Maine Studios on Danforth Street in Portland, where nine competitors prepared their dishes for a capacity crowd of 250 people.

(Full disclosure: Reporter Tim Cebula was on the judging panel for the event.)

UNEMPLOYMENT CLINICS FOR RESTAURANT WORKERS

In response to a spate of restaurant closures in Greater Portland this fall, two community groups are partnering to host unemployment assistance clinics for service industry workers next week.

The Peer Workforce Navigator Project and Southern Maine Workers Center are offering two sessions on Monday, Nov. 4 from 1-3 p.m. and 7-9 p.m. at the Southern Maine Workers Center office on 56 North St. in Portland.

“Unemployment benefits can be a lifeline when you lose your job,” peer workforce navigator Leslie Torkelson of the Maine AFL-CIO said in a news release. “We’ve helped hundreds of people apply; it can feel daunting to people at first. Sometimes you just need someone to sit next to you and walk you through the process. When we saw so many restaurants closing, we knew Navigators could help fill this need.”

The Peer Workforce Navigator Project is a coalition of 6 community organizations across the state, funded by the Maine and U.S. Departments of Labor, with the goal of increasing access to unemployment benefits, public benefits and other Department of Labor workforce programs.

The two organizations will provide devices to help people apply, but also encourage people to bring their own laptops or tablets if they have them. Free snacks and childcare will be available, and the event will be simultaneously interpreted into English, French and Spanish, with additional staff members who speak Arabic, Swahili, French, Portuguese and Lingala available to help workers one-on-one as needed. The organizations will also have space to help people apply online or over the phone.

Melanie Reynolds, co-owner of Ocotillo on Danforth Street in Portland, delivers plates to customers in April, not long after it opened. The restaurant, which has served all-day brunch, is adding dinner service next month. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

OCOTILLO ADDS DINNER 

Ocotillo is starting a dinner service next month in addition to its regular all-day brunch menu.

Starting Thursday, Nov. 21, the Danforth Street restaurant will offer dinner from 5 to 9 p.m., Thursday through Monday. Ocotillo will also offer a daily happy hour menu with specials on drinks and snacks available from 3 to 5 p.m. in the bar and lounge, while the kitchen transitions from brunch to dinner service.

The dinner menu will feature Southwestern- and Mexican-inflected dishes such as Cowboy Cassoulet with frijoles a la charra, smoked chicken drumstick, house sausage, smoked pork belly and cornbread; and Fideos Marineros with toasted vermicelli noodles, spicy tomato seafood broth, chayote squash, local mussels, Maine haddock, shrimp, lime and cilantro.