There has been enough shifting and changing in the Portland shopping and nightlife scenes of late that we figured we’d bring you up-to-date. Until the next change is announced, of course.
To the dismay of the East End juicing crowd, 52 Washington Avenue’s WICKED PULP has closed. Replacing it in the near future will be LOCO POLLO, a locally owned Yucatan-cuisine restaurant selling crazy chicken.
BAZAARO, the 72 India Street thrift shop, shut down within the past couple of months. No word on a replacement occupant for the tiny space yet.
Picking up the slack on the East End is the new NORTH STAR CAFÉ at 225 Congress Street, serving coffee, drinks, and food for pretty long hours throughout the week. Their next-door neighbors at the “Irishish” pub THE SNUG are relatively new as well, but you’re well enough aware to have voted it co-winner of the “Best Bar” title this year. Farther up the hill, look out for the HILLTOP COFFEE SHOP to move to another miniscule venue in the near future, within eyesight of the current one.
THE PAVILION closed abruptly in March, devastating high-school-prom organizers, but relieving legions of awkward teens who didn’t have a date yet. The 15,000-square-foot space at 188 Middle Street has huge “for lease” signs in the windows. The available room will be growing, as BLACK TIE restaurant will be moving out in early June, heading to the old UNION WHARF MARKET space at the corner of Union Wharf and Commercial Street. (That market was closed by order of Maine Revenue Services, according to a sign on the door last fall.)
THE STADIUM is back open again at 504 Congress Street, having lost the Hooters fight but successful at rebuilding after ruinous vandalism. (In an ironic twist, at least based on the picture of the girl in their advertising, Stadium waitresses — like many downtown — are more scantily clad than Hooters staffers.)
SOPHIA’S is closed (perhaps suggesting that baker/author Stephen Lanzalotta’s efforts to bring people back to bread didn’t work go his way; or maybe it’s that his book, The Diet Code, made him more than enough dough). A strange-combination gardening/trinket/bath-and-body shop called TERRA POTTA will soon be taking its place at 81 Market Street.
MILO and CASCO BAY BOOKS have closed, leaving a gaping hole in the 151 Middle Street plaza, and making Longfellow Books the only spot in town to find a good magazine.
At least this one’s only temporarily devastating: LOCAL 188 is closed for the next couple of months, as they move shop over to a new location in the neighborhood, next to Rite Aid on Congress Street. The new restaurant will be substantially larger, and will open in the summer.
