Nate Feld, chef at the Barn at Smith Farm in Falmouth, is getting ready to close the restaurant for the season at the end of October. (Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer)
In early October, Head Chef Nate Feld started to examine his menu at Barn at Smith Farm in Falmouth. He had dishes like the plum-glazed pork loin, pesto pizza and chorizo pizza in his sights.
Feld’s restaurant will close for the season at the end of October, and he was trying to identify the less popular items so he could adjust his ordering strategy.
“With certain dishes that sell less, maybe I’ll buy one more case of that product, and as soon as I’m out, I won’t buy any more,” he said. “I’m watching my counts on everything, and trying to keep items in stock as long as I can without having too much waste on that last day.”
He estimated that business at Barn at Smith Farm has dropped 20% to 30% since Labor Day.
“My restaurant does a lot of families,” Feld said. “We saw the shift right around when school started. They still come on the weekends, but not school nights.”
Chef Nate Feld makes chowder at the Barn at Smith Farm in Falmouth on a recent Wednesday. He’s streamlining his menu and developing an ordering strategy to avoid being stuck with a lot of perishable items when the restaurant closes for the season at the end of the month. (Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer)
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Restaurants all around Maine are doing the same seasonal dance right now. After Labor Day, the tempo starts to slow down from the hectic rhythm set by summer visitors. The industry then goes through “second summer,” which peaks around Indigenous Peoples Day, but stretches through the end of the month.
This time of year, places like Barn at Smith Farm are getting ready to close up shop, while year-round Maine restaurants are trimming staff, hours of operation and menu items. There’s less business right now, but the predictable change of pace is not entirely unwelcome.
“It starts in the spring, getting up to speed, and then you’re hitting summer and pushing through,” said Scott Vogel, who owns three restaurants in Ogunquit. “You get through Labor Day, and it’s a hurdle, but there’s another 5-6 weeks to continue to push through. We love being busy, so we’d never complain, but I do think the team sees getting through this (Indigenous Peoples Day) as a relief. The pace is definitely better, and people can catch up on some rest.”
SCALING BACK HOURS AND STAFF
Vogel keeps The Front Porch Piano Bar & Restaurant and CREW open year-round, and both are still open seven days. But since the holiday weekend, they’ve cut back the hours they’re open, and they’ve also shed some seasonal staff.
CREW restaurant in Ogunquit is still open seven days, but has lost seasonal staff and trimmed operating hours. (Derek Davis/Staff Photographer)
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In the summer, Vogel had about 125 staffers among his three venues (including Coastal Alchemist at The Trident Inn). This time of year, it’s closer to 75-80. By the end of the year, it may drop to about 55 employees.
Barn at Smith Farm has about eight staffers now, including managers. Feld said about 50% of their staff this year — the first season for the new ownership team — was made up of students, and they lost them when the school year resumed.
“You feel it a little bit when school goes back, in the same way you feel it when school gets out,” said Kaila Gutierrez, head of marketing and events for Brickyard Hollow Brewing Co. At Brickyard Hollow’s more seasonally dependent locations, like Ogunquit, they’ve opened an hour later and closed an hour earlier since Labor Day.
“It sort of switches from the folks that are looking to go on vacation for the summer to the folks who are taking weekends to drive up the coast,” Gutierrez said.
Brickyard Hollow has nine locations from Ogunquit to Skowhegan, and supplements its roughly 250 year-round, core staffers with about 20-30% more student employees and other seasonal workers during the height of the tourist season.
When the fall comes, the students return to school and other seasonal staffers move on to offseason gigs, “so it’s not like letting people go,” Gutierrez said. “It’s just kind of natural.
“Thankfully, we don’t have to impact the lives of our core group, and that’s really important to us,” she added. “Because we’re a very community-centric business, and that sentiment extends to our staff. We wouldn’t be able to support our community without them.”
About 20% of staffers at The Boathouse in Kennebunkport are seasonal. The restaurant is still open seven days, but will cut back to six later in the year.
“It makes sense from a demand perspective,” said Emily Nelson, managing director of the Kennebunkport Resort Collection.
STAYING THE COURSE
Vogel believes that when spring rolls around, year-round restaurants have a leg up over the seasonal venues.
“Restaurants that close have a tougher time of getting back up to whatever amount of employees they need to operate,” he said.
Still, hiring and training any amount of seasonal staff in the spring can be problematic for restaurateurs.
“Training is an investment that restaurateurs make in their employees, and it’s in their best interests to keep them year-round when they make that investment,” said Kathleen Pierce, director of communications and membership for HospitalityMaine. When employees leave after the high season, she said, “they’ve lost that investment.”
Since opening in 2023, Bread & Friends in Portland has come to recognize the pitfalls of relying on seasonal staffers in the summer.
“We really struggled with that in the first few years we were open,” said Bread & Friends co-owner Maggie Rubin. “It’s so hard operationally to ramp up for such an increase in business. So we’ve worked hard to try almost an opposite model — to figure out how to carry as much staff as possible over the winter months, so it’s not such a hefty on-ramp and off-ramp.”
This past spring, Rubin and her leadership team decided to try to retain their restaurant staff of about 35 year-round. Fewer than half are part-timers, and while they may have fewer shift hours over the winter, they’ll stay on the payroll. The strategy is more expensive for the restaurant, but they’re banking that it will help them provide a consistent, top-quality experience for customers in every season, and also to be fully ready the moment business picks up next spring.
“That’s 100% the goal,” Rubin said. “And judging by the nature of hospitality businesses, I’m sure it won’t go to plan. But that’s definitely the thinking behind the method. If it just nets out for us to be able to carry those folks year-round, then it’s paid for itself. Then it gives you the opportunity to continue to grow the business.”
Rubin said Bread & Friends had loftier target goals this summer to try to balance the higher staffing levels and slower winter business.
“We are lucky to have enough steady business to try to sustain us, but I think our situation is no different than any restaurant in Portland, where you’re losing money in the winter, no matter what you do.”
Bread & Friends’ bakery will continue to have some seasonal staff boosts, as it operates on a different rhythm. Rubin said they’ve already cut some midweek bakery hours, and may scale back more in January.
Bread & Friends’ restaurant hours will stay the same in the offseason, with a slightly smaller menu. In the summer, they offered 14-15 savory dishes; they now have about a dozen, but not just because of a slowdown in customer traffic. Rubin noted that this time of year, there are simply fewer local produce items available to build dishes around.
Bread & Friends on Fore Street, shown in 2024, offers outdoor seating until mid-November, if weather permits. Co-owner Maggie Rubin said although they have patio heaters, the sidewalk seats at the east-facing building appeal to fall customers much more at brunch service than dinner. (Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer)
WELL-EARNED BREAK
With the bulk of the tourists in the rearview, many restaurants now start to lure back locals with special promotions.
At CREW in Ogunquit, Vogel said there’s Trivia Night Mondays and Wednesday pizza and salad specials, while The Front Porch offers Martini Mondays. Nelson said new weekly specials start Nov. 1 throughout their Kennebunkport Resort Collection properties, including locals nights, wine specials and extended happy hours.
Brickyard Hollow keeps weekly specials geared toward locals in place all year long, like First Responders Discount Day on Mondays, Kids Eat Free Tuesdays, and Locals Night on Wednesdays at their Ogunquit location.
Places that cut back their operating hours use the off days for deep-cleans and projects like painting that they couldn’t have accommodated during the summer. Vogel said his properties may even close for a few extra days during the slowest part of the winter if they need the time to finish any property maintenance work.
Daylight shines between the barn wall boards at the Barn at Smith Farm in Falmouth. (Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer)
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At Barn at Smith Farm, there’s a hard deadline: The last day of service is Oct. 31. After a few days off, Feld said it’ll be all-hands-on-deck for a day or two, to deep-clean and close the property for the winter.
They’ll need to scour the stoves, clear out, sanitize and shut down all the fridges, and wrap up the clean dishes and flatware in plastic film. They’ll shut off gas, and drain water from the pipes. The old barn isn’t insulated, and will be frigid inside over the winter.
They hope to reopen in early May, though it depends on weather — overnight temperatures need to be above freezing so they can get the water turned back on safely. Feld said while he’d love if the venue could stay open year round, there’s an upside to the downtime.
Feld has worked on the line at Twelve in Portland and as sous chef at Federal Jack’s in Kennebunk. But this was his first season at the helm of a kitchen, which is a whole different story.
“It was a lot more stress than I was ready for,” he conceded. “I’m definitely ready for a break.”
