Portland, Maine restaurants that do Covid precautions?

December 26, 2021 5:04 PM

I will be visiting Portland, Maine in a couple weeks and was dismayed to see that virtually no restaurants appear to be advertising any significant covid-19 precautions such as indoor masking, limiting dining room capacity, or requiring customers to test/be vaccinated. Anyone local know of somewhere nice to have a relatively safe, low-key but nice meal?
posted by eunique to Food & Drink (5 answers total)

How hearty are you feeling?

List of places with outdoor dining/heating here, including one place with individual huts.

And, list of places with vaccine requirements here; not sure how often it's updated.

(In my experience south of Portland along the coast, COVID precautions in ME are generally less strict than, e.g., Boston but more strict than in NH. This goes for both official laws/mandates and unofficial things.)
posted by damayanti at 6:07 PM on December 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

Can confirm at least a little of damayanti's links. Duckfat Frites shack is in the patio area of oxbow bottling, who has plexiglass aframe type enclosures. And a firepit. This place was probably setup the best for outdoors of anywhere I went.

Duckfat Frites shack had yummy chicken drumsticks and fries.

Liquid riot brewing I believe had a back deck by the water outside, but I was inside and didn't get to see that area.

But as your research shows Portland seems quite a bit less concerned with covid than Philly where I'm from. (Went just before Thanksgiving).

Novare Res has some outdoor seating on a patio, but i don't think they are using it currently. Self serve from inside the bar if anything. Highly recommended if you are a beer nerd like myself.

Hope you find some fun places.
posted by TheAdamist at 7:29 PM on December 26, 2021

I asked a similar question a couple of months ago here and just wanted to say that most of the places recommended had super long wait times to get in because they're some of the most popular places (and that was when they had additional outdoor seating, not sure if they have that now that it's cold), no guests wore masks in restaurants (don't remember if the wait staff did), and no one checked vaccination cards. We ate lots of good food but on the nights it was too cold to sit outdoors we ended up taking food to go to eat in our hotel room.
posted by never.was.and.never.will.be. at 8:39 PM on December 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

Portland Food Map (an amazing resource) has a list but I don’t know how old it is: Proof of Vaccination Required. Unfortunately, it’s very short.
posted by Sukey Says at 3:36 AM on December 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

Popeyes has a drive-thru location just outside the Maine Mall and right off I-95. The adjacent Bernie and Phil's parking lot is usually pretty empty so there's plenty of places to sit and watch the world go by while eating in the car.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:56 AM on December 27, 2021