Café Catalog: Portland Maine

Tandem Coffee Roasters

Portland, Maine is frequently compared  to Portland, Oregon, and now I know why. Both have a liberal and laid back population. Both are quirky and artsy and have thriving counter-culture movements. Both have world-class restaurants, and top-notch cafes. Although Maine's Portland is about 1/10th the size or Oregon's, thankfully the quantity of good cafes is not proportional to that. While I have a list of my top 20 cafes in Portland, OR, I found 5 great cafes in Portland, ME.
Ranked in order.

1. Tandem Coffee Roasters

Housed in a vintage gas station, Tandem wins on all levels. Exceptional style, delicious coffee and pastries, and great for people watching. There is limited seating so this is not the place to work, but definitely the place to see and be seen.

2. Bard Coffee

Bard is the best cafe to work from in the city. In afternoons the place clears out and you can have your pick of seating. The coffee is also great here and I enjoy the large windows and natural lighting.

3. Speckled Axe

Another great option, this cafe is centrally located and had pretty fine coffee. I think I bumped it to third place because the music they were playing during the time I spent there was pretty annoying, and the bar stools were a bit uncomfortable. I would definitely go back if I lived in Maine. 

4. Omis

Omis is a charming cafe on the outskirts of downtown Portland. It is located in a fun and colorful old house and has unique latte flavors like lavender and honey. 

5. Black Cat

A nice place to work from in northern Portland. The ambiance is mediocre, but ti was quiet and conducive to writing. 

Honorable Mentions:

Yordprom

A beautiful cozy outdoor patio makes this place a great writing spot on a sunny summer afternoon. 

 

Coffee by Design

It feel a little too commercial for me, but Coffee by Design is a perfectly suitable local joint with multiple locations in Portland.

Amazing Small Town Libraries of Maine

There have so far been only a few libraries in the world that have really impressed me. They are usually very modern and only found in large cities, as in Seattle  or Taipei, but somehow I got to researching the libraries of Maine’s small towns.

Most of them are over a hundred years old, in gorgeously restored buildings. The few I was able to explore had lavishly decorated rooms. I visited 13 libraries in Maine, but was most impressed with three:

1. Jesup Memorial Library, Bar Harbor, ME

The building used for the Jesup Memorial Library was finished in 1911, and donated to the town by the widow of Morris Jesup. I absolutely loved this building, especially the second floor which overlooks the central plaza. It was a bit hot both days I went there, but it if were not for the heat I would love working here. 

  

2. Belfast Free Library, Belfast, ME

The Belfast Free library opened in 1887, but has obviously been extensively remodeled since then. The library looks larger on the outside than inside, which means that not all of the space is being accessible to the public. My favorite room was on the second floor. An open reading room in the design of a nineteenth-century living room, the perfect place to work.

3. Portland Public Library, Portland, ME

A few years ago this outdated structure got a posh makeover. The library now boasts a beautiful foyer with a sun-lit seating area and spacious aisles. I enjoyed strolling through the library and seeing this beautiful structure.

Other libraries I visited:

Camden Public Library, Camden, ME

Rockland Public Library, Rockland, ME

Bangor Public Library, Bangor, ME

Gardiner Public Library, Gardiner, ME

Curtis Memorial Library, Brunswick, ME

Patten Free Library, Bath, ME

Auburn Library, Aurburn, ME

Lighthouses, Lattes, Lobster, and Libraries: My trip to Maine

Maine has been on my bucket list for a while. A long while. Since precisely September 2006. And how do I know that so precisely? Because that’s when Vogue published Arthur Elgort’s “The Maine Event” with model Coco Rocha, and I fell in love for life. Maybe  it was because I was looking at those images from my florescent-lit cubicle in sunny Orange Country, California. Maybe it was because I hated the sun and the palm trees and the perpetually warm weather that I dreamed of a life entirely different from the one I was living. I dreamed of the opposite corner of America. A cold snowy place. A place with lighthouses and rocky shorelines. A lonely and isolated place. Somewhere to fall quietly in love.

That place was Maine, and these photos were what fueled a fantasy that lasted nearly a decade.

I tried to go to Maine before. I tried every which way. After all, I'm not the type of person to keep something unchecked on my bucket list for that long. But Maine was put on the backburner when I quit my job in California to travel for two months in Japan, anad a month in Europe n 2008. It was cast aside when I moved to Oregon and started my life over. In 2009 I bought tickets on Greyhound from Boston to Augusta. (Why on earth I chose Augusta I do not know). But that Greyhound bus departed without me. Due to work commitments I had to postpone my trip to Boston, and when I finally went  to Massachusetts in 2010, there was no time for Maine, a mere 2-hour drive north. Maine was moved down the list while I traveled in Scandinavia, the middle east, and Taiwan. Maine was almost forgotten when I moved to Japan, then traveled around SE Asia for 6 months. But when I retuned to Oregon, I received an invitation to a wedding in Raymond, Maine. The date was September 2015. Nine years after the Vogue photo shoot. 

Thus I began planning my great trip to Maine. I knew a few things for certain.

I would go alone. That’s how I always envisioned it. That’s how it had to be. I had many offers for company. My partner, friends in Portland, friends in Boston. But I knew this trip had to be a solo one.

I would rent a car and road trip all over the state. No more Greyhound. Maine is a state you need to explore with independence. There was too much to see and too little time for me to rely on public transportation.

I would explore the coast and inland. The first part of my drive would be along the winding coastline, which all the quaint seaside towns and lighthouses. The problem is, this is also the most touristy part of Maine, and I hate tourists. I wanted to get a look at life on the inside, so I would drive back through the cities and capital.

I would focus my trip on a few things I wanted to indulge, the lighthouses along the coast,  lattes at every major café in Portland, lobster eaten as many ways as possible, and small town libraries. I made meticulous list. I planned every day of the journey.

When I boarded the plane for my midnight flight to Boston I was overwhelmed with anticipation. This would be a six-hour red-eye journey, then two-hour shuttle bus ride from Boston Logan Airport to Portland, Maine. It didn’t feel real. After nine years of dreaming I was finally flying through the darkness to meet my dream in p the other side. What if reality couldn’t live up to my fantasy? After all, my dream was based on a Vogue photo shoot, hardly a good benchmark for real life. What if I didn’t like Maine? What if I got lonely?  But I had to get ready to face real Maine, and real me….