ELLSWORTH, Maine — Governor’s Restaurant and Bakery, the Old Town-based chain with five locations around the state, is expanding to Ellsworth.
Governor’s plans to move into the High Street location formerly occupied by Friendly’s restaurant before the start of the summer tourism season, creating more than 50 jobs and filling a now-vacant building within the city’s prime commercial district on Routes 1 and 3.
Randy Wadleigh, COO and president of Governor’s Restaurant and Bakery, said they have set a target opening date of the last week of April or early May but said the new restaurant “will be open by Mother’s Day, for sure.”
Wadleigh said he was eyeing the High Street building within a week of Friendly’s sudden closure in October. Friendly’s closed two other Maine locations, in Freeport and Lewiston, that day as the company prepared to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
“We love northern and eastern Maine, and Ellsworth was one of two communities on our target list,” Wadleigh said Wednesday. The second is Augusta, he said.
Like other Governor’s restaurants, the Ellsworth location will be open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Wadleigh said the restaurant will be company-owned rather than a franchise location.
Started as an ice cream stand named Creemee’s in 1960, Governor’s is known for its home style cooking and assortment of often generous-sized desserts. In addition to the Old Town restaurant, Governor’s operates eateries and bakeries in Bangor, Waterville and Lewiston as well as a franchise location in Presque Isle.
The company did not renew a franchise lease at its South Portland location last October because the company is focusing most of its attention on the northern and eastern part of the state, Wadleigh said
Ellsworth is “closer to our nest, meaning the Old Town and Bangor area,” he said.
Governor’s will lease the building from the MacQuinn family that owns Maine Coast Mall.
WELL ITS ABOUT TIME, AWESOME NEWS!
Sylvia isnt going to like that news !
Sylvias doesnt have the money to pay current bills, so for them to expand is not in the picture. I can not disclose how I know this, sorry.
When you work in the restaurant industry like I do you quickly find out everything about other restaurants. This happens for a lot of reasons, salesmen talk, people come into your place and tell you what they experienced in another place. The food delivery men talk.
I know exactly how almost every restaurant in Bar Harbor is doing based on information from the NorthCenter, Sysco, Maine Shellfish, Pepsi and Beer guys.
Loose lips, sink ships.
For example the Pine State Beer and Wine Delivery Guy will come in and say in the course of conversation, we deliver more barrels of beer to your place than anyone else in Ellsworth. The Sysco Guy will drop 65 cases at your place and then say he only had twenty at the place up the street to drop off. So in the course of normal conversation you quickly find out how other restaurants are doing.
Good News for Ellsworth!…. Here is a City that other’s should be looking to for economic development leadership. They have had some loses but they are working hard to make up for it.
In reality, the building didnt sit empty long. Neither did the old WalMart building. I am hoping something take the place of Loews very soon. I agree, overall Ellsworth does a good job in economic development and that help neighboring towns too.
Yes, that is great news for Ellsworth. I’ve eaten at the Old Town location several times, and have always had a satisfying experience. Now can’t wait for Olive Garden AND more especially a Tim Horton’s. whoooeeee
i was just waiting to hear this someday! YES! i love governors!
Thats great when i go 4 wheeling down there i can eat at a good place .
Best news I’ve heard all day!!!
I know the two are not related, but is this what LePage meant by open for business?
I hope it has better service and food than the Bangor Governors. I have visited them all, Bangor is just awful and Waterville rocks…….
I’ve dined at the Bangor location plenty of times and never once had terrible food or service. The single time I did eat at the Waterville location I was not impressed at all, maybe that has changed over the years but each to their own.
I prefer the Old Town location but I will visit the Bangor location in the coming moons.
I have never had a problem at any of the sites, other than making the mistake of ordering the large chef salad and it arrived on an OMG sized plate.
Used to go to the Bangor governors on occasion, than I had a couple of bad experiences. Hope their quality control has improved.
What was your bad experience? I’ve yet to have one at the Bangor location.
The one that most comes to mind is when I ordered my 6 year old daughter a hotdog and the roll was completely covered with green mold. It was so obvious that either the cook was color blind or the lights were out in the kitchen. Also, I could not see how the waitress carried it all the way to the table without seeing it.
I don’t recall what the second thing was, but it was enough for me to decide that there were probably other places that were better bets to dine at.
I’d flatten the building first just to erase the memory of the Ellsworth “Friendly’s”….one of the the absolute worst restaurants in the state.
Great news. The Old Town restaurant has the best graham cracker pie!
Look out Ellsworth, here comes the gravy…
Congratulations Ellsworth. Looking forward to it.
Nice to have another good option for eating out when we are over in town.
Great, even though Id rather have Olive Garden still! ; )
Yes, good news for Ellsworth (and surrounding towns). I’ve eaten at the Old Town location several times and have always had a satisfactory experience. Now for the Olive Garden AND Tim Horton’s.
Great to see that building reoccupied, & with some home cooking to boot. Not sure what the fascination with Olive Garden is, that’s the last place on Earth I’m going to for Italian food. Now if someone would take over the lease at Hillfire, get a chef who knows what they’re doing, & make it into a steak & seafood joint, we’d have someplace other than Pats to eat & drink at.
Would be great if Chuck E Cheese would take over the Lowes building and give everyone something else to do besides shopping and eating
Good news for Ellsworth, bad news for the waist line. Way too good food!!!!
Governors is a chain but not the atypical cookie cutter international chain. It’s a local Maine family business started by Mom and Dad. That “OMG chef’s salad” mentioned in a previous comment is a perfect example of what they give you for your money. Randy and “Angel” are carrying on the family tradition of great meals and family atmosphere. Anyone who uses an instance of an alleged hot dog bun TOTALLY covered with green mold slipping through the process of kitchen to the diner’s table unnoticed is likely exaggerating in order to back up his/her first ambiguous post of “Used to go to the Bangor governors on occasion, than I had a couple of bad experiences. Hope their quality control has improved”. It was a denigrating comment designed to insinuate Bangor Governors has bad quality control and put out negative commentary about the establishment. Couple that with the other”bad experience” which must have been so insignificant or non-existent that it can’t be remembered would indicate a negative person either blowing it out of proportion or entirely fabricating it for the sake of negativity. Thousands of meals are prepared annually at EACH restaurant with well fed and satisfied customers leaving after each one without complaint.
Best of luck in this added and new endeavor which will benefit Ellsworth, new and old patrons and the family.