BANGOR, Maine — A downtown Bangor restaurant has been closed for a week since a sewer line collapsed under Main Street, and it could be several more days before the costly problem is fixed.
Umami Noodle Bar on Main Street shut down May 26, after the problem was discovered. At the time, its operators said on Facebook they hoped to open the next evening, “if all goes well.”
It didn’t. Umami remained closed a week later and missed Memorial Day, which brought hundreds of people downtown for the annual parade. The restaurant’s Facebook page featured a statement posted Wednesday that the business hopes, at best, to reopen Friday. It’s unclear whether that will happen.
“I’m meeting with a contractor this afternoon,” the building’s owner, Greg Lovely, said Thursday morning. The work will be done as “soon as we can get it done,” he added.
One of two sewer lines that connects the building to an old brick sewer line under Main Street failed, according to Jeremy Martin, the city’s code enforcement officer. Umami and the landlord also have been working to resolve some smaller interior plumbing issues in the historic building, he added.
The city is responsible for the brick sewer line but not the connections that run from that line to private properties. Those lines are the responsibility of the building owner, City Engineer John Theriault said Thursday morning.
That means Lovely will have to hire a contractor to dig up Main Street near one of downtown’s busiest intersections in order to repair the problem so Umami can reopen. The city’s 40-inch brick sewer main, which runs down Main Street, was built in 1871, Theriault said. The city doesn’t know the age of the the Umami building’s connections, but records indicate the building was built in 1920.
Umami’s collapsed connection meets the sewer main on the side of Main Street closest to Mexicali Blues, according to Theriault.
“They’re probably going to have to excavate half the road,” Theriault said.
It’s not known how long that project would take, but similar line replacement projects have taken a day and night to complete, if not longer.
Theriault said the city’s aging brick sewer lines are overall in good condition, but they do fail on occasion. In late 2014, one of those brick mains collapsed on Hammond Street, opening a huge hole in the road. The city expects to finish replacing the brick sewer lines down Hammond Street later this summer or early this fall and is looking to replace other portions of the aging infrastructure as well.
The apartments above Umami still have sewer service, Martin said, likely because their service runs through the second connection line, which wasn’t damaged.
Umami’s owners did not respond to messages Thursday.
Follow Nick McCrea on Twitter at @nmccrea213.