A beginning entrepreneur from Caribou is reopening the former Winnie’s eatery in Presque Isle.
Dustin Mancos, the new owner of Winnie’s Restaurant and Dairy Bar, said he is looking to pay a modern homage to the classic fare of burgers and seafood, including lobster stew.
“We’ll have a lot of the original menu items with my own spin,” he said.
Mancos has a passion for cooking and has been steeped in the local dining business, working for Burger Boy in Caribou while studying business at Northern Maine Community College in Presque Isle.
“I wanted to get into my own kitchen,” he said. “Presque Isle needed something for seafood, burgers and fries.”
Winnie’s has been a fixture on Parson Street since it was started as a seasonal eatery by Winnie Briggs in the 1950s. In the last decade, it has seen four owners and been vacant since 2011.
Mancos said he had the idea to start a restaurant at Winnie’s last fall when he was reading about the well-known former owners of Winnie’s, the LeBlancs, who launched a successful lobster stew spin-off business in the 1990s that was sold in 2002.
Patty LeBlanc purchased Winnie’s in the mid-1980s and developed the LeBlanc’s Lobster Stew there, later spearheading the television and internet marketing of the stew and producing it at a commercial facility at the Presque Isle Industrial Park.
“It kind of clicked with me, so I messaged her,” Mancos said. “Patty said if anyone would want to open the original, she’d help them out.”
Mancos said he plans to serve LeBlanc’s stew, which is still sold by the Topsham-based Hancock Gourmet Lobster Company. He added that he’s looking to open by the beginning of March.