Tesoro, a fixture in the Bangor restaurant scene, is for sale three years after a set of new owners transformed the restaurant from a traditional pizza parlor into a casual dining spot.
The Italian eatery located on Harlow Street has stood there for more than 25 years. It reopened in early 2019, after Johanna Harvey and her co-owner purchased the business from original owners Rocco and Fortunata Agrusa.
Harvey said in a post on Facebook that she’s no longer able to run the restaurant due to medical problems.
When the restaurant reopened in 2019 after three months of upgrades it came with a new appetizer and salad menu, and a new bar featuring craft cocktails. And it accepted credit and debit cards for payment for the first time in the business’ history.
Harvey told the Bangor Daily News in 2019 that her vision for the redesign of the restaurant was “upscale casual” dining.
“We want this to be the sort of place where a lawyer can come in and sit in the barroom and feel comfortable in a suit, and a construction worker can come in work boots and also feel comfortable,” Harvey said. “It’s nice, but it’s not fancy.”
Harvey turned the space into a place that combines the retro pizza parlor feel of the old Tesoro with a sleek, modern trattoria look and updated menu. The interior was fully renovated, but kept the retro-style blinds on the windows, the takeout counter and the hulking pizza oven in place.
While Harvey didn’t list a price for the business, she said in her post that the first “reasonable offer” would be accepted.