With Memorial Day having unofficially kicked off Maine’s summer tourism season, the restaurants, hotels and other businesses that cater to millions of travelers who come to the state — especially its coast — could be in for an unusual few months.
President Donald’s Trump trade war is bringing new stress to the economy. Communities such as Old Orchard Beach that are used to serving Canadians fear that tariffs and strained relations since Trump took office will keep foreign customers away. And in one of the state’s largest tourist hubs, Bar Harbor, some businesses are concerned about losing income as the town cuts back on cruise ships visits.
Despite those and other challenges, though, a set of coastal Maine businesses interviewed by the Bangor Daily News about the beginning of summer reported that they are mostly off to a good start and upbeat about how they will do this year.
The region is a major summer destination for out-of-state visitors, and many business owners were encouraged by the traffic they got over the holiday weekend.
“Things so far are looking good for us,” said Julie Roberts, who with her husband owns and operates Coastal Maine Popcorn in Boothbay Harbor. “We had a great Memorial Day weekend.”
Roberts said the holiday weekend also went well for other businesses neighboring her Townsend Avenue store. On Saturday, when it rained, sales were fairly flat compared to recent weeks, but they were higher on Sunday and Monday, she said.
Lynn Archer, owner and chef at Archer’s on The Pier in Rockland, said her spring overall has gone well. Archer’s, like Roberts’ popcorn company, operates year round but gets a significant seasonal boost when tourists start walking through the door, the chef said.
“I had one of the biggest Mays I’ve ever had,” Archer said, adding that her staff swells each year from fewer than 20 employees to more than 40 in the summer. “I think I’m going to have a huge season.”
That’s not to say that running a small business is worry-free. Staffing shortages continue to be a challenge in the post-COVID economy, and the cost of housing can be a significant obstacle to filling positions, several business owners said.
Roberts has fewer than a dozen employees, a count that includes herself, her husband and local high school students who already live nearby. She said she also has part-time positions she fills with foreign visa workers who already have full-time jobs and housing through other employers in town.
But, like any entrepreneur, she is constantly trying to improve efficiency and find new ways to attract business, she said. She has started bagging and sealing popcorn bags ahead of time for walk-in customers, instead of filling them to order by hand, as a way to streamline operations. She also has expanded the variety of Maine-made products on her store shelves.
Roberts acknowledged she is “a little worried” about fewer international tourists coming to Boothbay, though it is not especially known for attracting large volumes of visitors from other countries. She said she supports Gov. Janet Mills’ efforts to make Canadians feel welcome throughout Maine.
“I tend to be a ‘glass half-full’ type of person,” she said.
Some of those concerns are being felt more directly by other businesses in the midcoast. The Maine Windjammer Association, composed of nine independently owned passenger sailing vessels that operate out of Camden and Rockland, said its reservations so far this year have been down 12 percent from the spring of 2024.
Nicole Jacques, spokesperson for the association, said the fleet has gotten fewer international bookings and had cancellations from Canadian guests who had booked their cruises at the end of last year.
But she said the ship captains remain optimistic, even though rising food prices have driven up their costs.
“We believe Maine’s coast remains a popular tourist destination,” Jacques said. “Anecdotally we’re hearing that travelers are feeling a sense of economic uncertainty that may hold them back from planning vacations too far ahead, so we’re hoping to get more last-minute bookings this season.”
Back on land, other businesses along the coast say they’re so far encouraged about the prospects for this summer tourism season.
Julia Cooper, owner of Safe Harbor takeout on the town pier in Castine, also had a busy Memorial Day. She has owned and operated the business for two years, and said the holiday is always a busy day.
Castine, where Maine Maritime Academy is located, hosts a Memorial Day parade every year, and every veteran who marches in the parade this year got a free ice cream from Safe Harbor, Cooper said. While May is usually a slow month for her, she wants her staff of three to get paid, and the holiday weekend helps bridge the gap between MMA’s graduation in early May and the arrival of summer residents starting in June, she said.
Cooper said she serves breakfast and lunch from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day and, if she can, she hopes to add hours on Friday and Saturday evenings to offer fresh-cooked pizzas. She is a little concerned about rising costs for food and supplies, but said she wants to avoid raising prices so she can keep her customers happy.
If she can avoid price hikes this year, she expects she’ll have a busy summer. She said she is looking forward to daily lunchtime rushes when the food goes flying out and the money comes in.
“It’s nuts!” she said of the 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. time slot. “That’s what keeps me going.”
In Rockland, Archer said worker housing has become a big enough challenge for her that, for the first time in more than 35 years of owning local restaurants, she is looking to buy a property to house her employees — which itself has become an expensive proposition in recent years. She has seasonal staff who go to Florida each winter and then return to work at her restaurant in the spring, but she also has to hire new faces every spring, she said.
Figuring out how to balance her payroll so that she attracts new workers, but is fair to her loyal employees, is not easy, she said. Neither is absorbing higher wholesale food costs, she added.
“My biggest challenge is housing,” she said. “It’s quite a struggle.”
Barrett Gray, who has owned Boyce’s Motel in downtown Stonington for 25 years, said filling positions has not been a challenge for him. Labor and housing shortages frequently go hand-in-hand in coastal Maine, he said, but he is open year-round and has a loyal staff of six people who already have places to live.
“I’m very fortunate,” Gray said. “I don’t have a staffing issue. They all have housing.”
Gray said that despite rainy weekends and local road construction projects, he has had one of his busiest Mays ever at Boyce’s, which has 11 guest rooms. Stonington does not get many Canadian visitors or tourists from abroad, and he stocked up on supplies months ago, so he is not too worried about potential tariff impacts on his season. He said he is not planning to raise his room rates “unless something changes drastically.”
Gray said his advance reservations for June seem to be a little lower compared to recent years, but he is still confident that he will have occupancy rates of 95 percent or higher through the height of summer.
“I think Stonington is a haven for a lot of tourists,” he said. “I’m hoping it will continue to be.”
In Rockland, five minutes by foot from Archer’s restaurant, Sally Levi last year started a business that is popular with tourists, but she does not expect to face staffing issues or real estate costs.
Newty’s Shack, a takeout stand that serves ice cream and hot drinks, first opened at the end of July and reopened for 2025 on Mother’s Day, Levi said. The business is located in the backyard of her house, which is in a commercial zone, and right next to the city’s public harbor trail.
“We were jam-packed on Mother’s Day and packed again on Memorial Day,” Levi said. The ice cream stand is staffed only by her family and, because she owns the property, she doesn’t have to pay rent or any added mortgage expenses, she said.
Levi said business at the stand exceeded her expectations for the three months it was open last year, and she is hopeful it will do well this summer, too. But weather is a factor, she said, and if it keeps raining every Saturday she may have to temper her expectations.
“It was wonderful,” she said of the dry weather last fall. “We made a bunch of money.”