Middle Eastern food is coming to downtown Bangor this spring.
After a year of hosting weekly pop-ups, Shamee in Maine owner Abdullah Al-Fdeilat decided it was time to open his own restaurant. The eatery will open at 23 Hammond St., which has been inactive for nearly a decade.
“It was wonderful, the response that we got from the community,” Al-Fdeilat said of the pop-ups. “So we decided, let’s take the jump.”
The eatery will fill one of few remaining empty storefronts downtown, joining a new candy store and a gift shop that opened this year and several new restaurants that set up shop in the fall.
“Shamee” is an Arabic word referring to the Levant region of the Mediterranean. The restaurant draws its culinary inspiration from Syrian, Lebanese, Jordanian and Palestinian food, Al-Fdeilat said.
His team first started serving food last January at Korean Dad, the restaurant incubator in Veazie. The full-time restaurant’s menu will be similar to the pop-up’s offerings, which included shawarma, falafel, hummus and baklava.
Korean Dad also had a hand in supporting Dreamer Food, a Lebanese restaurant that got its start at the incubator before operating a food truck and then opening a brick and mortar location earlier this month in Bangor’s Fairmount neighborhood.
Shamee in Maine ended its yearlong run at Korean Dad in late December to give its staff a break and time to figure out the plan for the new restaurant.
Al-Fdeilat said he hopes to complete renovations and preparation within the next five weeks, meaning the restaurant might open as early as late March or early April.
Those renovations, which he hopes to begin next week, will include installing a fire suppression system, grill and other equipment, as well as painting and decorating.
“We’re starting from the floor up,” Al-Fdeilat said.
The Hammond Street storefront was occupied by Bahaar Pakistani Restaurant from the 1990s until it closed in 2017 due to code violations. It was evicted five years later over a dispute with the landlord.
The empty space is in a central location downtown, and Al-Fdeilat said he chose it for the proximity to foot traffic.
“The buildings around it are really busy and you have people who are going to be looking for a quick lunch,” he said.
Al-Fdeilat also noted the taco joint that opened a few hundred feet away in the fall, saying people spending time in downtown Bangor will have several options for trying food from different parts of the world.
“We’re very excited about it,” he said.