A Connecticut financier who co-owns a popular Mount Desert Island lobster pier is expected to open a tavern this summer in a Bar Harbor building that has been vacant for several years.
Russel Bernard, who was the managing principal of a real estate private equity firm in Westport, Connecticut, will open Bear Creek Tavern in the former Log Cabin Restaurant’s building on Route 3, offering customers local seafood paired with craft drinks and live music in a “relaxed, rustic setting,” according to the tavern’s website.
Although the website advertises a May launch, the new restaurant was not yet open as of Monday afternoon. Nor did the tavern appear quite ready to open: one of two wooden moose statues that lined its entrance — relics of the building’s former owners — was wrapped with a tarp, a no-trespassing sign sat in the restaurant’s window and a sheet of plywood directed delivery drivers to the side of the building.
Bernard — who with his business partner Stuart Snyder bought Southwest Harbor’s Beal’s Lobster Pier in 2014, after the Beal family operated the establishment for 75 years — is the owner of Black Bear Tavern LLC, according to an annual report filed with the state’s Bureau of Corporations, Elections and Commissions. It was not clear Tuesday if Bernard has any business partners with Bear Creek Tavern.
Bernard declined to comment when contacted Tuesday by the Bangor Daily News.
The property has been owned by Land’s End Ventures LLC since January 2022, according to Bar Harbor property records.
Bernard told the Bangor Daily News at the time he purchased Beal’s that he owned other property on Mount Desert Island and had been familiar with the area since his time as a camp counselor in Maine in his youth.
The financier’s purchase of the pier was a personal investment and was not related to either Westport Capital Partners nor any of its subsidiaries, he said at the time.
Bernard co-founded Westport Capital Partners in 2005, which — as of December 2025 — was managing approximately $8 billion in assets, according to the firm’s website. Bernard left Westport in December 2019, according to his LinkedIn page.
The tavern is the site of the former Log Cabin Restaurant, a popular dining spot that has been closed for a couple of years and was briefly listed for sale in 2024 by the Knowles Company, a Mount Desert Island real estate firm, according to a Knowles employee. A blog post about the moose statue suggests the restaurant had already been closed by September 2021.
Land’s End is a Westport-based company that also purchased a Southwest Harbor property on Main Street in 2021 and two years later proposed to develop it into a 10-unit apartment building, according to the Mount Desert Islander. Those plans have since stalled, though Land’s End still owned the property as of last year, according to Southwest Harbor’s 2025 tax records.
The tavern, located next to Pirate’s Cove miniature-golf course and about five minutes from Acadia National Park’s Hulls Cove visitors center, is looking to hire servers, musicians and kitchen and bar staff, according to its website.
An eight second AI-generated video that is embedded on the tavern website that shows two bears using lobster claws to drink beer and eat blueberries says the tavern is the best venue for a stop on the way to Bar Harbor.