The Wrap: Openings, reopenings and renovations
Camden pop-up serves smoked eel dirty rice, Portland restaurants reopen, and a second helping of Maine recipes.
Photo by Gabriela Acero
If you are headed up Camden way soon, check out Dickie Steels’ BBQ, a pop-up (for now) located in the former Drouthy Bear spot at 50 Elm St. The Scottish pub closed last spring, and Derek Richard and Gabriela Acero bought the building to open their own restaurant, a chophouse to be called wolfpeach. The couple hopes to open wolfpeach in November, but until then they are cooking Texas-inspired BBQ takeout from noon to 7 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.
CAMDEN Restaurants operating in a pandemic have had to make enormous changes in order to stay afloat. Gabriela Acero and Derek Richard, a couple featured in our recent story “
wolfpeach, a new chophouse with a Maine twist, to open in Camden,” have reviewed their original restaurant plans under these circumstances. Their restaurant, wolfpeach, has not yet opened. Instead, they have decided to kick off their grand opening this spring as a barbeque joint until the industry inches back to normal.
“We knew that wolfpeach wasn’t going to work without doing indoor dining,” said Acero. “Originally, we planned on offering wolfpeach’s food as a take-out model, but we decided it would be more practical to offer modified barbeque takeout as a temporary placeholder until we feel it s truly safe to open for indoor dining.”
CAMDEN Many wondered what would become of the classic Scottish pub Drouthy Bear after owners Andrew and Shannon Stewart announced last May that the COVID-19 virus restrictions on their beloved pub had forced them to permanently close.
The Midcoast community will be happy to know that the building has been purchased and is currently being renovated by Camden newcomers Gabriela Acero and Derek Richard to become a new restaurant. With a new aesthetic and flair, the restaurant will be called wolfpeach the name in lower case which comes from
Lycopersicum, the scientific name for ‘tomato’.
“It has all come together rather quickly,” said Acero.