Alone for the evening I took myself to Fore Street to sit at the bar for dinner. It opened on June 24th, one of the first major restaurants in the city to offer inside dining. Then I felt somewhat uncertain. Is it safe to be dining inside?
Fore Street has always enjoyed the vital buzz of a busy, popular, fine dining establishment, a comforting continuity. Far from being a hulking relic of the old order, how would they handle the new reality of inside dining?
In purity, the Fore Street polished concrete bar looked like a still life
In many such other cities as New York, indoor dining is still not a reality. Yet restaurants try to figure out models that can keep them alive. Curbside pick-up helped pay some of the rent and operating costs. New outside dining in Portland has an obvious short life span when cool weather arrives in a few months. But once a restaurant reports that one of its workers has covid-19, it must shut down as experienced this week at Eventide and Honey Paw; it may give diners pause to dine in public inside or out.
In its heyday, the former Gotham Bar and Grill in New York (photo, New York Magazine) is now closed after founding chef Portale left and successor just didn’t generate enough interest
Then what? Inside bookings will still only be at 50 percent of normal capacity. Yet restaurants all over Portland are erecting outdoor dining rooms. Maybe these will have 10 tables at most. Fore Street, however, has a huge covered outdoor dining room in the works erected in the parking lot. The hope is to replicate indoor-dining capacities. Though I pity the wait staff who must carry the food trays down those steep stone steps from atop the hill.
The relatively quiet reception area; but the lofty room is still a dazzler
