And if somebody wants to walk in with a big fat check and save us, great,” Nason said, laughing.Ĭhef Melissa Kelly checks on her clams steaming under seaweed while Gordon Ramsay tends to his clam and lobster stew during a visit to Maine. “I think we’ll have a packed house of people coming to say goodbye. Meanwhile, if you’d like to raise a final glass to Grand Central Wine Bar, it will open at 4 p.m. It’s called Sin-Gria, and she said it’s now in about 30 Hannaford stores, “so that’s exciting.” Nason partnered with Sebago Lake Distillery to create a canned sangria infused with rum. “They need to feed their family, too.” ( Short-staffed restaurant owners tell me that cooks and dishwashers are the hardest positions to fill right now.) The remaining two have since found new positions, she said, at restaurants that are paying $20 to $25 an hour, which she couldn’t match. Nason said she lost six of her eight ghost kitchen cooks to better-paying summer restaurant jobs. “I just don’t know how to reinvent this wheel again until I see how this is all gonna come out this summer. “Definitely I’ll be doing something” with it, she said. Nason has also put her takeout-and-delivery-only business, Ghost Karen’s Kitchens in Gorham, on pause until September as she waits to see what happens to the local food scene once the busy tourism season is over. “That’s unfortunate for me, but that’s the truth.” “I think that crowd was more in tune to staying home (during the pandemic) until they really felt comfortable enough to come out,” she said.

Nason said her wine bar had many loyal customers who traveled from places like Portland, Falmouth and Kennebunkport, but her clientele was mostly an older crowd who liked jazz. The agency said it had received more than 278,000 eligible applications representing more than $72.2 billion in requested funds. Small Business Administration announced it was closing the $28.6 billion program after doling out all of the funds to 101,000 restaurants and bars. But she never heard anything, and on Friday the U.S. Nason was hanging her hopes on the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, which she applied for as soon as applications opened. (Nason said she did receive some financial aid, but nothing big enough to save the business.) The wine bar, which also served food, opened in November 2019 – making it too young to qualify for any sizable grants offered during the pandemic to struggling bars and restaurants much of the government aid required a restaurant to submit the previous year’s tax return to qualify. The spiral staircase at Grand Central Wine Bar in Gorham.

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