Eating a whaleboat calzone stuffed with lemon haddock, cheese, fresh spinach, and tomato while enjoying a breeze off the Sheepscot River and watching the lines of people queuing up at Red’s Eats and the lines of traffic heading north over the Davey Bridge is a unique pleasure that will be missed when Sarah’s Cafe closes its doors for the last time on Friday, June 23.
Opening on Route 1 in Wiscasset in 1987, Sarah’s Cafe, with its distinctive yellow awnings and its family-friendly flavors, quickly became a destination point for summer travelers and a favorite year-round spot for locals.
It started with pizza and grew to a four page menu with something for everyone from the kids menu to the classic dishes like the whaleboats or the haddock shepherd’s pie, baked in a creamy sauce, studded with peas and topped with mashed potatoes.
Everything is fresh, local, and made from scratch, restaurant owner Sarah Heald said during a phone interview on Monday, June 19.
The desserts are all made in house too — blueberry pie, German chocolate cake, cream puffs, and cheesecake with a 1/2 inch-thick layer of solid chocolate on top.
“There isn’t a mix in this place,” Heald said.
Many items have been on the menu since the cafe first opened. Heald said she relied on her customers to tell her what they loved.
For Ronald Witham, of Clinton, it’s all about the soup bar — three different offerings daily.
“Any time my wife and I are on our way to Boothbay, we make sure we stop in here to eat,” he said.
Kendall and Cheryl Brown from Grand Blanc, Mich. both grew up in Maine and have been coming to Sarah’s on their travels back and forth from Michigan for the last 25 years. Cheryl Brown loves “the killer fish chowder,” but said her favorite menu item ever was a raspberry pie.
“It was to die for,” she said.
Patricia Jennings, of Bristol, and Judy Getchell, of Dresden, made a point of stopping by for lunch after a swim at the Wiscasset Community Center.
“We wanted to get here before it closes,” Getchell said.
“But we’re not done yet,” Jennings said.
Unable to resist the allure of saucer-sized chocolate-chip cookies by the door, they waited as hostess Sonny Cumming sat a table of nine, locals showing off the river view to visitors from Texas.
Jennings called Sarah’s Cafe “a high bar” for new owners to aim for.
“It’s got a history,” she said.
Head server Lisa Arsenault has worked at Sarah’s for more than 20 years, starting in 1991. She left a couple of times but returned in 2004 and has worked there since.
“It’s … always been my failsafe place to come back,” she said. “We’re all kind of family here.”
Arsenault is glad, though, that Heald is able to retire.
“She definitely deserves the rest. She’s a hard worker – she’s been on her feet for years,” Arsenault said.
She’ll miss the food, though. Her favorite item is the cabin girl – spinach, tomato, red onion, mushrooms, sour cream, mozzarella, and cheddar wrapped inside fresh-made dough. She likes the tang sour cream adds to the vegetarian plate. The cabin girl was one of the very first dishes Heald added to the menu and it has remained a customer favorite over the years.
Arsenault will miss her regular customers too.
“I had one girl cry the other day — just broke down in tears,” she said.
Andy Smith is one of the cooks at Sarah’s, a skill he learned on the job. He used to work construction before he moved to Maine four years ago and started what he thought would be a temporary position. He learned to bake, something he’d never done before.
“There’s a recipe book downstairs that I picked away at and figured out as I went along,” he said. “Now I can make cakes or pie crust from scratch. Never thought I’d be able to do that.”
Smith said he may go back to construction when the cafe closes. He’ll miss it, though.
“I made some friends here,” he said.
For many of Lincoln County’s younger residents, Sarah’s was often a first job, and they grew up working there.
Cumming started in 2020 while she was still in high school and worked at the cafe during her junior and senior years. She studies film and literature at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland now, but is back in Maine for the summer.
“I’ll miss the soup,” she said. She hasn’t found any as good anywhere else. “I’m going to go through haddock chowder withdrawal.”
Kerry Heald, Sarah Heald’s nephew, has worked at the restaurant for six years now; it’s the only place he’s ever worked. While he’ll miss the pizza — “I have at least one a day,” he said — he’s glad his aunt is retiring.
“She’s been working since she was 16,” he said. “I think she deserves it.”
Sarah Heald’s brother Stephen orders takeout pizza a couple of times a week.
“I’ve eaten my sister’s cooking ever since she was a tiny, tiny child. It’s always great. Like Grandma and Grandpa and our mother … She’s a great cook,” he said.
Stephen Heald believes the town of Wiscasset and the surrounding area “have been … fortunate to have such a good local business lady who helps even in the hardest of times.”
Sarah Heald has a history of generosity to local causes and often donated to the food banks, the schools, the hospitals, “and anybody who asked for help,” she said.
“It’s my nature to give,” Heald said. “You’ve got to give back.”
The future of Sarah’s Cafe and the location where it thrived for so long is in the process of being solidified, and after working seven days a week for more than four decades, Sarah Heald is looking forward to relaxing.
She has a couple of donkeys to take care of on the old farm where she lives and a stack of books she wants to read. Still, she choked up as she talked about the staff and customers who have supported her for so many years.
“I’ll miss everyone; my customers, my friends here at work,” she said. “I just want the best for my crew … They support me and I support them. It’s hard for me to talk about. My big thing is to thank everyone for keeping my business alive for so many years.”
Sarah’s Cafe received its last food order the morning of Monday, June 19 and Sarah Heald plans to serve up to the very last minute, “as long as the food holds out.”
