If the four existing pizza joints in Waldoboro have not been enough to sate the cravings for a delicious cheese-covered delight, fear not – one new option has just opened and two more are on the way.
Each with their own angle, the newly-opened The Lower Deck and the forthcoming Harvest Moon Pizza and Progressive Country Store will all be battling for the town’s pizza dollars along with the long standing Flipper’s Market, The Movie Pizza Shoppe, Goodnow’s Variety Store, and Maritime Farms.
The Lower Deck, which opened on Sept. 15, is located on the back side of the commercial block of Friendship Street.
Facing west by southwest towards the Medomak River, The Lower Deck sports primarily outdoor seating – which features an outdoor heater to help as the temperatures drop – and limited indoor seating, with the potential to expand both, according to manager Colleen Reynolds.
Though primarily a take-out stop, the tables at the little restaurant have been full every night since it opened, Reynolds said.
The business is also considering offering a delivery service, a void not currently filled by any of the existing pizza places in town.
“Especially because of football,” Reynolds said. “How great is it to stay home and have a party and have pizza delivered?”
The details, such as a delivery radius or any sort of related charge, are yet to be ironed out, Reynolds said.
Reynolds said The Lower Deck has tried to set itself apart from its competitors via its menu, which includes a white pizza using Reynolds’ own home-made Alfredo sauce recipe and a “circus pizza,” which is topped with hot dogs and popcorn (added after the pizza comes out of the oven).
“Circus pizza; no one has that,” Reynolds said. “It’s my daughter’s favorite.”
The Margarita pizza is another stand-out, since it uses olive oil and garlic in place of tomato sauce, Reynolds said.
“We sell so much of it,” she said. “The steak and cheese pizza; we sell so much of that, too.”
Not solely pizza, The Lower Deck offers alternatives such as “lunch boxes” of fried seafood and chicken tenders, hot and cold sandwiches, salads, freshly made potato chips, and “dough knots,” fried pieces of dough with or without cinnamon and sugar.
Of the two yet-to-be-opened pizza joints, it is anyone’s guess as to which will open first.
Bennett Collins is the owner of Harvest Moon Pizza, a mobile wood-fired pizza operation which he plans to expand with a restaurant in the space previously occupied by the Pine Cone Cafe on Friendship Street.
Collins said he plans to tap into the local food scene and provide an avenue for consumers to satisfy their demand for food made of locally grown ingredients.
Most food businesses buy from national distributors, which Collins said he is not immune to, but he described his goal as switching as much of that over to a higher percentage of local resources.
Buying local food and supporting the area’s farmers and fishermen will help create both infrastructure and more jobs locally instead of going out of state, Collins said.
The challenge for any business to change to buying locally is the reality that it is cheap and easy to buy products from the national chains, and a business has to get the public’s attention to educate them about the issue, Collins said.
“Pizza is a perfect example” of how to get someone’s attention, Collins said. “Everybody eats pizza.”
The restaurant will not, at least to start, be wood-fired like the mobile portion of the business, Collins said.
The mobile pizza oven is used primarily to cater events like weddings and parties, but is also used at local events like Waldoboro Day, the Round Pond Independence Day parade, and the Damariscotta Pumpkinfest.
“There’s a lot of demand for the portable oven, for what we do and how we do it,” he said.
Plans are to leave (mostly) intact the wooden booths left over from the Pine Cone Cafe, but the rear half of the large kitchen – which offers views of the river – are planned as a bar or lounge area, Collins said.
The goal is to be open for business sometime this coming fall or winter, to be ready for the next summer season, he said.
Collins said he believes the new pizza places will be able to co-exist if they are able to offer different things for different people.
“If we differentiate ourselves, if we all have something different to offer,” he said.
Finally, the third new option will be the Progressive Country Store, planned to open in the old Progressive Grange on Route 32.
Mike Sands, currently of Vermont, is planning to open the new store once he sells his current house and moves to a farm he bought with his sister and brother-in-law on Route 220.
Sands bought the grange in June 2012, and since has made improvements to the septic, electrical system, and roof.
Despite his plans to serve pizza at the store, Sands said Progressive Country Store will be basically as far from a pizza joint as it can be.
“I’ll serve pizza, because I have a stone oven, but I’ll be cooking a lot more in that stone oven,” he said.
Focusing more on a lunch and early dinner crowd, Sands said he plans the store more as a farmer’s market with fresh produce, local meats, and prepared meals.
“I don’t foresee myself on the pizza side of things where I’ll be open until 10 o’clock at night,” Sands said. “I really see myself that local spot where I can get all the local farmers together, and their products,” he said.
One way or another, Sands said he plans to be open by next spring.
