PORTLAND, Maine — The lunchtime line for takeout and sit-down meals at Slab Sicilian Street Food on Preble Street spilled out the door and onto the sidewalk on Thursday.
Students from Baxter Academy picked up stacks of individual pizza slices. A woman in a FedEx uniform carried out a whole pie. A bearded man said he’d like to sit down and the harried host waved him toward an open table while also fulfilling a pick-up order.
“We’ve sold out of pizza every day this week,” General Manager Christopher Bassett said. “It feels like we’ve done a whole year’s worth of business in just a few days.”
Business is booming, but it’s too little, too late.
Earlier this week, citing an extended dearth of customers, Bassett announced Slab would close its doors for good on Saturday, ending a 10-year run and putting nearly two-dozen people out of work.
“It’s just not enough to get us out of the hole we’ve been digging for the past two years,” Bassett said of Thursday’s crowd.
Still, Bassett said he’s not bitter about the late-stage run on Slab’s thick, rectangular hunks of pizza slathered with sauce and fixings. Instead of sour irony, it tastes more like a savory blessing and a fine way to say goodbye, he said.
“People have been leaving us sweet notes on credit card receipts,” Bassett said, “saying they’ll miss us.”
One person drew a weeping face replete with a multitude of tears.
When asked if they were there because Slab was closing, almost everyone on the sidewalk raised their hand in agreement on Thursday.
“It’s my last chance to get a slice of pizza, I guess,” said Bill Melcher, who works nearby and used to eat lunch there frequently.
Todd Reutlinger drove all the way from Rumford, though he used to live nearby on Cumberland Avenue.
“We tried to get some on Tuesday, but they were already sold out,” Reutlinger said. “I’m here for the classic slab with cheese.”
Gregin Doxsee was waiting in line for Slab’s muffaletta. Doxsee said she wishes she’d known the restaurant was in financial trouble because she would have come more often.
“My money is my voice,” Doxsee said. “But how can a restaurant send out an SOS without seeming to be too dramatic? Nobody wants to admit business is bad.”
In addition to the food, Doxsee said she would also miss the pre-pandemic music nights Slab used to host before noise complaints silenced the bands.
After the restaurant goes dark on Saturday, Bassett said he’ll be focusing on Slab’s grocery store frozen pizza business, currently housed in a small facility on Oak Street. Thinking long term, he’d like to build a larger facility, employ more people and ramp up production.
For now, Slab fans can still get the fresh version — but for only a couple more days, and as long as they get there early.
“Right now, we’ve got a 30 to 40 minute wait,” Bassett said to the swelling crowd waiting outside his restaurant on Thursday.
A few people, near the end of the line, shrugged and looked at each other but nobody walked away.
