An Ellsworth woman is planning to open a new cafe and bakery in a brick building that for decades was home to the city’s weekly newspaper.
The space, at 30 Water St., has been mostly empty since the Ellsworth American newspaper moved its offices out and sold the building in 2019, after it consolidated its operations in its adjacent printing house, which it still owns. The weekly newspaper had occupied the Water Street building since 1931.
Now, Gabrielle Conners is planning to open a cafe and bakery in the former newspaper offices. Conners, who grew up in East Machias, studied baking and pastry in a nine-month program at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Cambridge, Massachusetts and more recently has worked at restaurants in Ellsworth.
The restaurant is the latest business to set its sights on Ellsworth, which in recent years has become a popular destination for area residents who want to patronize local shops or get a bite to eat. The former Ellsworth American building is one of the few spaces downtown that has been vacant in recent years.
Conners said the business will be called Chloe’s Cafe, after the family cat she grew up with. Conners, 29, has been working recently as a substitute teacher in the Ellsworth school system, but plans to devote herself full-time to her new business. She aims to open at the latest by Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which is Jan. 20.
“I’d like to be open sooner,” she said, adding that she is waiting on paperwork from the state.
Conners said she is renting the first floor from the building owner and is installing a kitchen toward the back of the large front room, separated from the seating area by a counter. There will be no table service, she said, but customers can order their food at the counter and then seat themselves. She said she is licensed to seat up to 40 people in the cafe.
The cafe will be open for breakfast and lunch. It will offer traditional breakfast fare and cold sandwiches and salads for lunch, and will have an espresso machine for making specialty coffee drinks. It will have a grab-and-go cooler of pre-made items for people who are short on time.
She does not plan to serve more traditional fast food fare such as hot dogs, hamburgers or french fries.
“We’re trying to do healthy things,” Conners said.
She said she also plans to offer events such as cookie-making nights for young families, and to host and cater private parties.
Most of the work in converting the space into a restaurant has been completed at this point but, with two young children, she is not pushing herself to open by the end of the year.
“There’s not a lot of prep work left to do,” Conners said.
