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Bangor Sandwich Company will open next week in a new storefront just feet away from its current downtown location.
The sandwich shop is moving next door to 1 Central St. on June 1, according to owners Joe and Jen Ramos. The space was most recently home to Grind House.
Bangor Sandwich Co. is one of several Bangor businesses that have moved to new downtown spaces in the last year. Multiple new restaurants have also opened recently ahead of the summer season.
Bangor Sandwich Co. opened at 25 Hammond St. in 2020. The new storefront is double the size of that location, including a significant kitchen expansion that is helping the owners add new menu items.
“You can only expand so much in a smaller kitchen,” Jen Ramos said.
In addition to the existing menu of hot and cold sandwiches, salads, pizza and ice cream, nine new items will be available when the new space opens to customers next week: three sandwiches served on homemade focaccia, three wraps and three salads.
There will be no interruption to opening hours during the move, the owners said.
Staff will have more room to spread out in the bigger kitchen, and there will be more space for customers to eat or wait inside. In the smaller shop, people sometimes have to wait outside on busier days, Joe Ramos said. The new storefront on the corner of Central and Hammond is also more visible to people downtown, he added.
As the Hammond Street store started to feel cramped, the owners considered other options outside the downtown area. But when the space next door opened up, it felt perfect, Joe Ramos said. The corner store has been vacant since The Grind House abruptly closed a year ago.
Joe and Jen Ramos bought the business in 2022 after moving back to the Bangor area with plans to retire — Joe worked as an engineer and Jen as a social worker and educator. But they were immediately bored and “had always talked a lot about owning a little restaurant,” Jen Ramos said. Two years after buying Bangor Sandwich Co., they also opened Orrington Pizza.
For the couple, the restaurant business is more about the people than anything else. They hire mostly high school and college students, as well as young people exiting the Calvary Chapel drug and alcohol rehab program, Joe Ramos said. The pair train their staff to take on leadership responsibilities and feel confident running the store.
“There’s not too many jobs where 16-year-olds can be leaders,” Jen Ramos said.
The shop will keep the same hours, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
