Ellsworth is hoping to bring two new food vendors to its city-owned Harbor Park this summer.
The city has historically only had one vendor at the site, though the Harbor Commission’s chair Mark Remick has pushed for more. Now they’re hoping to attract an additional vendor due to the park’s continued popularity, Remick said.
The city issued this week a request for proposals for up to two businesses to offer summertime food concession services at Harbor Park, the Water Street site where the city’s boat ramp and marina are located on the Union River.
For the past couple of years, Salsa Shack was the primary summertime food vendor at the park, though its owner Cory LaForge says he likely won’t return this year since opening a restaurant in Bucksport last December.
Ellsworth only received one food vendor bid in 2023 — LaForge’s, Remick said. The city has flirted with the idea of adding another vendor to the park for about a decade, but a lack of bids have complicated that effort, he added.
LaForge’s departure from Harbor Park operations leaves an opening for new vendors, though the city will be careful to choose businesses that are “complementary, not competitive” to one another, Remick said.
While there is space for a second food option at the harbor, the city wants to preserve the site’s tranquility and prevent a “carnival” with too many vendors, Remick said.
“It’s the best kept secret in the country,” Remick said.
Remick says residents enjoy the harbor’s changing tides throughout the day, but the parking lot is often filled around mealtimes, when visitors can spot ospreys and eagles while eating at the park’s picnic tables and under its gazebo.
LaForge, who opened a physical location of his ‘Maine-Mex’ food truck last year, first started serving authentic street tacos at Harbor Park in the summer of 2023. Busy with his new restaurant, LaForge says he’s pausing food truck operations — for now. He hopes to restart the food truck model by next year, LaForge said.
Before LaForge, the city’s wastewater superintendent Michael Harris and his family operated Harborside Takeout at the park between 2017 and 2022. The city issued a request for proposals for other vendors in 2022, in part because Harborside’s removable shed was limiting space in the park’s overflow lot.
Remick doesn’t expect a dramatic surge in the park’s use in the years to come, but he has heard of mounting interest for adding more commercial space to the marine services section of the harbor. Currently, the majority of the small harbor is crowded by pleasure boats, and only a small number are taken up by commercial fishermen, he said.
