A new pub, a new vintage record store and an existing home goods shop are expected to open later this month in a prominent section of downtown Ellsworth.
While the three businesses will occupy the large, open space at 142 Main St., much of it will be filled by Black Moon Public House, including a massive antique wooden bar that owner Katina Stanwood rescued from a storage barn in Pennsylvania.
The space, where J.J. Newberry Co. and later home goods store J&B Atlantic operated for several years, is on the corner of Main and Franklin streets, just a stone’s throw from City Hall. The space will be called Newberry Exchange, in homage to the former five-and-dime business that operated there for decades.
Stanwood and her partner, Steve Peer, have been laboring with professional woodworkers to restore and piece together the 30-foot long bar, which occupies a good portion of the long wall along Franklin Street. The bar and a newly assembled open kitchen — similar to one a few doors up at Flexit Cafe, where Stanwood recently worked — stretch more than 80 feet along the 13-foot high wall, helping to fill the large, open 3,800 square-foot space.
Other businesses that will share the open space with the pub are Vinyl Vogue, a retro record and electronics shop, and Trio, an existing home goods store on Main Street that plans to move from its current location.
Stanwood said she, Vinyl Vogue owner Matt Manry and Leslie Harlow, a longtime local businessperson and co-owner of Trio, envision Newberry Exchange as a community gathering spot where people can seamlessly walk back and forth between the businesses, getting drinks and bites to eat as they browse through record bins or shop shelves. Seating tables will occupy the middle of the space, with the businesses stretched along the side and back walls.
“This building is iconic to downtown Ellsworth,” Stanwood said. “It’s a large space. It’s nice to use it for three different businesses.”
In addition to the space’s history as a store for home goods, it has served a variety of purposes over the years. It most recently was home to Sugar Mags, a candy store and play space that closed in December. In the eight years since J&B Atlantic closed, it also has been used as an event space that hosted the Downeast Cider + Cheese Festival, forums for local political candidates, and a winter’s farmer’s market and holiday pop-up market.
Stanwood said that her pub will not be a full-service restaurant. It will serve small plates of food that are familiar to most people, but it won’t offer standard fried or grilled pub fare such as burgers or fish-and-chips. Instead, Black Moon will offer salads, baked items including hand pies, vegetarian dishes that can have sausages or other proteins added, and snacks such as hot pretzels and pan-fried goat cheese balls, among other things.
For drinks, the pub will offer craft cocktails, wine, specialty beers and non-alcoholic drinks. Stanwood has been talking to an eastern Maine brewer about making a specialty beer unique to Black Moon Public House.
“We’re trying to be very creative with the menu,” she said.
The name Black Moon is not a reference to Monday’s eclipse, which drew thousands of people to Maine, according to Stanwood. A black moon is another name for a new moon, she said, and symbolizes a fresh start.
“It goes with the building, and myself,” she said of her new business.
Stanwood said new, suspended ceiling lights are being installed, and she is working on getting all the pub equipment in place and hooked up. She and the other tenants at Newberry Exchange hope to have the space fully open for business by the end of the month.
She said she has openings for experienced bartenders. Anyone interested in applying can contact her at [email protected].