The owners of the Blue Spoon restaurant in Portland plan to open a new cafe in the old Aurora Provisions space at 64 Pine St. on the city’s West End. Staff photo by John Patriquin

Liz Koenigsberg and Will Lavey, owners of the Blue Spoon restaurant on Congress Street in Portland, plan to open a new breakfast and lunch cafe in the former home of Aurora Provisions, the West End market and cafe that closed last year after more than 20 years in business.

Koenigsberg, general manager of the Blue Spoon, and her husband, its executive chef, will also use the building at 64 Pine St. for their catering business, which they have been running out of Fork Food Lab because the kitchen at Blue Spoon is too small. Koenigsberg was the manager and wedding coordinator at Aurora Provisions for about a year before the popular cafe closed. She is also a former owner of Petite Jacqueline.

The West End building was sold in January for $1,075,000 to local developer Tom Landry, who said at the time that he was interested in finding someone who could create a neighborhood gathering space similar to Aurora Provisions.

Koenigsberg said they don’t plan any immediate major renovations.

The Blue Spoon Cafe will be a casual breakfast and lunch space serving simple food such as scones, muffins, tea breads and breakfast sandwiches for breakfast; and chicken salad and BLTs for lunch, Koenigsberg said. It will be a place where people can come work for an hour, meet kids after school or have a morning meeting over coffee. The cafe will have about the same amount of seats as before, around 30.

The new owners also plan to sell prepared foods to go and keep a little of Aurora Provisions’ market style but focus more on products made solely in-house, such as burger buns, English muffins, sauces, stocks and pantry items. Koenigsberg said they will offer wine and beer to carry out.

Koenigsberg said they also hope to showcase products from the farms they work with at their restaurant in the East End. For example, they may use pork from Broad Arrow Farm in Bristol or vegetables from Stonecipher Farm in Bowdoinham in the cafe’s food and sell the farms’ products in the market.

Koenigsberg expects to open the cafe in the beginning of May.

 


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