GARDINER — After a difficult summer, Brandi Kennerson decided to rebrand her restaurant, The Blind Pig, to be more competitive and cost-effective.

With a capacity of 150 during the warm months the restaurant had become difficult to run, especially when people would stop in before a show at nearby Johnson Hall. The kitchen could not keep up with the number of orders in a short dinner period, and the menu became expensive to maintain.

So Kennerson, along with her co-owner and husband, Roland Kennerson, decided to downsize and offer a more consistent menu.

They came up with 266 StillWater, which opened Wednesday night at 266 Water St. and offers a new take on classic Italian meals to create food variety in Greater Augusta.

“As much as I wanted to do high-end pub food, everyone does that,” Brandi Kennerson said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s McDonalds or The Depot Sports Pub, it doesn’t matter how fresh the burger is, they could be like, ‘I’ll get the burger down the road for $2 cheaper.’ That’s the way the economy is.”

Kennerson bought The Blind Pig in 2019, when Johnson Hall was expected to open in a year. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020 and the restaurant closed for three months, before expanding the space to accommodate social distancing.

Then reaching 90 seats plus 50 more outdoors, it became too difficult to serve people — especially a packed restaurant before a Johnson Hall concert — which they experienced this year when the concert hall opened in the spring. The idea of downsizing floated in Kennerson’s mind, but instead, after speaking with her kitchen staff on what cuisines they make best, they decided to rebrand to 266 StillWater, an Italian restaurant with nearly 60 seats.

The interior view of 266 StillWater, formerly The Blind Pig Tavern in downtown Gardiner, is shown Thursday. It is located on Water Street next to Johnson Hall Opera House.  Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

The restaurant’s name comes from the Abenaki name for the Kennebec River, which is located across the street from the restaurant.

“It’s just a move we have to make,” she explained. “We have to do what we can.”

In addition to the difficulty of operating with a large space, Kennerson said the price of goods have gone up considerably, too. When the restaurant first opened in 2019, it cost $7 to fill the food fryers with new oil. Now it costs nearly $50, she said, so they got rid of the fryers.

Switching to Italian is more cost-effective because Kennerson can still use local ingredients for the dishes — something she is passionate about.

“It has more crossover, menu-wise. It’s more sustainable; it’s easier and with the food we were doing, I prefer to make everything fresh in-house anyway,” she said. 

Within the next couple of weeks, Kennerson said 266 StillWater will open a 21-and-older game room, with foosball, pool and board games, but they are finishing up construction. The restaurant will also offer grab-and-go meals at the front entrance, as well as hot and iced coffee.

The exterior view of 266 StillWater Restaurant (formerly The Blind Pig Tavern) is shown Thursday in downtown Gardiner. It is located on Water Street next to Johnson Hall Opera House. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

Above the restaurant, where The Blind Pig had its event space, Kennerson is thinking of adding a short-term rental, like an Airbnb, to host Gardiner’s visitors.

Tamara Whitmore, the director of Gardiner Main Street, said the restaurant is very different from The Blind Pig and will be a good addition to Gardiner’s Main Street area, which has attracted several restaurants over the past couple of years such as Bintliff’s Corner Brew and Table Bar.

Witmore likes the idea of the Airbnb because people are visiting Gardiner and it would be a unique place to stay.

“I think it’s going to be really neat. I can see people making a date night out of it before Johnson Hall,” she said. “I think switching to Italian has been something we have missed since ‘Pastas’ left. It’s all positive stuff. It’s really cool.”