photo/Kiki J. Garfield
No, it’s not going to be a Hooters.
This past April Fools’ Day, the local marketing firm Portland Old Port posted an image on social media of the long-shuttered Dry Dock Restaurant & Tavern on Commercial Street as the newest location of the infamous titties ’n’ wings chain, slated to open this fall.
“My social media started blowing up, and I was seeing that [post],” said Steve Goodrich, the payments-processing executive and real-estate investor who bought the property in early 2016. “I thought, Oh, that’s pretty clever, right? Anybody that knows Portland knows they don’t do chain restaurants.”
So Goodrich reposted it that day to his own Facebook page, “confirming” the joke’s announcement. “The battle with the City about name and imagery is nearly over and we couldn’t be more excited!” he wrote. “We realize the concept might not be for everyone, but Portland is inclusive and over time we will fit right in.”
“Well that’s a drag,” commented former Portland City Councilor Dory Waxman. Holy Donut founder Leigh Kellis just wrote, “Oh god.” But many others heartily congratulated Goodrich. “You’re gonna make a fortune, again,” one pal wrote.
“People that know me really well knew I was spoofing them, but I was shocked how many people thought it was real,” Goodrich said during an interview in late May at the Speckled Ax coffee shop on Thames Street, a couple blocks east of his derelict building.
The public’s confusion is understandable, as this property’s been a puzzler for many years now. Why is this two-story waterfront restaurant and bar, with its beautiful views and decades of history as a fun spot for locals and tourists alike, sitting empty and gathering graffiti summer after busy summer? Goodrich, who also owns the wharf (Maine Wharf) behind this building and has bought, sold and developed numerous major properties in Southern Maine, ain’t hurtin’ for cash. Is this another case of someone with more money than they can spend not caring whether the buildings they own are occupied or not?
Well, kinda. The PowerPay founder, whose latest payment-processing company is called EasyPay Solutions, doesn’t need rent from The Dry Dock to make ends meet, and he acknowledged his development of this property has been slow. He bought it eight years ago for $1.7 million from Jim Finley and his business partner, Dale Weeks, who’d been running the place with his wife, Jeannine Larochelle, since the early 1980s. Prior to that, the building was occupied by Randall & McAllister, a purveyor of coal, oil and ice that served fishing boats and cargo ships via train tracks that ran the length of Maine Wharf. (Among the items Goodrich had removed was a huge safe that kept the literal boat loads’ of cash R&M routinely accrued.)
Intent on renovating the restaurant, Goodrich closed it in 2017 to prepare for construction, but was “overly optimistic about our ability to get a plan approved, [and] also a little slow to pull the plan together and get it in front of the city. We finally did — and there was the working waterfront moratorium.”
That was half a decade ago.
Goodrich’s expansion plans weren’t grand — the two decks would be a bit bigger, and a new structure adjacent to the original building would house a kitchen to replace cooking space in the leaky basement. But pressured by fishermen and activists to curtail non-marine uses at the water’s edge, the city temporarily banned new construction in the area even in cases where, like this project, no dock space or other marine infrastructure would be lost.
The moratorium was eventually lifted, COVID shut the world down, then the world reopened, but The Dry Dock did not. Goodrich was in no hurry — “I just really kind of ran out of momentum,” he said — but he was occasionally discussing the tavern’s rebirth with several big players in Portland’s restaurant scene, including Shipyard Brewing founder Fred Forsley, who Goodrich said was interested in making it another Sea Dog Brewing location, and Josh Miranda (proprietor of Blyth & Burrows, Papi, Via Vecchia, Henry’s Public House, and the new Off-Track Pizza in the Old Port), who wanted to make it a Hooters. (Just kidding … about the Hooters part.)
Then Goodrich said he was approached by Luke and Brian Holden of Luke’s Lobster, whose family seafood business has a wholesale and production side as well as a restaurant operation in 10 states and two Asian nations, including the gorgeous “Shack” at the end of Portland Pier. The Holdens had the same question every local did: “What the heck are you doing with that thing over there?” Goodrich recalled. “And I’m like, ‘I gotta do something with it, because it’s at a point where it’s a little embarrassing, to be candid, just sitting there.”
The main entrance, a wood-and-glass door inside an arched brick entryway with handsome granite accents, is covered with stickers and tags. Blacked-out and boarded-up windows abound, and there’s a decent stash of only slightly crushed returnable beer cans beneath the once hoppin’ waterfront decks.
Goodrich said he’s already “pretty much done” with the process of getting city approval to renovate the building, and is “very close” to sealing the deal with the Holdens — “we’ve basically shaken hands on it,” he said. Construction could begin by the end of this summer, and the reborn restaurant could be open by the end of this year. The initial renovation plan has only been slightly modified, and promises to open the space up for even more beautiful views, even from inside.
The Holdens are inclined to keep calling it The Dry Dock, Goodrich said, but he’s keen to rebrand it as Randall & McAllister. Seems there’s an easy compromise here that can please everyone. Shorten Dry Dock to DD, nickname it Double D’s, hire some buxom help and … oh god, nevermind.
