photo/Jessie Banhazl
Paul Whitney
Age: 43
Hometown: Winchester, MA
Bar of Choice: Maps
Profession: Cook
Regular Since: 2022
Drink of Choice: Peroni Lager
For a place that’s literally covered in maps, Maps is not easy to find.
Located on Market Street in Portland’s Old Port, Maps is a basement hideaway below the back end of Sherman’s bookshop. Its red double doors reveal a steep stairway into a dark, narrow room where you can enjoy craft and mass-produced beer, tasteful cocktails, slabs of cake and four creative variations on the grilled cheese sandwich. Cartography from around the world hangs from the walls and ceiling, there are shelves of records behind the bar, and a cool one you haven’t heard in years, if ever, is usually spinning on the turntable, at high volume.
It’s inside this cozy cavern that we encountered cook, parent, poet and raconteur Paul Whitney.
You’re originally from Massachusetts. What brought you to Portland?
I have two kids, and my son was graduating high school. My other one wanted to move. I was in a relationship with a girl from Maine, so I was like, “Let’s go and move here.” It made sense. That was almost three years ago. I got to collect unemployment for like a year, which is super unhealthy. It’s probably why I got to meet everybody [laughs]. That’s how I sort of ended up as a cook.
Did you have prior cooking experience before you came to Portland?
No. I mean, I cook for my kids and shit. I’ve made food before. I’ve always been into food. I was like, I could do that.
So, what did you do before you started cooking?
I was with the Laborers’ Local Union 151, Cambridge, Massachusetts! My last five years there was all demolition. I was working at Harvard University and we were wrecking all those dorms and shit. I grew up around construction, so it was cool. I liked it. I’ve had a lot of fucking jobs. My least favorite job was selling commercial real estate, and my favorite job is probably working at Maps.
What was your first?
I started out as a union laborer, so I got into the union when I was nineteen. I did that for like two years, and was just like, Fuck this. Then I started flipping houses with this guy. Sounds crazy. I got my real-estate license, and he was like, “I’m gonna start my own real-estate firm.” I was like, “Sick,” and then I ended up selling commercial real estate with him for like five years, which is cool, sorta, but it felt like I was putting on a mask every day. I was never a suit-and-tie guy, but he liked me because I wasn’t that guy. Everything about working with him I liked, but the business was dog shit. Sales sucks.
How did you end up at Maps?
I have no idea why. Maps is just a fucking sick bar.
What do you like most about Maps?
I like being friends with everybody that works here. There’s like a nurturing culture within their business. They’re people that give a shit, you know what I mean? And I love that. I was a regular, and I ended up working here part-time. It’s kind of cool, and I think it’s super organic.
I hear you write poetry. Tell us about that.
I guess I can be a dork and call it “poetry.” I read at the Portland Poets Society* when I get the chance.
What kind of poetry do you like? What writers are you influenced by?
I hate it when people ask me these questions, but Denis Johnson is probably legitimately the biggest one. And I just like to just read, not always poetry. Like, Andre Dubus is the shit. He wrote a book called Broken Vessels, which I’m rereading right now for like the third time.
How did you get into writing?
I have no idea. I always did it. I had kids crazy young and then everything was a money press. Gotta make money, dude. I was doing a bunch of artistic shit when I was that age. I’m still doing it now, but it’s like, life just shifts in every way possible with kids, and you’re like, fuck!
You said you sometimes read your poems for audiences. Do you publish your stuff?
I’m not competitive, and I don’t give a shit about things enough to be competitive, especially writing. But to be fair, I love [reading at Portland Poets Society]. I love that community that’s in that room*. I’ve read poetry in front of rooms of people most of my adult life, with varying degrees of consistency, but I just actually love that room. There’s no bullshit. That room is dope.
*The Portland Poets Society readings take place the first and third Tuesdays of the month at Lincolns, another bar hidden beneath Market Street, at 7 p.m.
