Midcoast Entrepreneurs: Bright Ideas, Creativity and Enterprise
From restaurateurs to artists, and everything in between, the Midcoast is beaming with creatives and innovators in all mediums.
Since the inception of PenBayPilot.com, a collective goal of our writers has been to spotlight entrepreneurs and their creativity. Now, we have established a hub for our stories about the Midcoast’s entrepreneurs to permanently reside.
We encourage our readers to support as many local business owners as possible across as many industries as you can. Our neighbors need our support, so please browse through this hub for potential purchases or places to eat.
Day Trips: Marsh River Cooperative
BROOKS—As Marsh River Cooperative’s manager Matthew McKillop will tell you, “You’d be surprised to know there’s a lot going on in Brooks.”
A tiny town in Waldo County with a population of little more than 1,000 has a gem of a store anchoring the center of town. The Marsh River Co-op is a year-round agricultural cooperative and retail market for artisans with nearly 200 producer and consumer members.
The building, which used to be Paul and Audrey’s hardware store, became the… Read more
The story behind this stunning photo
CAMDEN—There’s a passage in “The Great Gatsby” where the narrator Nick observes Jay Gatsby reaching his arms out at the end of a dock to embrace what looks like green light across the water. The literary device symbolizes Gatsby’s hopes and dreams for a brighter (less depressive) future.
A digital photograph that film producer Josh Povec took with a Sony A7iii across the bay in Camden 90 minutes after sunset in October is the green light we all need right now. It is from the vantage… Read more
From a bad decision to ‘Betty The Brilliant ArtVan’
BELFAST—An old 1980s Toyota Huntsman camper van that had been sitting in Larraine Brown’s backyard for about a month has come back to life as a traveling art van. Rechristened “Betty The Brilliant ArtVan,” the camper is like a Bookmobile, only with art.
Brown, a board member of the Belfast Area Community Coalition, dba Artivism In Maine (AIMe), is candid about Betty’s origins.
“It was a bad buy,” she… Read more
Shop Local Spotlight: Maine Women’s Business Directory
PORTLAND—Sometimes a brilliant idea for a new business is just a phone call away.
For Sarah Guerette, Director of the CEI Women’s Business Center, that idea sprung from multiple phone calls to the center, which assists aspiring female entrepreneurs.
“We get calls all of the time from individuals who want to shop from women-owned businesses or from institutions looking to hire women specifically,” she said. “And there was no state directory available.”
In the last year… Read more
Shop Local: Three upcycled, reclaimed unique Maine gifts
For the holidays, we’re shining the spotlight on Maine craftspeople. Shop locally and support innovators and entrepreneurs who keep the creative economy alive in this state. Each week, until the end of December, we will bring you this series until you can’t take it anymore. Ready. Set. Go.
Reclaimed Maine Buoys
Portland, Maine
… Read moreA farmer just took over a mini golf course and the result is a wild new business
ROCKPORT—Farmer Mary Nelson née Clayton and her husband, Tom, recently bought the nearly 40-year-old Cardinal Cove Mini Golf Center and an adjacent house with big plans for its future.
The first floor of the house, on Commercial Street in Rockport, which used to be an arcade, has turned into a small retail space for Nelson’s natural-made products called Bee Wild Farmacy. She just held her grand opening Sunday, November 21.
Having grown up in Rockland, Nelson moved to central… Read more
Knitted hats with a naughty message
ROCKPORT—Sometimes you just want to say things you can’t out loud. Liz Polkinghorn, a knitter, understands that need, and designs the type of hat that ”allows you to put all the things you'd like to say out loud, but sometimes just can’t, onto your hat instead.”
Her hand-knitted hats have become a home business called Bespolk Hats. It can sometimes take a whole day to custom create with 100 percent wool and pom poms of real fur, faux fur or cotton. And her biggest seller is a word… Read more
Environmentally conscious Symmetree Base Camp sets up shop in Camden
CAMDEN—The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. In this case, the tree is Cynthia Trone, a long-time resident of Camden and the apple is her son, Jackson Berger, whose Oregon-based outdoor clothing store, Symmetree, has now branched out to become Trone’s retail shop on Bay View Street that goes by the name Symmetree Base Camp.
Trone, who used to manage the former location of The Grasshopper Shop when it was on Bay View Street in the 1980s, has come full circle, back to her retail… Read more
Searsport gains Rio’s Spiked Café with a European flair
SEARSPORT—Just five minutes over the Belfast bridge heading north on Route 1 sits the newly opened Rio’s Spiked Café, a European-style tapas bar and eatery. Owners Oana and Russell Manton who also own the adjoining business park, were avid worldwide travelers before the pandemic put a halt to their adventures. Self-described foodies, the couple decided if they couldn’t go to Europe to sample the food at the present time, they’d instead, bring Europe to Maine.
… Read moreDominique K. Woodward ready to help Mainers create ‘empowering’ plan to live their best life
THOMASTON — After coming to partaking in a personal healing journey and identifying her primary purpose in life, Thomaston resident Dominique K. Woodward has established a life coaching business, Dominique K. Woodward LLC, to help Mainers conquer what may be troubling them whether it be related to health and fitness, mindsets, post-traumatic growth or any other life issue.
“I was always curious about why people do the things they do and say the things they say,” Woodward said, in… Read more