Brewer sets hopes on Muddy Rudder

BREWER – Even before the doors opened for business at 4 p.m. Tuesday, patrons were lined up at the front door of the Muddy Rudder, a new restaurant on the city’s waterfront that city officials hope will spur similar developments along the Penobscot River.

The crowd was hardly surprising, given the buzz the seafood restaurant has generated in the area. City Manager Stephen Bost said City Hall has fielded dozens of inquiries about when the restaurant was going to open.

After two days of “dress rehearsals” for staff, the nearly 300-seat restaurant officially opened for dinner at the site of the former Harborside restaurant, which closed more than three years ago.

The building, located just off the Joshua Chamberlain Bridge, remained vacant until it was purchased in February by the Maine Course Hospitality Group, owner of the original Muddy Rudder in Yarmouth.

A great deal of work was done in anticipation of Tuesday’s opening. The outside was spruced up and landscaped. Much of the restaurant building’s interior was gutted, rebuilt and redone in soothing shades of sea foam green, the smaller building in the driveway was demolished, the parking area was landscaped and repaved and the main driveway was moved back from the intersection.

According to Jack Crawford, president of Maine Course Hospitality Group, transforming the former Harborside into the Muddy Rudder was a $1.6 million project that involved, among others, an architect, a kitchen designer, interior decorators and a marketing firm.

In Phase II, which Crawford said is planned for next year, the restaurant’s top floor will be overhauled and turned into space for gatherings of up to 150 people.

The Muddy Rudder’s specialty is fresh seafood. The Muddy Rudder in Brewer is modeled after the original one on Route 1 in Yarmouth, overlooking the Cousins River. While the Brewer menu is essentially the same as Yarmouth’s, the decor for the Brewer site will reflect the history and heritage of the Penobscot River.

“To me, this is a first step in the renaissance in economic development, not only here on the waterfront but all over the city,” noted Mayor Michael Celli, who was among the opening night patrons, along with the rest of the Brewer City Council and several city administrators.

The restaurant occupies a key waterfront site. It’s one of the first things visitors see as they cross the Joshua Chamberlain Bridge into Brewer. The site also is located at the convergence of Wilson, North Main and South Main streets, three of the city’s primary travel routes. The site offers views of the Penobscot River, both from inside and from its 60-seat patio overlooking the river.

In fact, while the city’s waterfront redevelopment plan was being hammered out, the Muddy Rudder was identified – by name – as the kind of business that members of the waterfront advisory panel and others wanted to one day see on the site.