Thanks for the Memories Potential buyers of Bangor’s historic Pilots Grill contemplate opening a lounge, office space

A year ago this week, Bangor learned it was losing an institution. When Bill Zoidis announced that he was leaving the restaurant business and that Pilots Grill was likely to close, it shocked a lot of people.

But they didn’t stay shocked for long – they made reservations.

From early November until Dec. 31, 2002, Pilots Grill set records for its volume of business.

It had been the site for hundreds of wedding receptions, anniversary parties, bar mitzvahs and prom dinners.

“A lot of people brought their young kids,” Zoidis remembered during an interview this week. “They wanted them to share a piece of that history.”

It all had started in 1939, when Paul Zoidis, Bill’s father, purchased a lot on Hammond Street opposite the airport for a future restaurant.

The business opened in 1940 with Paul’s brothers, Ernie and Peter, joining him in the operation. Bill started working there 10 years later. The restaurant moved twice, in 1945 and in 1956, because of runway expansions at the airport.

When Zoidis retired last year, the building contained 12,000 square feet and had a well-established clientele. Many were surprised that the restaurant didn’t sell.

Almost a year later, Zoidis says the restaurant probably didn’t sell because of its location. He explains that Bangor has become a city where most new restaurants are chain operations, which are expensive to start because of high insurance costs, especially workers’ compensation, and other licensing requirements.

With Pilots Grill being nine miles from the Bangor Mall, chains aren’t interested, he said.

An individual can go into business, but it has to be on a small scale, Zoidis said.

Last February, the equipment and furniture at the grill were sold at auction. Zoidis maintains an office there and it is heated. But it has no phone, only the cell phone that Zoidis carries.

Three people are currently talking with Zoidis about buying the facility. Two would open it as lounges, also selling food, and one would use it as office space.

The brick and glass structure sits on eight acres. Zoidis has divided the land into three pieces. A sale is pending on one of the parcels, the grassy area, with some trees, sitting between the restaurant and Ranger Inn. Of the remaining lots, one is the restaurant and parking area and the other is the land behind it, to the south. Zoidis won’t sell the lot to the south until the future of the building is decided.

He thinks the economy is improving and he’s optimistic that he’ll sell the property.

But where does that leave Bill Zoidis? A good guess would be that a man who worked most of his life from 10 a.m. until 10 p.m., six days a week, isn’t sitting still.

He hopes that efforts to market the Pilots Grill Famous Cheese Spread will keep the name alive forever. If the spread sells well enough, he plans to add some other popular items, such as the crab cakes and baked stuffed shrimp.

Does he regret closing the restaurant?

“Never,” he says. “I lost my fastball; it’s time to go.”

His daughter, Paulette, who had worked at the eatery, didn’t want to run the family business and now sells real estate.

And Bill enjoys being less busy. Last winter he spent 10 weeks in Del Ray Beach, Fla. He explained that he has arthritis and likes to get away from the ice.

And the 74 people who worked there when his restaurant closed?

His two top chefs are semi-retired and the third works at Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor.

“Everyone who wanted a job got one,” Zoidis said. Some of them are at Miller’s Restaurant, the Holiday Inn, Captain Nick’s and the Muddy Rudder.

There are plenty of places for them to work. According to figures from the Maine Department of Labor, Greater Bangor’s restaurants and bars employ 3,687 people and have an annual payroll of more than $41 million.

Pilots Grill may not be part of that, but there are plenty of memories.

In fact, several thousand of the grill’s last customers were given commemorative buttons with the restaurant’s logo in the middle and, printed around the edge, “Thanks for the memories. 1940-2002.”