BANGOR – A well-known former restaurant on outer Hammond Street that nearly became a strip club is being remodeled for its next incarnation, this time as a furniture store.

According to documents on file with the city’s code enforcement office, the former Pilots Grill restaurant will undergo some remodeling and reopen as a furniture store through a lease to a business called Affordable Furniture Showcase. The identity of the business’s owner was not immediately available.

Remodeling is now under way.

The former Pilots Grill building has been idle since it closed on Dec. 31, 2002, with the retirement of its original owner, Bill Zoidis.

In early 2004, the building was poised to become a strip club operated by Platinum Plus, a South Carolina-based chain of “upscale gentlemen’s clubs” featuring topless dancers.

During a City Council meeting in February of that year, councilors agreed to change city ordinances to allow strip clubs to serve alcohol.

The councilors reversed the decision three days later, after an estimated 150 opponents of sexually oriented businesses gathered on the front steps of City Hall to launch a petition drive aimed at putting the issue to a citywide vote.

Without the ability to sell alcohol, Platinum Plus lost interest in the Bangor building. Representatives of the chain told city officials that their business plan would not work without alcohol sales.

The building subsequently was sold to local businessman Ray Lynch Jr., who is leasing it to Affordable Furniture Showcase, according to documents on file with the code enforcement office.

The store will sell new furniture as well as used furniture through consignment.

According to published reports, in 1939 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 Zoidis and Peter Zoidis, joining him in the operation. Bill Zoidis started working there 10 years later.

The restaurant moved twice, in 1945 and in 1956, because of runway expansions at the airport.