Having just arrived in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and set up our tent, I inquired of the campground manager of any good restaurants in the area. She mentioned a couple, and gave me a list of all the restaurants in the area. Then instead of recommending any restaurants, she crossed a couple off the list and said to avoid those as she had gotten poor reports about them.
One of the initial restaurants she named was Captain Carlo’s Restaurant. To tell you the truth, I think we might haven’t eaten there many years ago, but I am not sure.
So we drove down to the waterfront, and found the restaurant. It was on Harbor Loop right next the whale watch place that cancelled our whale watching cruise 12 years ago due to bad weather. Anyway, I digress.
We walked into Capt. Carlo’s and were greeted by a young lady (actually they seem to keep all the women out front, and keep the men back in the kitchen). She seated us. We were kind of lobster’d out from the three nights in Bar Harbor, so we wanted just simple fish and chips. Another young lady came to take our order. We ordered a couple diet cokes, which were quickly brought. Then she took our order. We ordered a bowl of clam chowder (the bowl was big enough to feed both of us, and only a couple bucks more than the cups). And we both ordered the fish and chips. The clam chowder came out first with a couple packets of oyster crackers. I like oyster crackers, my doesn’t, so I only put crackers in my half of the bowl! LOL! The clam chowder was very good, Not the best we have ever had, but it was better than most. We were scraping the bowl for the last drop. Then our waitress brought out our fish and chips. She also brought us extra tartar sauce, actually more than we needed. The fish was very tender, and delicious. The fries were good. The serving portions were pretty big. My wife was only able to eat able to eat about half of hers. I ate my whole meal and was stuffed. That was about 1:30ish. It is now about 6:30, and neither of us is very hungry. We are not sure about dinner yet. Everything might be closed by the time we are hungry again.
The prices were reasonable too. The fish and chips each cost $7.50, and the bowl of chowder about $6. We enjoyed our meal, and would happily eat here again.
Captain Carlo’s Restaurant is located on the Harbor Loop, Gloucester, MA. (978) 283-6342.
Monday we had made a detour to Portland, ME to stop at BJ’s Wholesale to get some new tires on my car (after we discovered my front tires were nearly bald). While they working on my car, I stopped into the store, and bought some new jeans. After I got the jeans, I headed back to the waiting room.
We were about 30 miles down the road on our way towards Bar Harbor when I realized that I had left the jeans on a chair in the waiting room. I wasn’t going to drive back 30 miles just to get the jeans.
We left Bar Harbor this morning, and it was going to take us through Portland, ME. I decided to route us passed the BJ’s Wholesale to see about my jeans. I wasn’t quite sure what they would have done with them. I have left the receipt in the folds of the pants. We easily found the BJ’s, and I headed into the auto service area. I didn’t see the guy who had helped us on Monday. But on the counter behind the desk I saw a pair of jeans. I walked up to the counter, pointed at the jeans and said I think those are mine. The guy went to hand them to me, and I asked are the W32 L32? The guy looked and said yeah. He handed them to me, and I took them out to the car. While we were there, I also bought some M&Ms to take with me for my race on Sunday.
I am glad I was able to get my jeans back. It would have sucked a little to have spent $23 on jeans, and to have lost them that fast because of my own stupidity. I am glad they were honest!
Tonight was our last opportunity to eat dinner in Bar Harbor during this trip. We have had wonderful dinners the last two nights in restaurants that we picked just walking down the street. Tonight I decided to do some research on the internet. I did a search for bar harbor and best lobster. I came up with some interesting results. One place that popped up was named Stewman’s Lobster Pound. It sounded really interesting. But I found another page that had customer reviews of different Bar Harbor restaurants. The most popular was Geddy’s Pub where we ate last night, and loved. It got 4.5 out of 5 stars. The second most popular was West Street Cafe and Grill. It got 5 out of 5 stars. Wow. Stewman’s was a little ways down the list. We decided to try West Street Cafe.
We showed up just after 6pm missing the early bird specials. Oh well. We were quickly seated at a table, but offered a booth when one opened up. We took the booth. I thought the seats were uncomfortable, but my wife said they were okay. We ordered a couple Old Soaker Root Beers. They are brew locally. They taste like A&W but more expensive. I ordered the Downeast Special which comes with a cup of New England clam chowder, a Maine lobster, French fries, cole slaw and a slice of blueberry pie. I asked a they substituted some sautéed vegetable medley for the cole slaw. My wife ordered the Baked Stuffed Shrimp which are large shrimp packed a seafood stuffing and baked. It also came with a potato side, and cole slaw or vegetables. My wife chose the fries, and cole slaw. She also ordered a cup of clam chowder for herself.
The clam chowder came out first. It was okay, but not as good as what we had at Geddy’s. It was on par with what we had at the Fish House Grill on Monday night.
Then they brought out our entrees. The lobster was a little smaller than what I had at Fish House Grill. I broke into the tail first. The meat was also a little tough. Then noticed I didn’t get any lobster tools (bib, crackers, etc). I asked the waitress, and she apologized, and brought some out for me. The fries were just okay. The sautéed vegetables were good.
My wife liked the baked stuffed shrimp. I tried them, and they were good.
After eating my lobster, I headed to the restroom to wash my hands. The cold water didn’t work. The hot water came out fine, but when you turned on the cold water, it just dribbled. So I washed my hands in hot water, which fortunately wasn’t too hot! I mentioned this to the waitress, but she was unaware of this, and would report it.
Then she brought out the blueberry pie with ice cream. I am not a huge blueberry fan, but my wife likes them. I sampled the pie, and it was okay. My wife liked the blueberries, but didn’t like the crust. The pie was left unfinished.
The total cost for the meal was higher than either of the other two places we ate at. And of the three, this was my least favorite. I would not eat here again. My recommendation is to skip this place, and go to Geddy’s Pub and Grill. There are probably some other great places in town also, but we only had three nights in town.
West Street Cafe & Grill is located at 76 West Street, Bar Harbor, ME. (207) 288-5242
When we first checked into our campground on Mt Desert Island, we asked about good local restaurants. The two women working at the KOA were new to the area, but said they had eaten at a place called Mainely Meat BBQ at the Atlantic Brewing Company. They said it was good, but warned us, they didn’t have seafood at all. We put on our list of places to try. But being on the Atlantic coast, near Bar Harbor, we wanted to try a lot of seafood places. So we have eaten seafood for the last couple nights. But I thought in our running around today, maybe we would try them for lunch, and that’s what we did.
We had a map showing where it was, but we missed it when we went by the first time. We expected some large signs or something. But there are some subtle little signs they say “Knox Road BBQ”, and they direct you to the Atlantic Brewery. Unless you know that Mainely Meat BBQ is at the Atlantic Brewing Company, or is on Knox Road (the ad simply said just off route 3). They have a parking lot around back.
The place smells mouth-watering great. There are only three tables inside, and a small handful outside. We sat inside, and the girl brought us menus. They had a bunch of different barbeque’d meats. We chose to get a sampler, and split it between us. The sampler came with sausage, a small chicken thigh and leg, pulled pork, and 3 small ribs all cooked and full of smoky taste. It also came with potato salad, cole slaw, and baked beans. There were bottles of sweet and spicy barbeque sauce on the table.
The baked beans were cooked with jalapeno peppers, and were very spicy. They were good if I could avoid the peppers.
The meats were all very good, but you want to make sure you get some the barbeque sauce on them, as they seemed to be cooked without any.
While not the BBQ place I have ever eaten (Dreamland BBQ in Tuscaloosa, AL), it was still very good, basic BBQ.
I am not a beer drinker, but Atlantic Brewing Company is a micro-brewery. The have tastings and tours. The tours started at 2, and we didn’t want to wait around. I am also not a beer drinker. But I did try their Root Beer, and it was very good. It reminded me of A&W.
Mainely Meat BBQ is located at 15 Knox Road, Bar Harbor, ME (about 10 minutes from downtown Bar Harbor). (207) 288-9200.
Bar Harbor is an interesting little town. It is touristy, without being a tourist trap. This is our second visit. Our last visit was 12 years ago.
The town is located on Mt. Desert Island, and is very close to the large Acadia National Park which takes up a large chunk of the island. Mt. Desert Island is located in the “Downeast” part of Maine.
Bar Harbor is not that big. The streets are laid out in a criss cross pattern. There are many little shops and restaurants. The majority of the restaurants are not surprisingly seafood restaurants. But there are a smattering of other restaurants including Italian, Thai, and Chinese restaurants.
The majority of the shops seem to be t-shirt shops, souvenir shops, jewelry shops, and gift shops. But there are a small number of other shops too. There is a local bike shop that rents out bikes.
Bar Harbor is small enough that you can park your car and walk around the entire town. It won’t take long to walk from one end of town to the other (unless you stop at all the little stores). If you walk down the water, you have a great view of the harbor.
It’s a pretty little town. You should spend some time exploring it if you come to Acadia National Park,