Dawn Over Agavé
Port Mermaid
A Good Bank
Martha is Mad
A Lotta of Potter
Say Ceia Best
Watch for Agavé Mexican Bistro to e-x-p-a-n-d…BIG Time…owner Dawn McCandless hit town 10 years ago and bought an existing restaurant business, the funky and fun State Street Joppa Flats restaurant, and opened a Mexican dining and drinking spot in a seafood town…by the time she stepped out of her car at the municipal parking lot for her first day of work/ownership local wags were taking bets she wouldn’t last six months…the first person she met in the municipal downtown parking lot was this columnist…her sheer energy, enthusiasm, and personality won him over before they came into sight of the Tot Lot mere feet away…the two formed a bond to make sure her dream of a Mexican restaurant succeeding in a Yankee seaport came true…Dawn did all the work
…this columnist simply reported her trials and successes…her trials were legendary…it took her about ½-year to master the menu she wanted…no easy task as she kept her day job…but she kept relentlessly chasing her dream until she bought the building, opened another in Portsmouth, NH, started a maternity clothing line, had two young wonderful children…this columnist has been rather bullish in promoting her ventures/adventures…their friendship has endured a decade through acts of Dawn treating him to a luxury corporate bus tailgate Jimmy Buffett party/concert, many dining experiences, and an occasional tequila or two…a note of humor is that no one really has a private conversation with this dynamo…when we would walk down State Street to Not Your Average Joe’s for lunch it would take us one hour to do so as it seemed every other person stopped her for a chitchat…of course, her outrageous sense of humor was constant…when she was about nine+-months pregnant and sported a rather prominent belly bump she would wave to anyone across our fair boulevard and point to her tummy and then this columnist and then announce, “He’s the father!”…this columnist would humbly thank her for all she has done for Newburyport, her customers, and multiples of friends…now word has reached us that she is expanding her bar/dining first-floor space into the adjacent Katwalk storefront (soon to be closed)…those local wags who predicted her demise remain in shock.
…Joel Brown, has just released his anticipated sequel to Mirror Ball Man, a Newburyport-ish murder mystery bursting with characters and locations that are so Newburyport…too bad it is located in Libertyville…the new tome is called Mermaid Blues and is highly recommended by Newburyport-today.com…Mr. Brown is an amazingly prolific writer especially for The Boston Globe… recently we found in The Boston Globe (Sunday) Magazine a most entertaining feature by The Brown Man called I Lied to Stephen King about how he did such while not being honest with the ultra-famous horror-master about a possible magazine feature concerning The Kingster and Zombies…Joel nailed the story, but the guilt of being dishonest to King seems to yet have gone away…we would not be a bit surprised if King’s next novel featured Brown being cannibalized by King and a band of Zombies…we have a feeling that you will soon see a review of Mermaid in these pages.
…New stores keep opening in Our Fair Port at a rapid rate…a spiritual salon is coming to the old Stop Light Café location on Middle Street…also watch for a woman’s clothing store by the name of Smittens to debut on Inn Street.
…Meanwhile, Our Fair Burg is abuzz lauding about the Institution for Savings being named the Top! Small Company to work for by the Boston Globe…the article and listing is incredible from its employee benefits (serious cash, etc. rewards for births, marriages, further college endeavors, buying a house, and medical emergencies)…we all should be so proud of this institution…its rewards to its employees is breathtaking…its generosity to the community is spellbinding…it is pegged to earn $15.7 million…but its value remains immeasurable in community in spirit and activity…
…We recently made the trek to Plum Island to delight ourselves to a bountiful breakfast at the newly reinvented Mad Martha’s…one Kendall Bowie greeted us at the door with great enthusiasm like we were someone famous…but we could not help notice that everyone else enjoyed the same greet…a touch of class…the food was fab, as always…this reporter has a huge problem in that he has a hard time getting beyond the first menu item, the Portuguese French Toast…it is that delish…his better-half (known to be rather picky about food) was given to raves concerning her Cuban breakfast dish…and managed to savor most of my selection…Kendall shared her daily “cover” numbers which projected to be astronomical for a 36-seat dining spot… Mad Martha has no need to be mad, only to be proud for taking a funky island institution to new heights beyond one’s imaginable wildest dreams.
…Speaking of not too many moons ago we were enjoying Grace Potter & The Nocturnals packing the downstairs music room at the Grog with robust music shows…we watch with interest as the group scored major bookings in impressive venues…still, we were stunned while watching the Country Music Awards on the telly to see Grace performing an acoustic duet with some famous country music star (he had a cowboy hat on if that would help).
…As we close out this windy column (our publisher counts every word…we always do not meet our word count as we are indeed windy) we have just learned that Ceia Kitchen + Bar’s chef Billy Brandolini has been in some fashion nominated for a James Beard Foundation award…it is a most prestigious award usually given to a famed chef in a major city as New York, San Francisco, Boston, etc…certainly a small burg as Newburyport could never be even considered…until now…and now the guru of Ceia and the Rockfish Nancy Batista-Caswell is challenging that impossibility…with gusto…Chef Brando is now the head chef for both the Fish and Ceia…and doing an amazing job.
We have much to be grateful this Thanksgiving …but let’s start and finish with the note that we live in Newburyport, one of the greatest cities in the world…enough said.
