New “barbeque joint” coming to Scarborough

Sea Smoke BBQ opens Aug. 15 on Route 1 in former Olympia Pizza building.

SCARBOROUGH — Leo Maciejewski noticed something odd on a recent visit to the area. “For such ‘foodie’ cities,” he says, “they didn’t have any rib joints.”

So, Maciejewski set out to correct that culinary injustice.

His new 30-seat restaurant, Sea Smoke BBQ, will open Aug. 15 at 183 U.S. Route 1, near the Scarborough/South Portland line, in the space formally occupied by Olympia Pizza.

“Straight barbeque,” says Maciejewski, describing his menu. “It’s going to be a real Southern rib joint, eat-in and take-out.”

For Maciejewski, 31, the opening is a return to his roots, in a way. He was born and raised in Cape Elizabeth and began his restaurant career 15 years ago washing dishes at The Inn by the Sea. He went to Florida in 2001 to take a chef’s job, came back to the Inn for a few years, then traveled the country as kitchen manager for Maggiano’s Little Italy restaurants, working in Atlanta, Nashville and Las Vegas.

“I was doing extremely well,” he admits. “But I realized I’ve always been passionate about barbeque. I even went on kind of a ‘barbeque pilgrimage’ across the South, and made friends with some guys who taught me the ropes. Now here I am.”

Maciejewski will be “pit master” at Sea Smoke, and expects to hire four employees, including a girlfriend who is five months pregnant.

“It’s a gamble,” says Maciejewski, of starting a new business with a child on the way. “But I’m pretty comfortable, given there aren’t any barbeque joints up here, other than what you get at the corporate restaurants. I think we’ll do well. Hopefully, we can give everybody a taste of the South.”

Helping that cause is a change in Maine Law signed into effect June 7 by Gov. Paul LePage.

When Stephen Deptula, of Brooklyn, N.Y., opened a pizzeria in Hallowell last October, he was surprised to find he could not get a liquor license, because his new store had just one bathroom.  Moreover, Deptula soon learned that, unlike in New York, he could not get around the requirement with a court waiver. Instead he’d have to change state law. So, rather than shelling out to add on a second, ADA-compatible rest room, he hired a lawyer.

It worked. A bill sponsored by Rep. Stacey Fitts, R – Pittsfield, sailed though the Legislature. Now, restaurants with 40 or fewer seats can get a license to sell beer and wine for on-premise consumption, even if they only have one, unisex bathroom.

Olympia Pizza did not sell beer and so was apparently content with a single bathroom. Maciejewski knows being able to offer beer and wine will do a lot for his bottom line. He’s done a fair bit of remodeling to prepare for his Aug. 15 launch, but the new law at least saves him the expense of replumbing “the joint.”