Want To Buy A New Restaurant In Dover Foxcroft? This One’s All Set To Go!

An iconic eatery in the Dover Foxcroft area got both a facelift and a new lease on life when local businessman, Jimmi Brown, decided to renovate the old Pat's Dairlyland building on South Street and turn it into a cruise-in diner this past summer.

The Riverside Grill opened in August and closed for the season at the end of September.

"We completely finished the restaurant, inside and out, new furniture, all new appliances, walk-in coolers out back. You know, the whole place has been refaced. And it did very well...We only had a couple of months. We opened at the end of August and l closed at the end of September, but it did very well. "

While only open a short while, the Riverside Grill provided local folks with some seasonal jobs and a new place to go and eat. And people seemed genuinely excited about the beautiful new space.

When a "for sale" sign went up in front of the building last week, there was a bit of confusion as to why it was being sold. So we reached out to Brown, who was happy to clarify that the Riverside Grill was being sold, not because it didn't do well in its first season, but that that was Brown's plan all along; to help someone into the business, not to run the thing himself.

"My original intent was to just lease the building, and then as we got rolling and redoing everything I thought well, let's just redo all the appliances while we're here. Then we thought we'd open it up and run it for a little while because an open restaurant might be easier to lease or sell, which was the plan."

Brown said the Riverside Grill project was only ever meant to be an investment because he's already running two other companies.

"I have two other companies. One of them does very well and the other one took off this summer. So I really didn't have the time that I needed to be at the restaurant...It's very time-consuming. It's great for the right person, but not for me."

Brown had listed the place with Realty of Maine about a month ago but decided to officially put a for-sale sign on the place on Christmas Eve before he headed to Florida for the winter.

He's selling the entire thing; the newly renovated building and the business, although he says it wouldn't have to stay a restaurant if someone else had a different vision for it.

"The building could be used for anything. It could be an attorney's office, an arcade a restaurant. I mean you could do whatever you want with it. It's a beautiful building inside and out. There's a lot of opportunity. I've made the parking lot bigger. And it looks really nice."

He was originally hoping an employee would step forward and purchase the place, but that never happened.

So if you're interested and think you might want to give it a go, Brown says that most of the appliances are still under warranty, too!

Take a look at some of the other summer eateries here in the state of Maine.