Want To Eat At Woodman’s In Orono? You Can Now Set A Reservation To Do Just That!

In June of last year, we brought you the news that the original owners of popular Orono eatery, Abe and Heather Furth were selling their long-time fa Woodman's Bar & Grill to another local restauranteur, Dewey Hasbrouk, of Moe's Original BBQ on Broadway.

Hasbrouk and his co-owner of Woodman's, Jessica Nickerson, took possession of the place in the early summer of 2023 and vowed to keep the same staff and menu, making only small changes that most regulars wouldn't even recognize.

Woodman's did shut down for August to update their point of sale system, but reopened, to the delight of the locals who had missed it, in September. 

Co-owner Jessica Nickerson says it was shortly after they reopened in September that she and Hasbrouk knew they may need to make one big change after all.

"First couple weeks of reopening we had a ton of people. We had to tell them it was going to be at least a two-hour wait, or an hour-and-a-half wait on any day of the week, and we just didn't like the feeling of that. Working at Moe's, that's not at all what we're used to, and there had to be like an in-between, something we could make work."

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Nickerson says that's when they started talking about implementing a reservation system.

"We figured we'd try reservations, that way people could come in ahead of time and if we still had some room, people could walk in, if they wanted to."

Nickerson says the point of the reservations is to eliminate having folks have to endure those long wait times and allow them to plan their evening, with some reliability.

"They can do it online on our website, they can call us by 3 o'clock on the same day. They can definitely come in as well, but that's what we're trying to get away from is people coming in really hungry and having to wait. "

So far, people seem to dig the idea, says Nickerson.

"I think it's going really well. It took a couple of weeks of people getting used to it but people really seem to love it. I think people are able to plan their night beforehand because they can plan their day in advance,"

"The hockey games are really the biggest thing for us. You know, people have season tickets and go every time. If they can plan on coming here every time, that works best for us so they don't have to have a guessing game on the day of."

Woodman's Bar & Grill, seats about 60 with a full bar. Nickerson says since they did a soft launch of the program back in September, they've been maintaining a balancing act of making sure the regulars have their space within the restaurant but also catering to those who may just be stopping through town,

"Feel free to give us a call if you just find that you have some free time because sometimes we have cancellations."

To make a reservation at Woodman's Bar & Grill you can do it by going to their website here, or by calling ahead to 207-866-4040.

If you can't get a table there, here are some places in Bangor you can also try.