Maine Tasting Center — Attraction in Wiscasset

We were really excited to try this restaurant. We had been traveling all day and saw that it was open until 6pm according to Google and their Facebook page. We got there at 5:06pm and walked in and were "greeted" by a man who looked at us like we have 2 heads. We greeted him and stared at each other for a few seconds before he said "What can I help you with?" with a snarky voice. I said we were hoping to get dinner and then he said that the kitchens closing at 5:30, takes his phone out of his pocket to look at the time and then just kind of looks at us. I apologized and said that we had looked online and it said they were open until 6pm so we thought it would be okay. And then he gave us a long spiel about how in most restaurants the kitchen closes 10-15 minutes early and that they stop serving at 5:30 and lock the doors at exactly 6pm (remember it's not even 5:10pm at this point) so we could order to go and eat outside if we wanted but we couldn't eat inside. I was ready to just turn around and leave because he made me feel terrible and like I was greatly inconveniencing him. But my husband decided to get some food to go anyways. I'm hoping that this horrible exchange was worth it with the food. To the owners of the restaurant, if you are not going to serve people after 5pm, please change your hours of operation to 5pm so no one else has to go through this. The reaction this person had was unacceptable and we will definitely not be returning because just walking into a restaurant shouldn't cause one of your employees to lash out like that.

Update: The food took 30 minutes to get during which we could have ordered drinks at any normal place but he had no interest in serving drinks and making more money for the tasting center. The food was good but I don't think it was worth this...

This was an easy stop off to and from Boothbay or the Botanical Gardens. The two stars here entirely represent the ease of free parking and the service, with clean dining room and bathrooms. Another nice aspect was the free recipe with spice packets, free chocolate tasting and free coffee grounds. All these were very tasty. So I have confidence their food was probably good, though we did not order any.

The drinks were quite horrible. There were two of us who stopped in. One tried the spirit flight and the other the mead and kombucha flight. Nothing was good to either of us. I've never left a spirit behind, but this time I had to. The offerings were just terrible to taste. Hopefully they'll get some better local businesses to support their drink offerings...

This experience wasn't on our 'must do" list for our trip to Maine, but wow, what a find! The tasting was supposed to only last an hour, but our hostess went above and beyond wirh wonderful facts about the agriculture/aquaculture of Maine, in-depth discussion about the sense of community throughout the food/agriculture/aquaculture industries, and about alternative food sources that beneficiallly impact many facets of life, such as seaweed farming. We paired our food tasting with a flight of pre-determined mead/craft beer/wine pairings, and it really helped round out the experience.

When driving towards Wiscasset on Route 1, don't forget to stop at the Maine Tasting Center. Just do it. You'll be very happy...