Bissell Brothers — Restaurant in Portland

Editing my review because the table service here is just so unnecessary and irritating. Hoping they see this... Love BB beer, love the space, love the staff, but the table service just kills it. It used to be an awesome place to go in, grab a beer, pay, and repeat until you're ready to leave. The table service turns it into what was a predictable visit to who-knows-how-long-this-will-take. We live within walking distance and went from coming at least once per week for a quick beer to wayyy less frequently because there's no longer an option for quick beers, and table service for a beer or two is silly. On top of that, food service is no longer as fresh and is regularly cold once it's delivered, which is especially bad if you sit in the Garden and your food comes from the old kitchen. The most egregious example was this past weekend. We sat in the Garden and ordered the fondue. It was delivered stone cold. Fondue kinda has to be melted, ya know, or it's just a block of cheese. This is a problem that wouldn't have happened if BB still used the buzzer and patrons still retrieved their own orders. Or at least if it did happen it would've been my own fault, which I'm much more ok with.

Long story short, if we want to go to BB now, we have to consider the following 3 things: 1 - How much time we have since there are so many unnecessary delays in service now, from waiting for the hostess to seat us, waiting for the server to come to order, waiting for drinks, food, etc, and then waiting for the tab. Not worth it if we only want a few beers or have dinner reservations or a show later. 2 - What day/time is it? Will there be annoying and rowdy kids running around? When we're able to seat ourselves, we could avoid the families that bring their kids and let them run around unsupervised, of which their are many. With table service it's out of our control. I'm aware the Garden is adults-only, but that introduces concern #3... 3 - Which food items to order, particularly if we're in the Garden, because if it comes from the other kitchen it will almost surely sit there quite a while and be served cold. No more ordering burgers, wings, anything hot, or anything with a sauce, aka 90% of the menu. That basically leaves salads and charcuterie that aren't adversely affected by the new table service.

And I see the responses here and see that table service appears to be 'optional', but when you walk in and see a sign that says "Please wait to be seated", that doesn't feel optional to me. We did once walk by and order a beer and food at the counter, and when the food was ready the poor guy wandered all around trying to find us because buzzers are no longer used.

Bottom line - This place was such an easy 5-star review previously. I have no idea why they changed their winning formula for the worse but now it's just a hassle. 🤷‍♂️ I'll be thrilled if they revert back and I can raise this back up. In the meantime this is a lack-of-understanding-their-customer-base-folly as big as "New Coke" and when Burger King changed...

Used to really like this place, but it's become way too packed and loud. I came here with my brother and father, and we couldn't even hear each other over the loud conversations, clanging silverware, and music blasting around 80 dB.

The beers range from fine to very good, but overall I think this place is overrated.

Turning into a table-service restaurant also made the experience worse. The prices are pretty wild too. I visit breweries all the time, and even then, a chicken sandwich with fries and a Swish for $43 is insane. The server asked me if I wanted fries with the sandwich without mentioning that they charge for them as a "shareable"

There are some positives here, but the mindless hipster vibe and how unbearable the place gets when crowded really drags the whole experience down.

Also the weed beer they make while interesting, hurts my stomach which other beers and IPA'S do not.

Update: Gave them one more chance and couldn't even get a seat.

It's crazy how during a busy weekend they rented the whole adult area (half the seating) to about 10 people and made others have to stand. I really don't think Bissell is about locals anymore and instead is about rich spoiled IPA bro, nepo manchildren tourists from out of state. Who have seen on online that Bissell is the top Maine hype- brewery. If they actually cared about locals they would not rent half the restaurant out on a Friday concert night to a small group of rich people.

Imagine being a local and driving to Thomas point through stop and go concert traffic to get a dinner and beers at Bissell only to have to stand with a beer and leave becuse they rented HALF the brewery to a group of 10 rich out of staters. It would be understandable if the restaurant was filled organically but renting out and betraying the locals is wrong.

I went to foundation immediately afterwards and had a great time at a place that shows they are grateful for their community and locals.

Edit: I am not a troll 🧌 but feel bad so I made this edit to tone down the language of my original review.

Edit 12/2/25: I'm not a troll I'm a customer who used to be a fan. You don't get to just call people trolls. It's insulting to the local community that you call someone a "confirmed troll" due to being called out for privately renting the whole adult section that can hold 50 people to around 10 rich people. Depriving locals who wanted to go to Bissell for dinner and beer an opportunity to sit.

That's elitism and it's wrong.

When has Allagash or Battery Steele, Definitive, or, Foundation rented half their space away on a Friday afternoon knowing they would have to turn loyal customers away as they look at all the empty seating.

It's very interesting you can't actually take this criticism and have to dismiss it by...

The beer here is a 5, the brewery and the business end of it is a 1. The beer here is no doubt among the best you’ll find anywhere but my last visit here made me realize something about Bissell Bros that really turned me off to them. They LOVE making people wait on line for their beer and they LOVE selling out of it. Which is all well and good except they don’t have to operate this way, they CHOOSE to. It’s the exclusivity aura they like to create around their beer and I’m convinced it’s totally unnecessary and fabricated. I have been to Tree House, Hill Farmstead, Trillium, Alchemist, Other Half, the Answer, the Veil, Equilibrium, Tired Hands and many more and I’m just listing the breweries that are all rated higher than BB and I did not walk away empty-handed when I left them. When I asked one of the servers if they had any cans of Substance left from that day’s release, he was so excited to tell me about how they didn’t and how quickly they sold out and how if I wanted to get my hands on some, I’d have to come back the next day early for their release at noon. I’m sure they had hundreds of cases on hand to go for the next day but it’s so much cooler and exclusive to be sold out! It’s great when breweries start out and their beer is so good that people are willing to wait in long lines for it and they sell out because there is more of a demand than they are capable of satisfying but most of these breweries make it a point to grow to the point where they can produce enough to satisfy the demand and streamline the process to buy it so that more people can get their hands on it. BB is totally capable of this, as evidenced by the amount of Substance on tap at many bars and restaurants in Maine and around New England. But when I make it a point to visit the source when I’m on vacation from NY, I leave totally empty-handed, that sucks. I highly suspect they just choose to continue the unnecessary publicity stunt which is just really disappointing. I’m not buying into it, there’s plenty of great beer that other breweries want me to buy without the dog and pony show around it so I’ll...