Kevin MacLellan Sr. has done a lot of espresso in his lifetime, after some-more than 25 years in and out of a coffee business.
But he’s operative really tough to keep adult with a direct for lattes, cappuccinos and Americanos during his family’s new coffee shop, Wicked Brew Coffee Bar on Park Street in Bangor. He’s a in-house barista, and when it gets busy, he infrequently doesn’t stop creation espresso for hours.
“They keep me cumulative to a [espresso] machine,” he said. “Not that we mind … it’s an art form. But it’s also kind of science. If we know a right ratios and accurately how to make it, it’s tough to screw it up. But it’s something we only know how to do.”
Though MacLellan Sr.’s oldest daughter, 35-year-old Kate Proctor, is a central owner, Wicked Brew is wholly a family affair. MacLellan Sr., 55, is a barista. His other daughter, Marri MacLellan, 33, pours coffee and takes orders. And Lexi MacLellan, 22, and Kevin MacLellan Jr., 20, take turns in a kitchen and behind a counter.
Together, they non-stop Wicked Brew final month, after scarcely 20 years of daydreaming about what their ideal coffee emporium competence demeanour like.
“It was time to stop articulate about it and only do it,” Proctor said.
Wicked Brew looks flattering tighten to what they’d dreamed about, from a plenitude of art unresolved all over a space, to a outrageous mural, embellished by MacLellan Sr., that dominates an whole wall.
Classic, normal espresso beverages done with Wicked Joe beans are served, with MacLellan Sr. manning a espresso machine, yet unchanging season coffee, cold decoction iced coffee and iced teas and lattes also are available.
There’s food, of course, with scones, muffins and cookies in a fritter case, and daily specials on soups and sandwiches, as good as a daily smoothie — if it’s on special, a hiss avocado smoothie is a treat.
Overall, it’s a kind of cozy, artsy coffee emporium we design to see in any city — a place where people can accumulate to hang out, read, write, and resting sip a domestic beverage.
“We wanted to pierce a small enlightenment to Bangor. There’s a certain kind of vibe we get from a cafe. we don’t wish to go to Starbucks. we wish to go to a real, authentic place,” Marri MacLellan said.
The MacLellan family has a prolonged story with coffee. MacLellan Sr. non-stop a Daily Grind, Bangor’s initial complicated coffee shop, in 1992, during 26 Broad St., on West Market Square, that was open until 1996.
“Bangor hadn’t seen anything like a Daily Grind. There weren’t any espresso machines behind then. There was no Starbucks … We worked there full time when we were kids. We used to do live anniversary displays in a windows. My sister and we would dress adult during Christmas and call to people. People desired it,” Marri MacLellan said. “I consider a work ethic and a sourroundings of a place like that only stranded with us.”
MacLellan Sr. in 1993 also non-stop a strange Coffee Express on State Street, with his afterwards wife; he co-owned it until 1997, when they sole a business.
After that, family members went in and out of a food business. Marri MacLellan worked as a grill manager in Portland and Burlington, Vermont. Kate Proctor waited tables around southern Maine. Kevin MacLellan Sr. changed to Florida for a while, before returning to Bangor; he also lifted dual some-more children, Kevin Jr. and Lexi. But by 2016, everybody was behind in Maine. Proctor and Marri MacLellan had their possess families, and they were both vital in Portland.
Last year, Proctor motionless that finally, after 20 years, she wanted to try to open that prolonged dreamed-for coffee emporium with her family.
“She said, ‘I wish to do this, and we wish to do this in Bangor, and we wish we to pierce to Bangor to do it with me,” Marri MacLellan said. “That was Aug of final year. We only adult and left and changed adult here. We found this space over a winter. Dad’s been operative on it given February.”
The plcae during 173 Park St. was before home to selected emporium Ivy Lace. Once a owners of that emporium motionless to tighten their sell storefront, a MacLellan family took over a franchise — and purchased lots of antiques, paintings and other wall hangings from Ivy Lace, many of that are on arrangement during Wicked Brew.
“The cultured of a place was already in place. No matter where we’d have landed in town, this is what it would have looked like,” Proctor said. “When we consider about something for years, by a time we get to indeed doing it, it’s all mapped out in your head.”
In further to a antiques and wall hangings — that embody strange paintings by Kevin MacLellan Sr., musty lamps and vases, and ancestral photos of Bangor — there are lots of other nifty visible touches. One of a arrangement cases that binds a several syrups for creation flavored lattes is done from a tip of an aged actor piano a family found and repurposed. The roof is strung with small white lights, to give a sense of a night sky.
And, in one corner, sagacious Bangorians might notice a small square of contemporary Bangor history: a massive, red vinyl, round counter that for decades sat in a dining room during a now-closed Howard Johnson Restaurant in Bangor. When HoJo’s sealed in Sep 2016, pieces of a restaurants went adult for sale online — and Proctor only happened to see a round counter on Craigslist.
“We had to go in there and take it out. We didn’t consider it was entrance out. It’s a monster,” Proctor said. “But it’s perfect. It’s got so most personality.”
Since opening in late May, a whole family has been chipping in — Marri’s comparison daughter, Skyla, also works partial time, and even grandmother Juanita Estey pitches in with her soup recipes and daily deliveries of floral arrangements from her garden.
So far, business have responded some-more definitely than anyone in a family could have hoped for.
“We already have regulars. They’re entrance from a neighborhood. They’re entrance from John Bapst, only adult a street. They’re even entrance from Bangor High. Teenagers need a place to hang out,” Proctor said. “Strangers lay during tables together. It’s been only so cold to see. It’s accurately what we want.”