LISBON – For the first time in many years, downtown Lisbon Falls will see new construction/renovation that is likely to draw a few sidewalk superintendents during the next couple months.

Michael Raskin, owner of Dr. Mike’s Madness Cafe, who also owns the building next to his restaurant, is having that demolished to renovate and build a 30- by 45-foot addition to the popular cafe.

When it’s done, it will look like a 1950s railroad car diner. We like to think of it as “a tasty comfort stop on the highway of life,” he said.

Plans include doubling the seating area, with a new kitchen, new in-house bakery and service area, new dining area and an entertainment area. There will also be new bathrooms, all handicapped accessible. In addition, new gas grills, charcoal grills and broilers will be added to expand his menu to include steaks, subs and more. Dr. Mike’s already bakes all its breads, English muffins and desserts to go with their home-cooked foods.

We will also continue the current well-balanced “comfort foods” for our “fixed income clientele who rely on us. They are the people who keep us in business,” Raskin said.

He will also open a community center in the basement of an adjacent building he owns, originally the Lisbon Credit Union, where people can watch movies on a large screen TV, play cards, socialize and eat. That building has been completely renovated to include a new office for Raskin, who is a psychologist; and Lisbon Bookkeeping Services, formerly located on Sparsam Street.

He said hopes the renovation/addition will done by June; or in time for the annual Moxie Festival in early July at the very latest.

They’re already working on a “Belly Buster Contest” for the Moxie Festival, which calls for eating a huge one-pound hamburger with cheese and French fries; specially lettered T-shirts, “and maybe a Pepto-Bismol afterward,” he joked.