Forage Market looks for a place in Portland to open another store

Erin Crocker fixes bagel orders in the kitchen of Forage Market in 2016. The market often sells out of its bagels despite ramping up production.

LEWISTON — Forage Market on Lisbon Street plans to open a Portland location in 2018, according to MaineBiz.

“We’re trying to find another location now,” Allen Smith, owner of the market, told Mainebiz. 

According to Mainebiz, Smith wanted to open a place on Commercial Street in Portland but a lease for the site fell through. Looking for a new site and the permitting process have put off his plans until early next year, according to Mainebiz.

Smith told Mainebiz that he’s looking for about 3,000 to 4,000 square feet on the peninsula. The Lewiston store has two floors — each  with 2,700 square feet.

The Lewiston store has a market feel to it but Smith wants to focus on bagels and sandwiches, according to Mainebiz. Smith plans to hire 30 workers at first, according to Mainebiz. The Lewiston Forage employs 12 full time and 10 part time workers, according to Mainebiz.

In 2016,  Saveur Magazine called Forage’s bagels the best in America.

“We think we do have world-class bagels,” Smith said at the time. “It was great to have someone else say it for us in such a public space.” 

Since the article appeared, sales have doubled at its Lisbon Street location.

“That’s probably mostly local people who have been reminded about us,” Smith told the Sun Journal in 2016. “But we are bracing for people from further afield this weekend. Bagel aficionados will travel! We’ve already gotten email from as far away as Seattle.”

That may be why the Lewiston store sells out of the 300 to 600 bagels baked daily by noon. Smith told Mainebiz that he plans to be able to bake much more in Portland. 

Allen Smith, left, co-owner of Forage Market on Lisbon Street in Lewiston, shows U.S. Department of Agriculture Undersecretary Dallas Tonsager the market’s wood-fired, brick-oven bread-baking operation in 2012.