If you drive Route 1 past Lincolnville Beach this October, you'll see the same strip of sand and the same view toward Islesboro. The three buildings where the beach used to eat are not serving meals. McLaughlin's Lobster Shack served its last meal on Sunday, August 23. The Whale's Tooth Pub has been dark since late 2024. The Lobster Pound's dining room has been closed since storm damage in 2023, and the building now holds a gift shop.
The beach has seen restaurants come and go before. This time is different because all three buildings are between uses at once. Meanwhile the state and the town are working on the ground around them: a new ferry parking lot, a rebuilt terminal for a new Islesboro ferry, and a harbor resilience plan with a public workshop on the Select Board agenda this coming Tuesday. Whatever opens next on the strip will open into a waterfront those projects have already reshaped.
Where each building stands this fall
| Building | Last served food | Where it stands now |
|---|---|---|
| Lobster Pound | 2023, before storm damage | Reopened in summer 2025 as a gift shop only |
| Whale's Tooth Pub | Fall 2024 | Sold in May 2026; owner's plans not public |
| McLaughlin's Lobster Shack | August 23, 2026 | Building auctioned October 2; buyer not published |
The Lobster Pound's comeback was real but partial. When the Bangor Daily News covered the reopening in August 2025, the restaurant was described as permanently closed and the building had come back as a gift shop.
The Whale's Tooth opened in 1994. Chris and Martha Nickerson announced in October 2024 that they would close it so they could spend more time with family out of state. The BDN reported in May that the property was first listed at $1.5 million and sold for $950,000 to Checkers LLC, a company with a Boston address. The sale included a three-bedroom residence, 40 parking spaces, more than 300 feet of waterfront, and grandfathered waterfront rights that the listing said would let a future owner build a pier. The town administrator had no information about the new owners' plans. As of late August it had not reopened.
The McLaughlin's building went to auction on October 2. The auction house's listing marks the sale completed but doesn't name a buyer or a price.
McLaughlin's moved once to make room for the ferry
McLaughlin's closing ties directly to the ferry work. Before it closed, the shack had already moved across Route 1 to make room for expanded parking at the ferry terminal. In his closing announcement, Rick McLaughlin said the long hours the business demands were behind the decision, and he wrote:
"It has been a privilege to serve you at Lincolnville Beach in three locations for the past 48 years."
He also wrote that he hopes someone else will open a restaurant in the building. Three locations in 48 years is a fair summary of how this strip works. Businesses here have always had to adjust around the ferry, Route 1, and the water.
The state is spending far more on this strip than any restaurant deal
The Whale's Tooth, with its waterfront, parking, and residence, sold for $950,000. The public money now going into the ferry side of the same beach is many times larger.
The parking lot McLaughlin's moved for is a MaineDOT project. MaineDOT's contract page shows the award to Ranger Construction of Fairfield on February 25, 2026. Lincolnville's Select Board recorded Ranger's bid at $1,168,318.50. The design calls for:
- a new lot with automated gates and lighting
- green strips between the parking and the beach and Route 1
- a sidewalk connecting McKay Road to Route 1
The project plan says ferry service would keep running throughout. Road impacts were expected to be limited to alternating one-lane traffic on McKay Road for one to three weeks. Under the contract, most of the work was due by June 6, 2026, and the lighting, gates, and electrical work by December 18, 2026. No public progress update has come out this fall, so those dates are the schedule, not confirmation that the work is finished.
The bigger change is the boat. The M/V Margaret Chase Smith has run the Islesboro route for 40 years. MaineDOT's 2026 work plan includes $39 million to replace it and another $33 million to renovate the Islesboro and Lincolnville terminals for the new ferry, according to the BDN. The state first planned a fully electric ferry. The low bid on that design came in at $41.5 million, $7 million over budget. The plan now is a diesel-primary hybrid that runs on electric power while loading and unloading, uses 20% less fuel than the current ferry, and costs about $20 million less than the electric option.
On the Lincolnville side, MaineDOT's terminal plan includes new dolphins and fenders and a rapid-charging system for the hybrid. The agency's schedule forecasts construction from late 2025 or early 2026 through late 2027 or early 2028. Anyone who buys one of the empty restaurant buildings will likely be planning around a working construction site at the ferry terminal next door for at least another year.
The road out front floods, and the town just hired a team to plan for it
Route 1 runs right along the beach, and this stretch has been known for years as vulnerable. In 2020, The Maine Monitor named Route 1 at Lincolnville Beach as infrastructure at risk and ran a photo of the road underwater during a January 2018 nor'easter. MaineDOT's adaptation page says coastal flood-model results for parts of Maine were expected during 2026.
The town's own planning moved forward this fall. At the September 14 Select Board meeting, a selection subcommittee unanimously recommended The Musson Group out of six proposals for the grant-funded Harbor Assessment and Visioning project. The Midcoast Council of Governments is assigned the rest of the consulting work. The sources disagree on the dollar figures. The board packet proposed a Musson agreement capped at $60,000. A meeting report says the board authorized up to $68,000 for Musson and approved $17,952 for MCOG.
A public session with the consultants is on the agenda for the Select Board meeting on Tuesday, October 13, at 6 p.m. at the Lincolnville Town Office. It's listed as a Resilience Planning Workshop with The Musson Group, GEI Consultants, RS Leonard Landscape Architecture, and MCOG. The full scope and timeline weren't available in the packet materials. Having a landscape architecture firm on the team suggests the work covers how the shoreline is laid out and used, beyond the engineering. That means the owners of the Whale's Tooth and McLaughlin's buildings may get a clearer idea of how the town sees the harbor before they decide what to build.
Where to get food at the beach this fall
The beach still has food. The Beach Store's website lists pizza, subs, sandwiches, and breakfast, with hours of 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and noon to 7 p.m. on weekends. Those hours aren't dated, so call ahead before you count on a late-season sub. Elsewhere in Lincolnville, Dot's Market lists coffee, deli items, and prepared foods, open Tuesday through Saturday 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., also on an undated page. We couldn't confirm the Lobster Pound gift shop's fall 2026 hours.
The dates that decide what comes next
- Tuesday, October 13, 6 p.m.: Resilience Planning Workshop at the Select Board meeting, Lincolnville Town Office.
- Wednesday, October 14, 6 p.m.: Planning Board, Town Office.
- Monday, October 26, 6 p.m.: Next Select Board meeting.
- December 18, 2026: Contract deadline for the ferry lot's lighting, gates, and electrical work.
- Late 2027 or early 2028: MaineDOT's forecast end of terminal construction for the hybrid ferry.
The Whale's Tooth owners haven't shared plans, and the McLaughlin's buyer hasn't been named. The harbor workshop on October 13 puts the town's consultants in front of the Select Board in public, with the ferry lot and terminal work going on next door.
If you're wondering what the work at Lincolnville Beach means for a property you own nearby, or how shoreline rules and harbor planning tend to affect a waterfront parcel, I'm glad to talk it through, without any pressure. Joseph Saltalamachia | Let's Connect.
