ST GEORGE, Maine — On one of the many piers in this coastal town, Lexi Zable serves up burgers and fried clams and other lunchtime favorites from the Dip Net, a large food trailer that's been parked in Port Clyde all summer.
"We've been very busy," Zable said. "Obviously, it's very different from our full-service restaurant. But we can't complain, just happy to be here."
A year ago, the Dip Net was a full-service restaurant before a devastating fire destroyed it.
On the night of Sept. 28, 2023, a fire started somewhere in the restaurant, then spread. Before the flames were quelled, they had destroyed both the Dip Net and the beloved Port Clyde General Store, and heavily damaged the Monhegan Boat Lines building next door.
"My building was engulfed, the roof had pretty much fallen down," Boat Lines owner Andy Barstow said, describing what he saw when he got to the fire scene that night.
Barstow had just built the two-story building, largely by himself, two years earlier.
"For me, it was surreal. I couldn't believe it, like a dream, really a nightmare," Gerry Cushman, a Port Clyde fisherman and community leader, said. Cushman and his wife Karan say they live close to the general store, and arrived at the fire even before the first fire trucks got there. They watched as the fire spread through the more than century-old store building.
"Until we saw the smoke coming out the roof, we thought it would be contained," Karan recalled. "But once you saw that and windows blowing out and the power of the fire, it was pretty hard to watch."
The Port Clyde General Store had been a landmark business for generations and a integral part of daily life in the village. Gerry Cushman says he, and many others, were accustomed to going into the store nearly every day, since it had "always been there."
"Port Clyde isn't the same without the general store," he said. "You go to all the little towns along the coast of Maine and look at where the people congregate and talk and meet—its at the general stores."
For others, the store was also part of the daily life of the town, especially in busy summer months when tourists and longer term "summer people" were often going in and out.
"It's definitely the heart of our village and everyone feels part of the heart is missing," added Karan Cushman.
Lexie Zable felt the fire even more personally. She owned the Dip Net restaurant, and says she and some others stood at the fire scene all night, watching destroy her business.
"It was traumatic," Zable said, a year later.
But the trauma has mostly passed with time, and Port Clyde is building back.
Linda Bean's Perfect Maine, which owned the store, has said it intends to rebuild. The business also provided Zable with the space to park the food trailer to get the Dip Net back in business, and provided the trailer as well.
At Monhegan Boat Lines, Andy Barstow began the rebuilding process last year, even while debris from the fire was still smoking.
"You know, we jumped right in. We had no choice. I made up my mind we have to do this—its our business, its our life."
With the help of many local people, the mess and rubble from the fire were cleared away. The roof and second floor of the nearly-new building had been destroyed, so Barstow says they tore all that off and began to build it back.
"Three carpenters in down dropped their jobs and helped me get the building tight to the weather," he recalled, so the building was closed in before winter.
The daily boat service to Monhegan Island had to keep going at the same time, but Barstow says through the winter he worked to finish the building inside. Building material suppliers also helped.
"A lot of these companies pushed us right to the top [of the list]. They got us the roof trusses in three weeks. Got us the windows in like four weeks, a tremendous effort."
The Boat Line building opened this spring in time for tourist season, and inside is also a temporary, scaled down Port Clyde General Store.
"We are working together, kind of sharing the lower [floor] space," Barstow said.
The store provides some essential food and drink and other items for visitors, tourists, and locals alike.
At the same time, Karan Cushman and several others have maintained an effort that mirrors the work to bring the businesses back, called Port Clyde Strong. To date, they have raised $60,000 to help people who lost work or belongings in the fire, assist the businesses and the fire department where needed.
Cushman says they are still raising money, and encouraging people who need help to ask for it.
Life and work in the village go on, of course. A year after the fire, there is still a gaping, empty space on the waterfront where the General Store and Dip Net used to stand.
The rebuilding effort was clearly delayed earlier this year by the unexpected passing of Linda Bean. However, the woman who manages Bean's businesses says they intend to take revised plans for a new store to the St. George Planning Board in October, in order to get the project moving.
The town code enforcement director says he believes the proposal will be fore a new building that will resemble the old store, on the same footprint. It will be new, and to some, different.
Gerry Cushman says getting the store back is essential. "[The village] lost a place to make a lot of memories, talk and get the community together, talk about community things," he said.
"We was watching a movie the other night, 'Field of Dreams,' and if they build it, people will come. People will come, talk about memories of the old general store, and they will look at the new store and, of course, say what they did wrong, But in the end, it will be a place to meet, socialize and start new memories."