The Maine Campus Online

Issue date: 11/1/07 Section: Style

Media Credit: David Dauphinee The Harvest Moon Deli offers healthy fair in a casual setting.

Media Credit: David Dauphinee

Variety is a beautiful thing. Living in a college town, one would think you would find more of it. Sadly, this is not always the case. The newly established Harvest Moon Deli is thankfully one small piece of the remedy to that.

A casual and friendly deli, the opening of Harvest Moon, located at 18 Mill Street in the heart of downtown Orono, is just another symbol of the revitalization that has been taking place throughout the Orono area. In just the three short weeks following its opening, the deli quickly established itself as a neighborhood favorite.

"The townspeople have been really supportive. They're in here all the time and loving it. I think it's exactly what the town needed," Camas Sader, manager of the Harvest Moon said. "The first week nothing ever really comes out exactly the way you want it and people were really cool about it," Camas said. "They really want us to succeed which makes it so much easier."

The Harvest Moon's menu boasts the same hearty influence that its name suggests, offering simple comfort food that while straightforward and uncomplicated, is far above the quality level of any chain sandwich shop.

With sandwiches named after famous Jazz icons such as Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, the food has as much character as the people working there. There are no prepackaged sandwiches on bleached white bread or candy bars lining the countertops. Instead, what they have to offer is quality. Not extravagant or pretentious quality, but rather the kind that is the very hardest to produce: the simple kind. The sandwiches are fresh and the soup is homemade. Free from preservatives and thickeners that seem to find their way into just about every item purchased nowadays.

The idea behind the Harvest Moon Deli was to provide an alternative to the area's traditional sit down restaurants. The brainchild of husband and wife team Mary and Mark Horton, co-owner of Woodman's Bar and Grill, The Harvest Moon Deli allows the opportunity to sit and enjoy lunch if they want to or just grab their meals to go.

"That was the idea," Sader said. "Orono needed some place to grab a quick lunch. So many times I would come into town looking for a quick bite and you're hard pressed to find anything that isn't a bagel or a pastry."

The food isn't the only healthy thing that the Harvest Moon Deli has to offer. "We wanted the environment to be healthy," Sader said. Having worked at a local chain restaurant for many years, Sader hopes the Moon will also be a place of welcome to everyone. "Sometimes I feel like I'm a robot [in the corporate world]. Everything is so by the book that it's almost impossible to be myself. But here you can be your own person and be comfortable with it."

That welcome is also reflected in the setting, which is both autumnal and warm, with its hardwood tables and modestly stylish light fixtures. Chez Cherry, who has designed interiors for several restaurants in the area including Paddy Murphy's and the former Blues Café, lent his hand to the location's make-over from the loud and obnoxious Subway that used to occupy the building to the classic, yet upper crust, feel that the space now has.

"Very soon we'll be having local artists showing their work in our space also," Horton said. This is one of the various ways "The Moon" is hoping to fuse the establishment with the community.

"In the spring we're planning to really branch out and offer more specialty drinks and try to use products from the local area such as homemade breads and produce." Horton said. "We're also going to start making organic wraps and salads so that people can really just come and grab n' go so they don't have to wait."

"The plan is to try to use less from big industry. What we call 'the truck,'" Sader said with a laugh.

Everyone wants the idyllic small town America we see on television and in the cinema. Truth be told, that vision is harder and harder to accomplish. Pleasantly, the quality that the Harvest Moon Deli is offering goes beyond its attractive sign and reaches to the heart of the service they have to offer a community that one hopes they will remain a part of for many years to come.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools