Ask around South Portland this month about what's new to eat and you'll hear the same four or five names in different combinations. Himalayas on the Bay in Knightville. Il Forno at Clark's Pond. Cobblestone Coffee on Gorham Road. Makoto on Cottage Road. Four different corners of the city, four menus that have nothing to do with each other on paper. Follow the ownership, though, and the map collapses. These aren't strangers who found South Portland. They're restaurateurs who already had a place a few minutes away and decided to open a second one.
That distinction matters more than another list of openings would suggest. A neighborhood that grows because outside money keeps discovering it tends to feel temporary, since nobody involved has much invested in the block itself. A neighborhood that grows because the people already cooking there keep reinvesting in more storefronts tends to hold its shape. South Portland right now is doing the second thing, and it's worth knowing whose names are actually behind the new awnings.
One Owner, Four Storefronts, All Within Reach of Each Other
Start with Sai Guntaka. He owns Taj Indian Cuisine at 333 Clarks Pond Parkway, part of the retail cluster near the Maine Mall known as the Shops at Clark's Pond. This past June, Guntaka opened Cobblestone Coffee & Company in Taj's original storefront at 200 Gorham Road, turning the space where Taj first opened into a coffee, bakery, and brunch spot. He's also a co-owner of Silver Street by Taj in Portland's Old Port and, with a different partner, of Rasa Indian Cuisine in Bangor.
Now Guntaka is adding a fourth concept in the same building as Taj. Il Forno, an Italian restaurant with handmade pasta and brick-oven pizza, is under construction in the former Port City Nutrition space at 333 Clarks Pond Parkway. Guntaka told the Portland Press Herald he noticed a gap in the local market: "I don't think there's anything like this in South Portland." The restaurant is targeting a mid-October opening, with lunch and dinner service planned seven days a week.
That's four food and beverage concepts from one operator, clustered around a single South Portland retail complex he already knows the traffic patterns for. It isn't a chain expanding into new territory. It's someone doubling down on ground he's already standing on.
Across Town, Two Portland Kitchens Made the Same Bet
The pattern repeats in Knightville, on the Ocean Street side of the city, with a different set of names. Sachet Timilsina, Pushpa Regmi, and Dipesh Karki co-own Hi Bombay, the Indian restaurant in Portland. This year they opened Himalayas on the Bay at 60 Ocean Street, in the space Taco Trio had occupied before its own move. The restaurant opened with a limited menu on August 7 and has been rolling out its full Nepali and Tibetan lineup since, with dishes like momo, thukpa, and thali alongside some familiar Hi Bombay staples. The owners told Portland Food Map they chose Knightville specifically because it's strollable and sits next to a growing residential pocket, the kind of neighborhood where people eat close to home on a weeknight rather than driving into Portland.
A few miles south on Cottage Road, the owners of Yosaku made a nearly identical move. Rattanak "Ram" Tray and Hope MacVane-Tray opened Makoto, a sister sushi and small plates restaurant, in the former Elsmere BBQ space at 448 Cottage Road this past spring. Same logic as Himalayas on the Bay: an established Portland kitchen betting its second concept on South Portland rather than a second Portland address.
What Didn't Change
None of this reinvestment erased what was already running. Taco Trio, the restaurant Himalayas on the Bay replaced at 60 Ocean Street, didn't close. It moved back to its original address at 119 Ocean Street in 2025, the spot it held before expanding into the larger building. If you've been going to Taco Trio for Sunday brunch for years, you're not strolling into a new restaurant this fall. You're strolling into the one it started as.
The Other Side Diner changed hands as well. Longtime owners Peter and Jessica Sueltenfuss sold the business this year, with new owners Danielle Dubois and Dan Washington taking over. Dubois had already spent a year on the Other Side kitchen staff, and Washington brings experience from the Miss Portland Diner. Both have said they plan to keep the food and atmosphere close to what regulars already know. It's an ownership change, not a concept change, which is the kind of distinction that matters if you've had the same order memorized for a decade.
Where Things Actually Stand This September
- Himalayas on the Bay (60 Ocean Street, Knightville) — open since August 7 with a limited menu, full Nepali and Tibetan lineup rolling out
- Makoto (448 Cottage Road) — open since this spring, sushi and wood-fired dishes from the Yosaku team
- Cobblestone Coffee & Company (200 Gorham Road) — open since June, Guntaka's coffee and bakery concept
- Taco Trio (119 Ocean Street) — back at its original address since 2025
- Il Forno (333 Clarks Pond Parkway) — targeting a mid-October opening, seven-day lunch and dinner service
- The Other Side Diner — same menu and atmosphere planned, under new ownership as of this year
Knightville's Ocean Street corridor has been building toward this for a while. Down East Magazine, profiling the stretch a few years back, pointed to Foulmouthed Brewing moving into an old auto garage in 2016 and five more restaurants following within the next several years. Bob O'Brien, an insurance agent who worked on the neighborhood's revitalization plan, told the magazine at the time: "For nearly 20 years now, Knightville has been on the cusp of something." What's happening now, on Ocean Street and in the other corners of the city, looks like the follow-through.
Why This Kind of Growth Sticks
An operator who already runs one restaurant a few minutes away isn't guessing whether a neighborhood can support a second concept. Guntaka isn't opening Il Forno to test some outside theory about South Portland's dining habits. He's testing it with a lease he can stroll to from Taj, a staff pool he already manages, and years of watching who actually eats at Clark's Pond on a Tuesday night. Same for Hi Bombay's owners crossing into Knightville, and for Yosaku's team landing on Cottage Road. Each of these is a bet placed by someone who already had the data.
That's a different kind of growth than a wave of first-time operators chasing a trend into a neighborhood they don't know yet. It's slower to notice from the outside because it doesn't announce itself as a boom. It shows up as the same handful of names turning up on new doors, a few blocks or a few miles from where they started. If South Portland feels like it has more to offer this fall without feeling like it's changed character, that's the reason. The people cooking your food didn't move in from somewhere else. They just built a second kitchen closer to home.
If you're planning your fall rotation, Il Forno's mid-October opening is worth watching for, and Himalayas on the Bay's full menu rollout is worth a return visit if you only caught the limited version back in August.
Bailey Pate and the team at Maine Real Estate Co spend as much time tracking what's opening around South Portland as they do tracking the market, because the two stories tend to explain each other. If you're curious what daily life in a specific corner of Southern Maine actually looks like, or want a local's read on any neighborhood from Scarborough to the Kennebunks, get in touch.