Holy cow, where did Punkys go?
Punkys is undeniably one of the top eateries among USM students. Usually it’s worth the trip to their Forest Avenue location, despite the relative convenience of the Aramark cafeteria in the Woodbury Student Center. But as of last Tuesday, Punkys has served its last customer there, where it opened 10 years ago and will not re-open.
The reason: The management wants to own their own building and could not persuade the owner to sell. So they decided to purchase Corsetti’s, a mom-and-pop diner on the corner of St. John and Bedford streets, last month. On February 28, that restaurant will officially become the new Punkys location. In the month-long interim, students on the Portland campus will have to find other ways to stuff themselves.
Like Jan Mee in Gorham, Punkys is the establishment of choice when the munchies attack here in Portland. In addition to standard sandwich shop fare, Punkys specials like their tumescent, foil-wrapped burritos (the staff issues instructions to unfamiliar customers; you must peel the foil as you eat or the burrito will blow up in your face) and that unlikely cult classic, the thanksgiving sub (ingredients: turkey, gravy, stuffing and cranberry sauce) have fortified many a USM student’s study break. The drafty dining room, with its troupe of mismatched chairs and tables, is as familiar a sight to many of us as the Aramark kiosk inside Luther-Bonney and arguably much more welcome.
Traffic from USM students in the store “has increased a lot recently,” said Joe Estes, founder and co-owner of the restaurant. “I think people don’t, ah, appreciate the cafeteria on campus?” His voice goes up at the end of this, his boyish eyes twinkle and he bursts into raucous laughter. He’s not worried that the new location, which is a longer walk in the other direction, will hurt sales. “Some people have said they can’t make the walk,” he admits, but he’s confident he can retain most of his current customers.
“It’s like the saying: if you build it, they will come.” Plus, he asked me, “it’s on the way out to the other campus, isn’t it?”
Estes said he and his partner, Garrett Allen, have been looking for a new location for about two years. They learned that the owners of Corsetti’s were looking to sell from a mutual friend last month and quickly made the purchase.
Corsetti’s, open since 1982, has its own loyal following. Both restaurants are converted gas stations. And like Punkys, Corsetti’s owners cook and serve most of the food themselves, refusing to surrender too much control to wage-earning employees. That’s why Giuseppe “Peppe” Germani, 54, the curmudgeonly Italian native and his wife, Maria, 50, tried to retire last year, but just couldn’t stay away. The new owner failed to carry the store’s loyal customer base and the restaurant almost tanked. Peppe and Maria swooped in and reclaimed the place.
If Punkys hadn’t moved to buy the restaurant, “we’d treat it as if we’ll be here a hundred years” Germani said (A Portland Press Herald reporter quoted him saying exactly the same thing last year).
The Germanis are handing the business over to Punkys with no demands. They are leaving it up to the new owners to figure out what the existing customers want. The sign outside Punkys, a grinning sun, will be installed at the new location, Estes said.
“I got 200 percent confidence in these guys,” Germani said in his rapid-fire, Italian accent. “They say they gonna be my shadow, watch me for two-three weeks. Try to incorporate their style and mine.”
That means Germani is trusting Estes and Allen in exactly the area the last owner failed, which speaks volumes for his confidence in Punkys.
“They’re detail people, smart business people, they make good food,” he said. “That’s all the ingredients to success.”
The new ownership will inherit the house recipes to specials like the chicken cacciatore, pizza, lasagna and fish chowder. Corsetti’s also serves a substantial breakfast crowd, which is new territory for Estes and Allen.
“We open at four [a.m.], they open at seven,” Germani said. “We do most of our business at breakfast and lunch.”
For his part, Germani is looking forward to playing more golf and sharpening his poker skills.
“I’ll be playing a lot more poker. I’m gonna go on tour,” he confided. When I laughed, he bristled: “I’m serious. I’m good!”