A new restaurant will soon be sprouting up on the currently barren lot that, for 30 years, housed The Ship's Quarterdeck Restaurant in Kittery, Maine.

Nestled in along the seemingly endless row of retail chain shops that comprise the Kittery Outlet Malls, The Quarterdeck offered a typical, tourist-friendly menu of seafood: Fried, Stuffed or Broiled, with Baked, Mashed or Pilaf.

This past September, Michael Landgarten, owner of Bob's Clam Hut (which sits just across Route 1 from The Quarterdeck location), purchased the old restaurant and began a four-month process of thoughtful evaluation. Landgarten's goal was to determine what he should do with his new acquisition, but more importantly he wanted to determine what would best serve the area. In short, he hoped to offer a destination that Kittery locals could "come to, point to, be proud of," and that would "complement and respect the beautiful landscape" of the Spruce Creek tidal estuary, which runs behind the retail strip, largely unnoticed by bargain-driven tourists.

Behold Robert's Maine Grill and Market. Or at least, be prepared to behold it. The new restaurant is scheduled to open in May of this year.

The name is, of course, a direct reference to Bob's Clam Hut, which Landgarten purchased in 1986 from original owner Robert (Bob) Kraft. Kraft served as a mentor and dear friend to Landgarten until his death in 2003, and Landgarten maintains close ties with the Kraft family. In addition to honoring the original owner of Bob's, Landgarten says that the new name is intended to reflect the "same great food and service" that diners have come to expect from the Clam Hut, but with an elevated level of service and a slightly more ambitious menu.

The new menu will focus on indigenous Maine seafood, simply prepared and supplemented with plenty of Maine-grown produce and Maine-raised meats and poultry. The restaurant will also feature a full-service bar, a retail fish market and a raw bar. Landgarten feels strongly about deriving his menu from local suppliers and growers whenever possible in an effort to "take back" some of the strip mall and turn it into something more representative of Maine, and specifically of Kittery, which he points out is the oldest incorporated town in Maine (it was settled in 1623). For anyone who has ever struggled to respond to the oft-uttered tourist query "where can we go for great local seafood?", Robert's hopes to be one of the few places that can supply the answer.

As for the design of the building, Landgarten was initially assisted by architect Paul Bennet (Bennet Wright Int'l, NYC) and kitchen designer Ken Schimpf (KDS Consulting and Design, NYC), both of whom came into the picture unsolicited by Landgarten through a series of coincidental introductions. Once on board, both men were happy to leave the big city behind and committed themselves to helping Landgarten develop a structure that would convey a homey and hearty New England feel. To that end, they spent weeks exploring the Seacoast, photographing everything from doorways to lighthouses, even drawing inspiration from such unlikely locations as the Kittery Laundromat and the Kittery Post Office.

Landgarten then brought local architect Steven McHenry (McHenry Architecture, Portsmouth) on board for his substantial knowledge of historical Maine architecture. Other members of the design/build team include mechanical engineer Paul Heald (Heald Engineering Services, Hampton), civil engineer Joe Allwarden (McGuire Group, Portsmouth) and construction manager John Destefano (Destafano and Associates, Portsmouth).

At a gathering last Wednesday, Landgarten prefaced his unveiling of the new plans with a touching home-video of the final weeks of The Quarterdeck's three-decade existence. The closing and subsequent demolition of the restaurant were not events that Landgarten or his design team took lightly. It was only after in-depth building analysis unearthed serious structural flaws that Landgarten conceded to raze the building and start from scratch. Over the next three months, curious drivers-by will be able to survey the construction of a restaurant that Landgarten hopes will someday boast its own 30-year run.