Ogunquit Restaurant Week starts June 7

Ogunquit has wakened from its winter slumber and is encouraging visitors to come hang out on its beaches, browse its art galleries and museum, and mosey the Marginal Way, and rewarding them with Restaurant Week Ogunquit deals. From June 7-15, participating restaurants (see below) are offering breakfast-for-two for $15, lunch-for-two for $20; and a three-course dinner for $25 pp. In addition, diners will be given a Discount Card to be used at other businesses throughout town (see way below).

Participating restaurants:

Alisson’s Restaurant: dinner
Amore Breakfast: breakfast
Angelina’s Ristorante: dinner
Bartley’s Dockside Restaurant: lunch, dinner
Beach House Grill: dinner
BeachFire Bar & Grille: dinner
Bintliff’s Restaurant: breakfast, lunch, dinner
The Blue Elephant: dinner
Blue Water Inn: dinner
Cape Neddick Inn: dinner
Cape Neddick Lobster Pound: dinner
Chowders: lunch
Clay Hill Farm Restaurant:dinner
Egg & I: breakfast, lunch
Feile Restaurant & Pub: brunch Sun, dinner all week
Fisherman’s Catch: lunch, dinner
Five-O Shore Road: breakfast Sat, brunch Sun, dinner all week
The Front Porch: dinner
Gourmet Express: lunch & dinner
The Hayloft Restaurant:breakfast, lunch, dinner
Jake’s Seafood Restaurant: breakfast & lunch
Jonathan’s Restaurant: dinner
Katie’s on Shore Road: dinner
Old Village Inn: breakfast & dinner
Post Road Tavern: lunch & dinner
Prime Restaurant: dinner
Raspberri’s Restaurant: breakfast
Roberto’s: dinner
Roost Cafe & Bistro: breakfast, lunch, dinner Thurs – Sat
Tapas & Tinis:Wild Blueberry Cafe: lunch, dinner

Businesses offering discounts on the Discount Card

Animal Instinct: 20% off
Baby Instincts: 20% off
Breaking New Grounds: 25% off
Caffe Prego: buy one gelato, get one free
Cape Neddick Country Club: 15% off pro shop purchases
Emporium Gifts & Collectibles: 20% off **
Genesis Day Spa: 20% off
Gorges Grant Hotel: 15% off full room rate (excludes packages, promos, and other discounts)**
H&M Crumpets: 20% off
Harbor Candy Shop: 20% off
Julie’s Ristorante & Provisto: 10% – 50% off select items
Juniper Hill Inn: 15% off
Maine Limousine Service: 10% off
Mariner Reosrt: 5% off
Massage Studio: 20% off
Ogunquit Museum of American Art: $1 off admission and 10% off in shop
On The Main Jewelry & Gifts: 15% off (excludes Pandora jewelry) **
Pizza Napoli: 10% off
Sacred Movement Yoga: 15% off
Scotch Hill Inn: 10% off
Spoiled Rotten: 15% off
Sundaes at the Beach: 20% off cones or sundaes
Wells-Ogunquit Resort Motel: 5% off
Yardarm Village Inn Wine & Cheese Shop: 15% off
Your Body Works Massage & Day Spa: $10 off any one-hour treatment
**other exceptions may apply
cannot be combined with other promotions

Splurge and save at the Inn by the Sea

Through May 26, write a $35 check to Habitat for Humanity, and save 50 percent, Sundays through Thursdays, on a two-bedroom beach, cottage, or loft cottage at the chic, ultra-green, four-diamond, oceanfront Inn by the Sea, in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. With the donation, rates range $134.50-$169.50. While you won’t see the special advertised on the site, the rate pops up when you click on reservations and enter potential dates for an overnight or two.

Act quickly, and apply your savings toward the Chef Tasting Menu, served through May 15, in the inn’s ocean-view Sea Glass Restaurant. Chef Mitchell Kaldrovich prepared this six-course New England with a Twist dinner at the James Beard House in New York in February 2010. The price is  $75 per person, or $110 with wine flight, and includes:

amuse bouche
• lobster and seafood ceviche
• roasted beet carpaccio
• pan-seared jumbo scallops
• Atlantic cod and lobster “chowder”
• red wine braised beef cheeks
• local apple crostata

Alternatively, you might splurge at the inn’s spa. Or just reap the savings and enjoy beach strolls, walking through inn’s certified butterfly and bird plantings, or simply plunking down in a lawn chair and enjoying the serenity of listening to waves rolling into shore and birds singing. A boardwalk above a marsh and path through the dunes connects the inn to Crescent Beach; really, it’s quite idyllic.

And here’s a tip: If you stay overnight, order the crab cakes Benedict for breakfast, then keep in the seafood mode with lunch at the nearby Lobster Shack at Two Lights.

A good deal to feel good about

Love this program!

From April 26 until May 28, book a room at any participating property in the the Maine Innkeepers Association’s Habitat for Humanity program, and with a $35 donation to Habitat, you get 50 percent off the regular room rate. The donation supports nine local Habitat chapters. Since the program began in 2004, the Maine Innkeepers Association has donted more than $30,000 to help build homes in Maine communities.

This is a great opportunity to travel in Maine and snag a room at a nice property for a song. The list likely will expand, but here are the participating properties to date, listed alphabetically by town:

BAR HARBOR
Graycote Inn
Mira Monte Inn

BASS HARBOR
Bass Harbor Cottages and Country Inn

CAPE ELIZABETH
Inn by the Sea

DEER ISLE
Pilgrim’s Inn

ELLSWORTH
Twilite Motel

FREEPORT
Best Western Freeport Inn
Brewster House B&B
Captain Briggs House B&B
Harraseeket Inn
Hilton Garden Inn Downtown
White Cedar Inn

HARPSWELL
Common Table
Harpswell Inn

KENNEBUNKPORT
Captain Jefferds Inn
Colony Hotel
Nonantum Resort

LINCOLNVILLE
Inn at Ocean’s Edge

NEWCASTLE
Flying Cloud B&B
Newcastle Inn

OGUNQUIT
Beachmere Inn
Ogunquit Inn

SEBASCO ESTATES
Sebasco Harbor Resort

WELLS
Village by the Sea Hotel

Habitat for Humanity International, based in Americus, Ga., is an ecumenical Christian ministry dedicated to eliminating poverty housing. Habitat has built more than 300,000 houses around the world, providing more than 1.5 million people in more than 3,000 communities with safe, decent, affordable shelter, they helped build and had bought with the assistance of no-profit, zero-interest mortgages.