The storefront at 60 Ocean Street sat dark for months. Taco Trio had moved back to its original spot at 119 Ocean Street, and the building that once served tacos to half of Knightville waited for someone to decide what came next. What came next was momo.
Himalayas on the Bay, a Nepali and Tibetan restaurant from owners Sachet Timilsina, Pushpa Regmi, and Dipesh Karki, spent the early summer renovating the 6,006-square-foot space with a mid-July opening in mind. Chefs Raj Kumar Karki and Laxman Neupane built a menu around momo, thali, thukpa, and chow mein, with a few dishes borrowed from the owners' sister restaurant, Hi Bombay, across the bridge in Portland. Between the bar, dining room, and outdoor seating, the room holds around 80 people. It is the kind of opening that would be a minor footnote almost anywhere else in Cumberland County. In Knightville this summer, it was one of three.
What Went Dark on Ocean Street
To understand why three unrelated restaurant openings in the same few blocks matter, it helps to know what Knightville lost first.
Judy Gibson opened at 171 Ocean Street on March 4, 2020, ten days before the pandemic shut restaurants down statewide. Chef-owner Chris Wilcox later said the closure cost the business 80 percent of its operating capital in the first four months. The restaurant survived anyway, building a following on small plates like smoked Bangs Island mussels and spicy fried green tomatoes, and in 2021 the Maine Sunday Telegram named it Best New Restaurant, with critic Andrew Ross giving it a four-star review the following year.
None of that was enough to get it through a Maine winter. Wilcox announced on Instagram that Judy Gibson would close for good on November 19, 2023, writing that the restaurant "did not receive any large federal financial assistance and have been riding the highs and lows of seasonality in Maine ever since." He has since moved on to Portland's Old Port, where he opened Sawyer's Butcher & Delicatessen at 10 Cotton Street this August, a whole-animal butcher shop sourcing beef from Caldwell Farms in Turner and pork from Winter Hill Farm in Freeport. It is a good business story. It is not a Knightville business story anymore.
For nearly two years, the neighborhood's most decorated kitchen was simply gone, and nothing on Ocean Street tried to be its direct replacement.
Three Storefronts, Three Bets, One Summer
What actually filled the gap wasn't a single restaurant chasing Judy Gibson's reputation. It was three separate owners, with three unrelated concepts, independently choosing the same handful of Knightville blocks within months of each other.
| Address | Former Tenant | New Business | What Changed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60 Ocean Street | Taco Trio | Himalayas on the Bay | Tacos to Nepali and Tibetan cuisine |
| 448 Cottage Road | Elsmere BBQ (closed 2024) | Makoto Sushi Bar & Grill | Barbecue to wood-fired dishes and sushi |
| 200 Gorham Road | Taj Indian Cuisine's original location | Cobblestone Coffee & Company | Curry counter to coffee, bakery, and brunch |
Makoto is a sister restaurant to Portland's Yosaku, run by Chef Rattanak Tray and Hope MacVane-Tray, and it moved into the space Elsmere BBQ vacated in 2024. The menu leans on wood-fired dishes alongside sushi similar to what Yosaku already serves across the bridge, which gives Cottage Road a second sushi option it didn't have a year ago, according to Mainebiz's food coverage.
Cobblestone Coffee & Company is the quieter story but arguably the more telling one. It comes from the family behind Taj Indian Cuisine, opened in the exact building where Taj first started at 200 Gorham Road. Owner Sai Guntaka has been expanding aggressively this year, adding Silver Street by Taj in Portland and Rasa Indian Cuisine in Bangor, and rather than close the original Taj location when the brand moved on, the family converted it into something new entirely. The shop's own description, reported by WJBQ, promises masala chai brewed the Hyderabad way and single-origin Indian coffee roasted by Tandem alongside laminated pastry and a brunch menu.
None of these three businesses replaced Judy Gibson's food or its price point. That is the point. Knightville didn't get one ambitious restaurant trying to recapture a reputation. It got three modest, specific bets from operators who already had reasons to trust these blocks, whether that meant a returning taco business freeing up real estate, a sushi brand looking to expand, or a family choosing not to abandon the storefront where they started.
What Didn't Change This Summer
While Ocean Street, Cottage Road, and Gorham Road turned over storefronts, the parts of Knightville that don't depend on any single restaurant kept running on the same schedule they always have.
Mill Creek Park, the 10-acre green space bisected by the Greenbelt Walkway, hosted its free Wednesday concert series through July, organized by the city's parks department:
- July 1: Hot Honey Jam (folk and bluegrass)
- July 8: Ragtime Destroyers (New Orleans jazz)
- July 15: Matt Meyer & the Gumption Junction (bluegrass)
- July 22: Maine Marimba Ensemble (Zimbabwean marimba)
- July 29: Alive in the Root (acoustic crossover)
The series has run for years with sponsorship from Town and Country Federal Credit Union, and nothing about this summer's lineup depended on which restaurants were open a few blocks away. The same was true of Art in the Park, the juried show that has taken over the park's gazebo and lawns every second Saturday in August since 1980. This year's edition ran August 8, with roughly 170 artists, a food truck court, afternoon music, and the usual prize structure that includes a $1,000 scholarship named for Arthur Hahn, one of the show's founders, awarded to a graduating South Portland High School student headed into art studies.
Down at Willard Beach, the rules that govern a Maine summer haven't shifted either. Dogs get the sand off-leash from 7 to 9 a.m. and again from 7 to 9 p.m. between May 1 and September 30, with leashes required outside those windows. The city and Maine's Healthy Beaches program tested water quality twice a week from Memorial Day through Labor Day, posting a flag system at the main entrance so anyone walking down can check before wading in.
None of this is new information to anyone who already lives near Knightville Center. That's the point of naming it. The park schedule, the beach flags, and the dog hours are the parts of the neighborhood that don't reorganize themselves around whichever restaurant is having a moment, and they didn't need to this year either.
The Actual Signal
A single new restaurant opening in a space where an old one failed is not much of a story. Three unconnected owners choosing the same few blocks in the same stretch of 2026, in a neighborhood that had just lost its most-written-about kitchen, is a different kind of signal. It suggests that whatever made Ocean Street, Cottage Road, and Gorham Road worth betting on in 2020 didn't disappear when Judy Gibson closed its doors. It just waited for three different people to notice it at roughly the same time.
Knightville's food scene this year isn't smaller than it was in 2023. It's just built out of more pieces, none of which are trying to be the one thing Judy Gibson was.
If you're watching Knightville for reasons that go beyond dinner plans, whether that's tracking what a changing commercial strip means for the residential blocks around it or simply staying current on a neighborhood you already call home, the Lauren Jones Team keeps a close eye on South Portland alongside the rest of Casco Bay. Reach out anytime you want a local read on what's actually happening here, not just what's on the menu.
