Changes Coming to Downtown Restaurants

At the Design Review Committee meeting on April 14, three existing downtown restaurants, and one new one, presented plans for changes to the exterior of their properties.

Welcome Home Diner

Downtown Sanford will have a new restaurant soon, when Welcome Home Diner opens in the former Jerry’s Diner building, most recently home to the One Love Jamaican restaurant. The green and yellow exterior color scheme will be repainted garnet, to blend with the brick front, with blue trim. The lattice fence will be replaced with a taller, solid fence, to better shield outdoor customers from traffic fumes and noise. The fence at the left side of the building will be replaced. Owner Michael Grenier plans to start by offering breakfast and lunch, with a dinner menu to be added at a later date.

McDonald’s

The most ambitious project outlined was McDonald’s plan to reconstruct their drive-through as a double lane. The ordering stations will be moved around to the east side of the building, which will enable traffic to stack up between the ordering stations and the pay and pickup windows, rather than lining up by the front door and out to the street. See the plan below. About ten parking spaces will be eliminated, and a crosswalk will be added to make the parking lot safer for walk-in customers. The work will be scheduled once all permits are in place, and will take several weeks to complete.

Third Alarm Diner

Third Alarm Diner will have their outdoor seating area again this year, and it will be even nicer than it was last summer. Owner Wendy Fawcett will add more planters with a rope fence to screen the area. The jersey barriers and lattice will be painted to coordinate with the building’s colors. She said she has received many questions from customers anxious for the outdoor seating area to open. Ms. Fawcett’s husband Shane is in the process of purchasing the brick building next door, so look for some improvements there in the future.

Dairy Queen

Dairy Queen is adding a large walk-in freezer behind the building. It will be a free-standing unit, and there will be about a seven-foot gap between the freezer and the building. A piece of fencing will shield the gap and create a continuous line with the building. Owner Jim Doiron plans to cover the three visible sides of the freezer with a vinyl wrap featuring nostalgic Dairy Queen images.

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