The Harpswell Schoolhouse restaurant will have a soft reopening on Aug. 1 after a recent, temporary closure.
This time, expect a year-round, upscale eatery with innovative menus that change weekly. And a new, experienced chef, fresh from the West Coast, who aims for variety and creativity in his cooking.
“Everything will be made in-house,” said chef Andrew Krull. Even the rich duck egg ice cream. And the shaved fennel salad with green apple and dill and a grapefruit vinaigrette. And the watermelon mango gazpacho. Not to mention the lobster bouillabaisse with Krull’s homemade pappardelle pasta. Or the steak au poivre. Entrees will range from $30 to $50.
The restaurant has gone through more than its share of turmoil in recent years.
Harpswell’s Helen Norton has owned the historic building at 506 Harpswell Neck Road since 2006 and leased it to various businesses.
The School House 1913 restaurant operated from November 2019 to November 2023, when a fire in the upstairs apartment caused extensive damage to the apartment.
Norton herself reopened the restaurant as the Harpswell Schoolhouse in the spring of 2024, but multiple chefs have come and gone. She recently closed the restaurant after the last chef left, “for reorganization” and to “give everyone a rest,” she said.
Majella O’Brien, general manager since the 2024 reopening, will retire at the end of August, Norton said. She added that popular host Bruce Murphy won’t return because it was too far for him to drive from Raymond.
The star of the new Harpswell Schoolhouse will be chef Krull and his cutting-edge menus, which he expects will excite locals. Even happy hour, from 3-5 p.m., will have innovative dishes. “We’ll do fun things like local cheese,” he said, served with crackers he creates from onions.
Krull, who hails from Colorado, has started and owned 10 restaurants and two food trucks in four states: Colorado, California, Florida and South Carolina. He has a master’s degree in Western herbal medicine and nutrition. Expect to see distinctive features in his dishes like Tuscan lavender buds and Alaskan rose petals.
Krull started working in the hospitality industry at the age of 13. He said he was in the car with his grandmother, whining about a toy he wanted, when she pulled over by a doughnut shop.
“You want a toy?” she asked. She went inside, and when she came out, she told her grandson he had a job working weekends as a counter boy.
“I had all the toys I wanted after that,” he said with a laugh.
From there it was on-the-job training in all aspects of the restaurant business. He opened his first restaurant, an organic cafe and bakery, in Evergreen, Colorado. Among the other restaurants or cafes he has owned, two were in Durango, Colorado, where he also found a dilapidated food truck, restored it, and took it to farmers markets and festivals.
His last venture was as a chef at a cafe in tiny Hayfork, a Northern California community less than half the size of Harpswell. He wanted to buy the cafe, but someone bought it out from under him and still has not reopened it.
So Krull left California for Maine, where he had often visited. For 22 years, his mother owned the Inn on the Wharf in Lubec. She sold it in June. She spends the offseason in Aiken, South Carolina, where Helen Norton’s daughters, Nena and Sandra, also reside in the winter. Krull knows Nena and texted her, asking, “Does your mother need a chef?”
Next thing he knew, he was driving 3,600 miles from coast to coast with his cat, Boots, and dog, Sparky — “a big marshmallow” who likes to curl up in the passenger seat. Krull also was pulling a trailer. What was in it? “Just my life,” he quipped.
He doesn’t want to reveal his age because he said he looks younger than he is. “And I’m single,” he teased.
The Schoolhouse’s newest chef plans on staying here “for years and years.”
“My days of starting restaurants are over,” Krull said.
As for Norton? “I’m delighted to be able to reopen,” she said.
The Harpswell Schoolhouse will be open from 3-9 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday. Happy hour, from 3-5 p.m., will have a special menu.
