Staff Writer
Forget good luck, bad luck, lots of luck, no luck, outta luck, down on luck, what luck, push your luck and just your luck, how about trying “Pot Luck?”
Aroostook Republican photo/Barb Scott
Christine LaPointe of Van Buren is ready to open “Pot Luck,” a new restaruant in Caribou on May 5. The new eatery is located next to Mr. Paperback in Skyway Plaza.Hours for the Pot Luck Restaurant have tentatively been set at 7 a.m.-2:30 p.m., Monday-Friday. Pot Luck will feature two daily specials such as baked chicken, pot roast, lasagna and homemade soup. Each day will offer a complete dinner for those with hearty noontime appetites, complete with mashed potatoes and vegetables, if desired.
Christine LaPointe of Van Buren hopes residents and business will do just that when she opens her “Pot Luck Restaurant, May 5. The new eatery, located in the Skyway Plaza next to Mr. Paperback, will be offering a variety of good old fashioned home cooked food.
“There will be nothing deep-fried, no burgers, no preservatives and no MSG,” said the new entrepreneur, “it will be fresh good food because I’m making it here.”
A longtime foster home operator (which she will continue), LaPointe said, she had decided she needed a change, something to get me out of the house.”
“This is for me,” she said, “I grew up with five brothers and my mother was always cooking for our family plus all the uncles and aunts, etc. I need to cook and my brothers are all elsewhere now, I have nobody to feed.”
A waitress at the Brookside Manor from 1980-92, food service is nothing new to LaPointe.
“I’ve had my eye on this location since last July and Dec.1, we finally signed the lease,” she said.
”Originally we had hoped to open early this month but the weather wasn’t very cooperative so we had to set it back until Monday, May 5,”she added.
Pot Luck will feature two daily specials such as baked chicken, pot roast, lasagna and homemade soup. Each day will offer a complete dinner for those with hearty noontime appetites, complete with mashed potatoes and vegetables, if desired.
Pot Luck will also feature daily fresh homemade sandwiches including, chicken salad, egg salad along with potato salad, macaroni salad and chef’s salads. LaPointe will also be offering in-house catering. “If someone needs potato or macaroni salads, or platters of sandwiches, etc. to feed a group over the weekend, all they have to do is call and I’ll be happy to have it already for them to pick up in a nice bowl Friday.”
LaPointe aims to have quick, efficient service for her customers. “I know people have an hour or less for lunch, so I will see that they don’t have to wait,”she said.
Takeout is also available with LaPointe planning on faxing the daily specials to each business location so employees can decide what they want to order before they call. “This saves my customers time and myself also, this way someone here won’t be repeating the daily menu over and over on the phone,”she said.
Hours for the Pot Luck Restaurant have tentatively been set at 7 a.m.-2:30 p.m., Monday-Friday. “I’m not going to be open on the weekends or evenings, said LaPointe, “I have two young children and those times are for me and my family.”
Breakfast specials will be available and eggs will be on the menu. “Just no omelets,” she noted, “they take too long, but there will always be homemade muffins, English muffins and eggs — just no omelets.”
Other items to be on the menu include breads, wonderful whoopee-pies and other sweets, all fresh and all homemade.
With a seating capacity for 32, including a small bar with stools, LaPointe laughed and said,”The entire space is open, including my kitchen, I want people to see how clean everything is and where their food is coming from.”
One other item that will be visible at Pot Luck is a suggestion box. “I’m very French, and I make things the way I learned and liked them from my mother, but if my customers have their own favorites or suggestions as to what to include in my menu, I will be happy to hear from them.”
Lapointe and her husband Mike, a carpenter, have been very involved with the construction and designing of the new business.
