El El Frijoles' Owners Opening Dudley's Refresher in Castine This Month

Visitors to Castine can expect to wait in line at an elevated takeout shack this season, as Michael Rossney and Michele Levesque, owners of El El Frijoles in Sargentville, plan to open Dudley's Refresher on Memorial Day weekend. Kara van Emmerik, longtime sous chef at the couple's Mexican restaurant, will be chef de cuisine of the Castine Town Dock spot, serving traditional dockside classics from scratch with locally-sourced ingredients.

The business' new website promises things will "be made with a sense of humor" and that the operating hours will be "Seven days a week from 11 am to astronomical sunset." A release in the Bangor Daily News suggests the name itself is a joke based on American Navy captain Dudley Saltonstall, who royally mucked up the 1779 Penobscot Expedition.

Rossney stressed in a MaineBiz interview that customer service and food quality are of the utmost importance. He elaborated on their food philosophy for the Stonington Farmers Market, where he and Levesque have sold their Mexican food for years: "We are holding tightly to our conviction that the best food comes from close by, so we'll be using locally grown, sourced or produced ingredients wherever we can, and Kara will be whipping up most of it from scratch."

Dudley's Refresher has been built on the former site of The Breeze; the Castine Patriot reported that owner Snow Logan didn't go willingly, but has since folded that takeout business into her shop Castine Variety.