LEWISTON — A long-awaited restaurant planned for the historic Grand Trunk Depot on the edge of Simard-Payne Memorial Park should open this fall, owner Stephen Dick said Tuesday.

Dick and his daughter, Ileshea Stowe, received their liquor license and special amusement permit for the restaurant, “Rails,” at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.

Dick said he hopes to have the restaurant open by the end of October, but said it will be open before the year ends.

“The end of October is the best-case scenario, but I think we are a lot closer than it might look,” Stowe said.

The restaurant will feature farm-to-table cuisine with a Franco-American flair and the decor will feature local photographs and memorabilia.

The building, at 103 Lincoln St., was built in 1874 and served as the landing spot for many of Lewiston-Auburn’s Canadian immigrants for years. It’s been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1979.

A restaurant has been planned for the spot since 2010, when the city and the Lewiston-Auburn Railroad began paying for renovations with federal grants.

The original developer, Karen Pulkinnen, began working on it in 2011 and brought in Dick as an investor.

Dick filed suit in January, alleging that Pulkinnen had misused the $150,000 investment he’d made, paying off back debts to contractors instead of investing in the business going forward.

That suit is no longer being pursued and Pulkinnen is not involved in the development.

Dick said the restaurant won’t be open in time for the Dempsey Challenge, but they plan to set up a table to advertise the restaurant.

“We have a lot of things under construction now, like building a bar,” Dick said. “You have to work with the plumber, the carpenter and the electrician all at the same time — and one cannot complete their work until the other one is done. But it’s coming along fine. It’s working out well, and I’m very happy with the result.”

staylor@sunjournal.com

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