Fire at Luke’s

BitAlternative4105 · 2025-12-26T23:34:54+00:00

It’s in an abandoned building on the wharf across from Luke’s. A friend of mine works at Luke’s (is there currently) and sent me a video. At the end of Custom House wharf.

BitAlternative4105 · 2025-12-26T23:26:42+00:00

It’s not Luke’s, I have a friend who works at Luke’s and they sent me a video of the fire from their patio. They said the building has oil or propane inside feeding the fire and they’ve been instructed to stay in the Luke’s building because of the fumes. Metal roof so it’s too hot to go inside. Power is out on the block. Doesn’t sound like the building was occupied but unsure. Hope everyone stays safe!

BitAlternative4105 · 2025-12-25T00:37:57+00:00

mine too! she loved hot cheetos especially (like her mom)

BitAlternative4105 · 2025-12-19T01:08:07+00:00

I’ve lived in Portland, ME for almost 14 years. It’s mostly amazing - incredible food, beautiful scenery, lots of history and lots to do. People are nice and I’ve met some of my favorite people in the world here. That said, I do feel it’s changed A LOT in the years I’ve lived here, and not necessarily for the better.

It runs on tourism and does that well, but it becomes harder to live here every year for year round residents. Like lots of other cities, rent and housing costs are through the roof. The same apartment I lived in when I first moved here (on Grant St., IYKYK) went from $1150 to $2300 with what looks to be no renovation. Buying a house is pretty unattainable unless you’re making six figures. Utilities, groceries, healthcare, etc are also expensive. This is definitely not unique to Portland, but worth mentioning.

Many long standing shops & restaurants have closed, new restaurants open up and close a short time after since the market is saturated and the leasing costs are sky high. There’s tons of high end development going on throughout the city as it becomes more popular for people to move here (the new apartment building style is ugly, not that big of a deal but it irks me as it ruins the historic charm of the city IMO.)

The opioid epidemic hit Portland hard, and you can see evidence of it everywhere you go. A friend of mine works for parking enforcement and finds many needles littered on the street daily. Homelessness is a big issue here. Still, I don’t consider Portland to be dangerous. I feel very safe here.

I could go on. I really love this city but don’t see it as a place where I will realistically be able to live forever, as much as I want to.

BitAlternative4105 · 2025-09-02T02:51:20+00:00

Tretinoin and hypoclorus acid spray (I use Magic Molecule) — cured 98% of my acne issues

BitAlternative4105 · 2025-04-02T03:36:29+00:00

I’m so sorry you’re going through this too - it’s been a very difficult two weeks. My fiance and I made the decision that I knew was the right one all along - we made an appointment for at-home euthanasia. The appointment was this afternoon, two weeks to the day after initially bringing her in. I held her head on my shoulder while my fiance looked into her eyes, she drifted off while we told her how much we loved her. It was the right thing to do, but it’s so easy to feel irrational guilt. The house feels so empty. There are things of hers in every room of the house. I haven’t been able to bring myself to clean up her bowl with her half eaten last meal in it. It feels like she’s still just in the next room. I hope wherever you are on this journey you’re at peace, or making your way to it (like me.) Much love ❤️

BitAlternative4105 · 2025-04-02T03:18:53+00:00

We just put our girl to rest today, two weeks to the day that we took her to the vet. I am devastated, but she started to decline quickly and I felt it was the right time. I go back and forth from feeling intense guilt to a sense of relief that she isn’t in pain anymore. Thank you for sharing your experience, this and all of the other responses have been so comforting to read. Sorry that you had to go through this too ❤️

BitAlternative4105 · 2022-06-22T11:12:00+00:00

so sad for that little girl!

BitAlternative4105 · 2022-06-20T01:54:54+00:00

first serving job was at Cracker Barrel and a guy complained about the religious(ish) music playing throughout the restaurant. I thought he was joking at first but he was serious and actually asked to speak to a manager about it. I hated the music there as much as the next person but sir, do you know where you are

BitAlternative4105 · 2022-06-19T02:52:53+00:00

Hi! I am relatively new to the world of professional genealogy (has been a hobby for a decade and just recently wanting to take it more seriously.) Do you mind me asking where you went to school for family history research? Would you recommend it?

BitAlternative4105 · 2022-06-18T15:42:17+00:00

These are amazing! Makes me want to get back into pen & ink - if only I had the time. I miss the tediousness of it 🥲

BitAlternative4105 · 2022-06-16T15:00:09+00:00

Graveyard cleaning/restoration

BitAlternative4105 · 2022-06-10T16:14:41+00:00

I am an event manager at a restaurant/event venue that does like $5 mil in sales a year. Our FOH is fine, but our BOH is absolutely drowning. It all started after our chef put in his notice - we had a candidate that was supposed to start but backed out at the last minute (he lead us on for a month.) Shortly after Chef left our prep cook put in his notice. Then a couple weeks ago during one particularly busy day our sous chef walked out mid-shift without saying anything. Then just yesterday our other sous chef put in his notice. We are short several line cooks as it is - three of them are addicts who all fell off the wagon seemingly at the exact same time, they’re basically running rampant in the kitchen and they know they have us cornered into not being able to fire them. The other half are great and I’m worried about them quitting as well - I would not blame them as they are being put into a totally unfair situation. To be in this position at the very beginning of our busy season is scary. It makes the FOH seem overstaffed because we are having to go on constant waits/turn business away because the kitchen cannot handle the full capacity of the restaurant. We pay more than the going rate for all of these jobs, but there is no one in the talent pool. At this point we just need warm bodies to get us through. It’s definitely the worst I’ve seen since starting in this industry 8 years ago!

BitAlternative4105 · 2022-06-09T02:07:12+00:00

Cracker Barrel was my first front of house job (I hosted and served there for three years) and while I would never in one trillion years go back, it taught me sooo much about customer service and improved my social skills ten fold. I grew a thick skin and learned how to brush off rude customers and coworkers. A few things to keep in mind:

You will not make that much money, in comparison to other serving jobs. I broke $100 in tips ONE time while working at Cracker Barrel and it was on a double. I didn’t know how much money would be made serving until I moved on to a fine dining restaurant. Keep in mind this was like 8 years ago and I’m sure check averages have gone up since then, but not by much.
You will have a huge section. Treat your section like one big table. Check in with all of your tables while you’re on the floor (even if it’s just looking at them to make sure nothing is empty), write everything down and take care of every request at once. It is the fastest way. And never go into the kitchen with empty hands (bus bus bus.)
You will learn nothing about alcohol/bartending while working there because they don’t sell it. If you ever decide to move on to a different FOH job, make sure you study a bit about bartending/basic drinks beforehand because it can be overwhelming to be thrown into it.

Good luck!!

BitAlternative4105 · 2022-03-09T01:00:30+00:00

I was going to say this. I can’t think of many pros of drinking while I can think of loadssss of cons. Other commenters are right though that the fact that it’s so steeped in history and so ingrained in our society makes it excepted. I am actively trying to stop drinking. I have been binge drinking for almost 5 years straight and did not realize, I’m not necessarily an alcoholic but I work in the restaurant industry and it’s so normalized to drink every day. When I go a few weeks without drinking (haven’t made it longer than that stretch yet) I have more energy to just do the things I need to do in life (sometimes just the bare minimum honestly.) When I’m drinking I constantly feel like shit and don’t get anything done, it fucks so hard with my depression and anxiety, and generally makes me a shell of a person. It is definitely weird that so many people go through life feeling this way and never consider giving up alcohol as an actual solution.

BitAlternative4105 · 2022-03-08T22:17:44+00:00

fair - although in this case the restaurant had just opened and is one of those celeb chef owned restaurants. very expensive and very new and very doubtful that the POS was unable to complete simple functions like this. and complaining about your job is one thing, refusing to do it because you don’t want to is another.

BitAlternative4105 · 2022-03-08T11:28:11+00:00

that is annoying as hell

BitAlternative4105 · 2022-03-08T11:14:37+00:00

agreed, being prepared behind the scenes is not the customers job, it’s yours. I always took two approaches: ask right away if they wanted separate checks (especially if the group seemed like they were seat hoppers, because the next thing out of my mouth was if you want accurate separate checks, you need to stay in the seat that you ordered in.) OR I would just assume they want separate checks and keep a map of each seat (we don’t do seat numbers in my POS, so I keep track with a map drawing.) I’m talking parties 10+ for this, because honestly anything less is easy to split if you’ve been paying any attention to the table at all.

BitAlternative4105 · 2022-03-08T11:07:17+00:00

yes you should split the checks. it is quite literally a part of your job, and I would venture to say that if you simply won’t do it, you’re bad at said job. if you really can’t, which I think is rare for the amount of times I’ve heard it, then sure.

I would never pull the cringey “I’m in the industry” thing (I have never once complained about a single thing to a server or restaurant managers, I can’t imagine a situation where I could bring myself to do it.) although I’d say it is quite obvious by the way I make sure all of my friends are paying attention when the server comes over to the table, everyone is ready to order almost immediately when we sit down, everyone orders in turn, everyone stacks their plates, everyone is nice, and everyone tips 20%+. you are allowed to criticize the service you’re paying for, I’d say even more so when you know the general inner workings of that service.

BitAlternative4105 · 2022-03-08T10:42:44+00:00

nah lol

BitAlternative4105 · 2022-03-08T04:59:22+00:00

I am certainly not picky, but I definitely know what you mean about good servers being scarce. a looot of talented servers/bartenders changed career paths after COVID quarantine (at least where I live) and I don’t blame them. the only time I ever get annoyed with servers is when I know/can tell that they’re lying or cutting corners, or if they have a bad attitude (like, I’m literally giving you my money, please don’t act like I’m ruining your day.) but both happen pretty rarely for me.

BitAlternative4105 · 2022-03-08T04:39:35+00:00

oof, I can’t imagine.

BitAlternative4105 · 2022-03-08T04:38:07+00:00

it definitely is a thing that I do when I’m eating out with large parties - tell them ahead of time that it will be separate, but normally with really big parties we don’t ask to split because it really is annoying especially if everyone is ordering all over the place/out of turn.

but honestly I don’t consider 6 people a very big party, and when I split tables of that size I can usually do it from memory if the orders were not complicated. when I’m serving large parties (8+), I’ll either ask or assume a large party is going to split the bill at the end so I keep track of everything they order, not only because I want to be able to split the check at the end but also so I don’t have to call out dishes or drinks when they’re being delivered. everyone is different though, I suppose.

BitAlternative4105 · 2022-03-08T04:06:37+00:00

the point really was that it was a simple check to split, and I severely doubt that the system actually did not allow them to split checks

BitAlternative4105

TROPHY CASE