ROCKLAND — Peter Ott’s Restaurant has enjoyed the same location at 16 Bay View Street for 40 years. Come April, the restaurant’s new address will be 18 Bay View Landing as they take over the former Graffam Brothers Restaurant on the Waterfront. Fresh Restaurant also located on Bayview Landing announced it would reopen in April as well with a new owner. Peter Masin-Peters is the chef/owner of Peter Ott’s. 

“We’re all very excited about it,” said Masin-Peters. “The feedback from our customers has been great. We think it’s a great evolution for the business. Peter Ott’s has been in this location for 40 years and we think it is a great opportunity for us to be down on the water.”

He said parts of the building will remain the same, but there are changes coming to the inside.

“We’re going to take down some walls and make the kitchen open to the dining room, somewhat what we do here at our current location,” he said. “We have some great interactions with our customers that way and we’d like to keep that the same as much as possible.”

The Peter Ott’s salad bar, which is synonymous with the restaurant, will be going away.

“We’re saying the replacement of the salad bar is the amazing views out the windows,” he said. “It will give us the opportunity to do some great salads which we’ve had in our repertoire. The salad bar was great, people loved it, but we feel we can offer some great individual salads, as well.”

The new location will offer lunch seasonably and dinner nightly, but no plans for breakfast are in the works.

“We’re really going to focus on what had made us successful and that’s our dinner menu,” he said. “We will incorporate some really great items into a lunch menu and that’s what we’re going to focus on is those two things. We’ve always done a lot of fresh seafood here, but no fried foods. We’ll start doing some fried foods at the new location, but with fresh seafood.”

Stuart Smith, who is coowner of Bay View Landing along with his wife, Marianne, said he was thankful to have the opportunity to welcome Peter Ott’s into their new location.

"Marianne and I welcome Peter Masin-Peters, and Peter Ott's Restaurant, one of the longest operating and successful restaurants in Camden, to a new dockside location on Camden Harbor at Bay View Landing,” Smith said. “Peter Ott's has been one of our favorite restaurants over the years, and we are very pleased that Peter is moving into the space right below Grand Harbor Inn. He does a great job in serving the finest steaks and seafood, and this move gives him the opportunity to offer his patrons inside and outside dining while they enjoy one of Camden Harbor's best views."

March 29, 2014 will be Peter Ott's last night at its current location. The restaurant's goal is to open the new location mid-April.

Peter grew up in Camden and attended Camden-Rockport High School. After attending college in North Carolina, he moved back to the area after graduating. His background in cooking came from his parents, who owned the Thomaston Café for 20 years. Peters bought Peter Ott's from Keith May in 2006.

In a related story, Steven Steeves is the new owner of Fresh Restaurant. He has worked there as the chef for the past two and a half years and told Penobscot Bay Pilot he negotiated the sale of the restaurant from the Smiths, who have owned it for three and a half years. Steeves said the sale was for the restaurant only and did not include the bakery.

Fresh is looking to reopen the first week in April.

“We’re renovating,” said Steven. “We’ll be adding a new kitchen and a new dining room. It will be everything I wanted it to be and more. The menu will pretty much be the same items with a few new additions.”

Fresh has focused on with its Mediterranean style cuisine and Steven said there was a possibility of adding a Mediterranean style breakfast.

“We are considering it,” he said. “If I can find the right person to get then I’m going to do it.”

Steeves is originally from Rockland and went away to culinary school. He worked in hotels and restaurants in Portland.

“Mostly it was Mediterranean restaurants,” he said. “My wife is from Bulgaria and that was the style we focused on.”