Rockland - The Thorndike Hotel, built in 1857, closed in the 1970s. A facelift in 2005 with help from the City of Rockland brought new life to the facade and currently its ground floor space is occupied by the Thorndike Creamery. Owners Mathew and Sarah Vokey occupy the former lobby of the famed hotel at 385 Main Street and have turned the historic location into a place for great homemade food and ice cream.

“This was the lobby of the Thorndike Hotel,” said Vokey. “The big arch you see there got covered with a chalkboard and we just extended them all the way around when we moved in seven years ago. The chalkboard with all the drawings is for big and little kids to draw on and I think there are more big kids than little who use it.”

“I love being in downtown Rockland,” she said. “One of the things they taught us in CulinarySchool is location, location, location. We are on a corner on Main Street, which is a real key. The Thorndike Hotel couldn’t have picked a better spot. We have a stop light in front of us. We are kitty-corner to the Farnsworth. We have a great jewelry store right across the street and also the Island Institute.”

“We have pizza and quesadilla specials daily, she said. “I try to get them up on our Facebook page early. We sell pizza by the slice, cheese and pepperoni all day, but we also have specialty slices daily and those are on our Facebook page, as well. We have tons of sandwiches and sandwich specials, Calzones, Falafel and gyros. We’re about to switch over to our winter menu. And homemade soups, today is black bean and we’ve been doing a lot of tomato soups, we have our own farm and we have a hothouse filled with tomatoes, so it’s making me a little bit crazy.”

“I just did a freshly foraged wild mushroom soup. I had two different foragers sell me their mushrooms, so we had a big batch of that. We try to do what ever is seasonal. When it’s not seasonal we do haddock chowders. We have a lot of loyal customers who love our chicken stew. We do a lot of wraps. A favorite one is chicken, bacon, spinach and brie. We add roasted red peppers and garlic then roast it in the oven so it’s crunchy on the outside and gooey on the inside.”

“We use Gifford’s for the ice cream, which is out of Skowhegan. Gifford’s is a fifth-generation business and they have over 100 farmers in Maine that supply them with milk for their ice cream, so I feel like we are doing our part in supporting our dairy farmers. For their Maine Wild Blueberry ice cream, all the blueberries come from Ellsworth and it is the best Blueberry ice cream I’ve ever had.  We make our own waffle cones and waffle bowls. And we do have gluten free ice cream cones.”

“We have lots of gluten free breads and we have gluten free soups. There are only a couple of soups that get thickened with flour. We have gluten-free pizza dough and we make our own pizza sauce.”

The Thorndike Creamery is open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week, and until 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.