BUCKSPORT—In the Penobscot River harbor town of Bucksport, one joint is jumping on a Tuesday afternoon. It's the new restaurant of chef/owner Cory LaForge and, because it's Taco Tuesday—three tacos for the price of two—the place is still packed past lunch hour.

The Salsa Shack, at 84 Main Street,  is the first brick-and-mortar restaurant for LaForge.

It's been a roundabout journey for the self-made chef, and he couldn't be any happier about where it's all ended up.

Born and raised in Washington, before his family moved to Lincolnville, LaForge worked in the kitchen at the Whale's Tooth at Lincolnville Beach after high school. He worked his way up from dishwashing to chef assistant before following his buddies to Sugarloaf Mountain Resort and working at restaurants in Western Maine, "as kitchen slave labor before moving up to a chef position," he said.  "That's really where my culinary career took off, learning how to run and manage a restaurant."

While some of his friends spent their 20s in Maine, he was encouraged by other friends to travel and work in the western part of the U.S., specifically in Utah, Wyoming, and Arizona.

"I really did not know the culture shock I was going into," he said. "There were people from Canada, Montana, New Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras. It was a huge eye-opener for me to experience the different ethnicities of food and cultures."

He bounced around from Maine to Colorado and back to Maine in 2017, when he started a family and wanted to be closer to his Maine family. 

When the COVID-19 pandemic was declared in 2020, LaForge, like many people in the restaurant industry, found himself out of work.

"I was getting to the point where I was outgrowing working for other people and thought I might want to work for myself," he said.

Operating by a, "let's throw it at the wall and see if it sticks" resilience, he found an opportunity to buy a food trailer and operate it at Ellsworth Harbor Park all summer.

"At first, I was going to do some kind of smashburger," he said. "But the trailer was so small, I could not fit anything inside it except tortillas. With my experience working in restaurants, I took all of my favorite ideas to make tacos. Little did I know it was going to be a huge hit."

When the summer ended, so did the food truck opportunities. As it so happens, the Orland community center opposite his house had a commercial kitchen, where he asked if he could do food prep for the food truck.

"It worked out pretty good," he said. "The owner said, 'Why don't you sell tacos out of this kitchen for the winter?' It was like an old cafeteria, so I was sticking my head out of the lunch lady window, selling tacos."

Again, opportunity struck when he learned that just down the road, the building that once housed the popular Friars' Brewhouse Tap Room in Buckdport was for lease. 

With minimal renovations, he took in his own kitchen equipment and opened the restaurant in early December. It has been busy ever since. A two-man operation, he has help from his friend and employee, Connor MacLeod, who once helped run his father's Bucksport restaurant, MacLeods.

Thinking about how he got here in life, he said: "I don't know, I just stumbled through everything in life. I had a really good buddy who worked with me in restaurants and who also grew up in Maine; he was just stuck. He didn't want to go anywhere because Maine was all he knew, but he was heading on a downward spiral. He was working at a restaurant in Bar Harbor that had a sister restaurant in Montana and I told him he should leave Maine and go to Montana.

"I said, 'If you're in doubt you shouldn't do it, you just should.' I hooked him up with a restaurant in Montana because I knew the chef. The chef hired him; he moved out there, and it turned his life around. My buddy called me up months later and was just in such a better place, so grateful to have taken that chance."

"It's a lot like skiing," he said. "Just commit to it. Just send it."

Once the Salsa Shack gets its liquor license, which he predicts will be within a month, they'll be serving beer and wine, and simple tequila margaritas. The hours are currently 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday and may extend once the warmer months arrive.

For more info visit: The Salsa Shack.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penabypilot.com