After Nunan's Closes, Cape Porpoise Runs on the Pier's Schedule

"The second your boat touches the dock on our island, you get a wave that puts you in a different place, a different time." Nick Lewia said that to the Portland Press Herald this summer. He is head keeper of Goat Island Light, one of the Kennebunkport Conservation Trust's Cape Porpoise Harbor islands. He lives on the island from May to November with his wife Amy, their son Brandon and their dog Mavis. He told the paper he wakes up to lobster boats humming through the harbor.

This fall, those boats are working from a pier that has only been finished since June. It is Cape Porpoise's first off-season with the rebuilt pier. As the summer places close, it is also the clearest guide to what stays open. Some of the places with posted hours running through the week sit along Pier Road and Mills Road, within a short walk of the harbor. Once the lobster shack closes, the village's calendar moves to the working waterfront.

Nunan's season runs through October 17

Nunan's Lobster Hut at 9 Mills Road posts its 2026 season as May 21 through October 17. It opens at 5 p.m. seven nights a week until then. October 17 falls on a Saturday. That Saturday is the final day of the posted season at one of the village's best-known seasonal spots.

The other seasonal name on the harbor is the Cape Porpoise Lobster Company and Cape Pier Chowder House at 79 Pier Road. Visit Maine lists them together with only "Seasonal Hours" and no published closing date for 2026. Call before you plan a late-October chowder run around them.

After those two, the list of open doors gets shorter. It also moves closer to the water.

What $8.6 million changed at the end of Pier Road

Kennebunkport finished an $8.6 million renovation of the Cape Porpoise Pier this summer. The Press Herald reported that the pier supports approximately 50 commercial fishing vessels and is home to several restaurants. Select Board Chair Mary Beth Gilbert cut the ribbon on June 24. State Rep. Traci Gere and representatives of Sens. Angus King and Susan Collins and Rep. Chellie Pingree attended.

According to the town's project page, the work covered:

• A replacement bait shed
• A new Harbormaster office
• New fuel tanks and fuel systems
• An expanded, structurally rehabilitated commercial pier
• A new float system for recreational boats, plus a pump-out station

GEI Consultants designed the project. The contract went to Prock Marine in July 2024, and construction started in November 2024. Before work started, the January 2024 storms pushed "over a foot of water on the pier and in the bait shed," according to a Press Herald report. That damage raised the question of raising the pier's elevation partway through the project.

The funding shows how much of the pier's cost came from outside Kennebunkport:

The town's share comes to about 17 percent of the budget. Grants built most of the new pier because it is a commercial fishing facility. That also explains why the pier gets used after the summer crowds leave.

The week, door by door

The places around the harbor and square that keep regular posted hours each run a different weekly schedule. Put them side by side and you can see how the fall week works:

Wednesday is the thin day. Both restaurants at 77 Pier Road are closed, and so is the café at 2 Pier Road. That leaves the two markets. Cape Porpoise Kitchen at 1 Mills Road describes itself as a year-round specialty-food market, gourmet deli and café. It serves coffee, breakfast, sandwiches, prepared foods and baked goods. Bradbury Brothers Market at 167 Main Street has a butcher, fresh meals, a bakery, produce and wine. On a midweek night in November, the village's dinner options mostly come down to takeout from those two counters.

These business pages are undated, and none of them posts a winter calendar. The table shows the hours listed today. Confirm them as the season goes on.

Two restaurants, one building, and a café that changed its mission

The building at 77 Pier Road has had a longer transition than many people remember. Pier 77 and The Ramp Bar & Grill closed in the summer of 2022. Chef Germán Lucarelli of The Lost Fire signed for the space on December 15 of that year. Ultramar and Casa 77 opened there on Friday, May 12, 2023.

The two rooms work differently. Ultramar is the dinner room, with reservations through OpenTable. Lucarelli pairs local seafood with Mediterranean flavors and wood-fired cooking there. Casa Seventy Seven is the walk-in seafood shack and bar, open from 11 a.m. In the 2023 opening coverage, Lucarelli described the site as year-round. That statement is three years old, and neither current site lists a closing date.

A few doors up at 2 Pier Road, Musette stopped operating in late October 2024. Its founders opened Caring Community Cuisine in the same space on November 4, 2024. CCC is a nonprofit café that supports people and families affected by cancer. It is open for walk-ins Sunday through Tuesday, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. On Mondays and Tuesdays, it is the one sit-down breakfast and lunch table right on Pier Road.

The island that stays staffed until November

On the water, the season lasts longer than it does on Mills Road. The Lewia family starts on Goat Island each May, rotates with apprentice families through the summer, and returns full-time from mid-August until November. Goat Island was the last lighthouse in Maine to be automated, in 1990. The Kennebunkport Conservation Trust leased it from the U.S. Coast Guard in 1992 and took ownership in 1998.

The keepers are rebuilding the island on the same storm timeline as the pier. Lewia is repairing the island's dock, which was damaged in the January 2024 storms. He has finished a stone surround at the base of the tower and planted 2,200 plugs of sea grass to hold the shoreline. He also plans to restore the boat shed next spring. The keepers' quarters are a private residence. The Trust says tower tours depend on whether the keepers are home, and landing depends on the tide.

Vaughn Island is closer. The Trust protects 12 islands in and around Cape Porpoise Harbor, and you can walk out to Vaughn at low tide. Pier Road also has a public launch for anyone paddling out to the others. Vaughn has three reservable campsites, called Grove, Cobble Cove and North Beach. You can book them up to a week ahead, for no more than two nights in a row.

The dates between now and Nunan's last night

Here is the fall calendar in and around the village, in order:

1. Saturday, October 3, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Bobcat Ridge 25K on the Edwin L. Smith Preserve trails, with proceeds going to KCT.
2. Saturday, October 17. Nunan's last posted day of the season.
3. Sunday, October 18, 3:30 to 5 p.m. Forest Bathing at the Emmons Preserve labyrinth. Half of proceeds go to the Trust.
4. Saturday, October 24, 4:30 to 6 p.m. First Congregational's final bean supper of 2026.

On days when the harbor is too windy, the Trust's inland trails are close by. Emmons Preserve at 57 Gravelly Brook Road has a labyrinth, short loops and the Batson River route. That route connects to Tyler Brook Preserve, which follows the river through forest toward the coast. The Edwin L. Smith Preserve at 76 Guinea Road has 10 miles of wooded trails and a short waterfall loop along Round Swamps Brook. For a rainy afternoon, the Cape Porpoise Library is open Tuesday and Thursday from 1 to 4 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon.

A Cape Porpoise home in October has harbor light, a working pier and island views close by, and that setting is part of what buyers are looking at. The Cady Toussaint Team films listings in the season they're in, so a fall launch here can show the village as it looks this month. If you're planning to sell near the harbor, Sell With Us and we'll build your video around the view from Pier Road.