I would be exaggerating if I said that Maple’s Bakery and Gelato on Route 1 in Yarmouth is a bagel body-double for South Portland’s bagel superstar, Scratch Baking.  What’s true is this: Essentially the Maple’s bagel is to Yarmouth what the bagel is to South Portland’s Scratch Baking.  Both make great bagels. Go to Maple’s on a Saturday or Sunday morning and you’ll walk into its small shop packed to the rafters with morning-bagel enthusiasts. Like Scratch, Maple’s runs out early.  They make about 300 to 400 bagels per day on weekends and 200 to 300 daily during the week.

Maple’s Bakery and Gelato; toasted Maple’s bagel enjoyed at home

I’ve driven past the Maple’s shop on Route 1 many times and have wondered if this was the same Maple’s who scooped up the organic ice cream market way back when Maple’s founder Kristi Green opened her ice cream shop on Forest Avenue about 10 years ago. There she produced small-batch ice cream using local and organic ingredients.

Maple’s is the place to be on weekend mornings; Maple’s chicken pot pie

Eventually Maple’s brand ice cream joined the ranks of other small-batch ice cream makers such as Gelato Fiasco who invaded supermarket ice cream shelves at the time. It was ultimately bought out twice, and the brand sort of lost its identity, if not quality.

Thus, Maple’s brand gelato/ice cream went private around 2014 and became available only at the Yarmouth shop.   Soon after, that’s when baker Robin Ray bought the place about a year ago and expanded its line to include those fabulous bagels, pastries, cookies, chicken pot pies and the ice cream, which steady customers still wanted.  I’ve not tried the ice cream (yet), but I hear on good authority it’s all that it’s stacked up to be.  It’s not organic but it is mostly all natural, made with local Smiling Hill milk and cream, local eggs, sugar; the only additive is xanthum gum, used to give it stability.

The shop also sells the artisan baked goods from baker Kerry Hanney.  These are baked in Maple’s ovens after hours.  Hanney’s baked goods go under the name of Night Moves Bread + Pie  crafting some of the finest loaves in Maine using Skowhegan milled wheat. I wrote about Hanney’s bread in my report on Drifter’s Wife (see October 7 review), which features her bread on the menu.  Other Hanney baked goods  include pies–blueberry, apple with a cheddar crust and pumpkin.

Breads and pies by baker Kerry Hanney at Maple’s

Yarmouth like other satellite villages that fan out from Portland’s stronger orbit is gradually becoming a food and dining destination unto itself. Yarmouth seems to be leading the pack with its leafy Main street of period homes and comely shopfronts.  Newcomers like Owl and Elm opened recently on Main Street as a family-friend pub, a cross between a TV Cheers and Dysart’s.  Gather has regained its prominence serving farm to table family fare; the ubiquitous Otto, who pops up as frequently as the opening of an envelope, has descended on this fair village with the obsequiousness of a pizza slinger.  All of which doesn’t stop villagers from crossing onto Route 1 to enjoy morning coffee (Coffee by Design), great bagels, pastries and take home a pint of ice cream from Maple’s Bakery and Gelato.

Maple’s Bakery and Gelato, 881 US Route 1, Yarmouth, ME, 207-846-1000.  Note website is being updated.