Just down Runnals Walk from Mary Low Coffeehouse, on the first floor of the Charlie Bassett House, is the work-in-progress space that is going to become The Miller’s Table at Colby.
The Miller’s Table at Colby will be a café space that sells many of the same goods available at its parent location in Skowhegan, called The Miller’s Table at Maine Grains. The Skowhegan farm-to-table restaurant, bakery, and café is known for its ambience, food, and local flavor.
Amber Lambke, founder and CEO of Maine Grains and managing owner of The Miller’s Table, has been working to promote local foods in the state since 2005, and she’s focused specifically on processing local grains. In 2012, she bought a defunct Victorian jailhouse in downtown Skowhegan and converted it into a grain mill, calling it Maine Grains.
“[The jailhouse] was sturdy, and… it had vertical height that is advantageous in milling,” she said. “We send grain up to the fourth floor of the building and gravity-feed [it] through machines on the way down.”
In the jailhouse, there was also a commercial kitchen. “That lent itself in 2016 to launching a café and bakery called The Miller’s Table,” Lambke said. “And that café has been in operation to feature things like wood-fired pizza, sandwiches, [and] a full sourdough bread-baking and pastry program.”
I visited the Skowhegan Maine Grains facility and brought three friends (Jack AbuHaidar `27, Sam Blasdell `27, and Ben Wintersteen `27) to eat at the original Miller’s Table. Lambke recommended a wood-fired pizza called the Greenhouse, and she also told me to “eat with [my] eyes.” We took her up on her recommendations and can confirm: the food is delicious. We watched our pizzas go from dough to done in The Miller’s Table’s cozy interior. Between the four of us, we ate two pizzas and four cookies, and we drank two coffees. It was well worth the 25-ish minute drive.
Lambke said that, a year ago, she also opened a sister restaurant a few blocks from the Maine Grains mill. That restaurant is called the Biergarten, and as its name suggests, it serves traditional German foods.
Now, Lambke’s business is making its way to Mayflower Hill, with The Miller’s Table at Colby.
This new Miller’s Table location got its start, Lambke said, when “[Colby administration] put out a request for proposals to a hand-selected group of independent restaurant operators… in the central Maine area who prioritize the use of local food. They want to create an amenity on the campus for staff, students, and visitors that helps reflect what Maine is and what Maine tastes like, and create a comfortable atmosphere that features Maine foods.”
The Mayflower Hill café will not have a full kitchen, as its Skowhegan location does. But it will have, as Lambke explained, “heat and serve capabilities,” which means that the Skowhegan Miller’s Table will act as a commissary kitchen.
“It’s close enough that we can make regular deliveries of prepped foods and things like that,” Lambke said.
She talked me through the foods that will be on offer when The Miller’s Table at Colby opens: “Our existing bakery and sandwich program and house-made soups and soft pretzels and things like that are going to pair well. We’ll be able to do things like yogurt parfaits with granola made in-house and feature fresh fruits and vegetables and fare from the region.” Lambke’s long history in the business also means she’s a wealth of knowledge on where to get good products, so they’re sure to be tasty.
The Miller’s Table at Colby also won’t be Lambke’s first entry into the Waterville-area food market.
“We have been members of the Waterville Farmers Market for a number of years just with our bread and pastry, with great reception,” Lambke said. “But we know that sometimes Watervillians haven’t yet ventured to Skowhegan to discover our restaurant, so we are excited to build that bridge. And we’re just excited to work with an enthusiastic college community that cares about sustainability and [is] thinking at a high level about how to make the world a better place, which is part of what we’re trying to do through our restaurant activities.”
Lambke’s daughter, Zoe, a recent graduate of the University of New England’s Sustainability and Business degree program, will serve as the general manager of The Miller’s Table at Colby.
After visiting The Miller’s Table at Maine Grains, it’s hard not to get excited about the prospect of a Miller’s Table location opening in the shadow of Miller Library. Lambke said there will be about 42 seats in the soon-to-open café, and it’s easy to picture them all filled by eager patrons.
But it’s also hard not to recognize how close The Miller’s Table will be to Mary Low Coffeehouse.
Lambke expressed her enthusiasm for coexisting with Mary Low Coffeehouse, but she acknowledged that she doesn’t yet know all the details of how their relationship will play out.
“We’ll be getting to know that coffeehouse,” she said. “I certainly don’t know what kind of business it does. We will be new to the Colby campus and… responding to requests from Colby to provide a particular service.”
Lambke also emphasized the differentiating factors between The Miller’s Table and Mary Low: “We’ll be focused on quality coffee that is locally sourced from Maine roasters, as well as food. So I don’t think of us as a coffeehouse. So hopefully we will have a mutually beneficial existence.”
The Echo also spoke to three of Mary Low’s baristas and business managers, who expressed minimal concern about the possibility of coexisting with The Miller’s Table’s campus location.
“At first, there was a little concern,” Anya Morris `27, a barista and business manager, said. “But then we realized that they don’t actually sell espresso drinks. They sell drip coffee, and we don’t. And we sell espresso, and they don’t. So, that got rid of our concern. And we also don’t sell food, and that’s their main thing.”
Maia Kane `27, also a barista and business manager, echoed Morris. “Of course, we don’t really know until The Miller’s Table arrives, but our understanding is that it’s kind of a bakery, sandwich situation. So since we aren’t able to offer fresh food like that, and we do more… packaged stuff, there won’t be much overlap there. And then, same thing with coffee. My understanding is it’s drip coffee they’ll be offering, and then lattes and the stuff we do will still be pretty exclusive to Mary Low. So I don’t feel too worried about business overlap.”
But the understanding that Mary Low will be the only café on campus selling espresso drinks is, according to information from Lambke, incorrect.
When I asked Lambke about The Miller’s Table at Colby’s coffee selection, Lambke said, “There will be drip coffee, lattes, [and] espressos.” She said The Miller’s Table works with Mbingo Mountain Coffee, based in Waterville, and Carrabassett Coffee Company, based in Kingfield, to curate its selection of coffees. Additionally, when I visited The Miller’s Table at Maine Grains (its Skowhegan location), I drank an oat milk latte sweetened with maple syrup.
The Miller’s Table’s espresso drink and flavor selection may be more limited than Mary Low’s. When I asked for sweetener in my latte, I was offered honey, simple syrup, and maple syrup. But the option of an espresso drink is still there, and it is unknown what this might mean, if anything, for Mary Low Coffeehouse’s business.
According to the Mary Low baristas I spoke with, there have so far been no official meetings or information sessions about the Mary Low and Miller’s Table relationship with either Nathan Baird, Director of Student Engagement and Leadership Development, who oversees Mary Low’s operations, or with the College’s administration.
“We’re feeling a little bit in the dark right now,” said Morris. “We found out at the same time as everyone else on campus that this was happening.” For most of campus, that was when Colby News published “Nourishing Curious Minds,” by Laura Meader, on Oct. 6, announcing the new café.
The Miller’s Table at Colby is expected to open in early 2027, possibly even as early as Dec. 2026 — but Lambke suggested this latter date is still tentative.
When it does open, it’s sure to be popular. The food at The Miller’s Table’s Skowhegan location is excellent. And if the café is representative of what Maine tastes like… well, Maine tastes great.
But if you find that you need a pumpkin spice latte to go with your locally milled sourdough, then Mary Low Coffeehouse is nearby.
Visit both cafés.
~ Elias Kemp `27
Be First to Comment