Dining on the Casco Bay Islands: A Genuinely Small, Honest Roster

Chebeague Island Has the Fullest Roster of the Five -- and Just Lost Its Only Grocery Store

Chebeague, the largest of these five islands, has the closest thing to an actual small dining scene: the Chebeague Island Inn runs a genuine sit-down restaurant with Casco Bay sunset views, currently listing lunch service on weekdays, weekend brunch, and dinner service Sunday through Thursday and Saturday-Sunday evenings, plus a more casual bar-and-deck service through the afternoon. Down at the Chebeague Island Boat Yard, The Niblic is a coffee-and-counter spot -- handmade sandwiches, salads, daily chowder, baked goods, and coffee -- that opens for the season each summer and takes orders online or by phone for pickup. The Slow Bell Cafe rounds out the island's roster with coffee and breakfast items, wraps and salads by day, and a full restaurant menu in the evening.

The current, dated story that matters most for anyone thinking about food and groceries on Chebeague: Doughty's Island Market, the island's only general store, closed on April 2, 2026, after 65 years in business (it opened in 1961). Owner Julie Doughty, who had run it for nearly four decades following her husband's death in 2015, decided to retire. As of that closure, no reopening date had been set and no temporary replacement existed on the island -- residents were left driving to the Hannaford in Yarmouth or ordering delivery through Casco Bay Lines for groceries, while the Doughty family weighed leasing offers and resident interest in converting the space into a food cooperative. Later reporting indicated the market is expected to reopen, but not until the following year, with some kind of stopgap arrangement in the meantime. Anyone relying on an on-island grocery store on Chebeague should confirm its current status directly before counting on it.

Great Diamond Island: One Real Restaurant, Inside a Gated Community

Great Diamond Island's public-facing dining is concentrated entirely inside Diamond Cove, the redeveloped former Fort McKinley grounds that now function as a largely private, gated residential community. Diamond's Edge Restaurant & Marina is the one substantial named restaurant found for this island -- a genuine sit-down operation with dining room, deck, and lawn seating, and a seasonal calendar: it closes for winter and reopens in June, with Thursday-through-Sunday hours once the season starts. Reservations are recommended for summer weekends and sunset seating. Beyond Diamond's Edge, the Diamond Cove General Store covers basic provisions for residents and visitors -- it is a convenience store, not a restaurant. That is the entire named, confirmed dining roster for Great Diamond Island: one restaurant, one general store.

Long Island: A Bakery That's Grown Into a Real Gathering Spot, Plus a General Store

Long Island's confirmed dining roster is smaller still, but Byers & Sons Long Island Bakehouse has become more than its name suggests: alongside baked goods and donuts, it now runs a casual, all-day food-and-drink operation with pizza, a raw bar with oysters and seafood, draft beverages, and a waterfront setting it markets around its own Casco Bay sunset views. Beyond the Bakehouse, a general-goods Long Island Store covers basic provisions, per a Tripadvisor listing for the island. No sit-down restaurant beyond the Bakehouse was found for Long Island -- if you want a full dinner menu with table service, the Bakehouse is currently the island's answer to that, not a separate restaurant.

Cliff Island: One Combined Store and Cafe -- and That's the Whole List

Cliff Island, the farthest and most remote of these five by ferry, has exactly one named dining option: the Cliff Island Store & Cafe, a seasonal store-and-cafe combination that is the island's evident sole place to buy food. The store side stocks household basics and groceries -- produce, dairy, bread, wine, beer, snacks -- while the cafe side serves pizza, sandwiches, burgers, lobster rolls, and ice cream. It runs a shortened, weekends-only schedule in the early part of the season before shifting to daily hours in mid-June. Given Cliff Island's unpaved roads, longest ferry ride, and small year-round population, one combined store-cafe covering both grocery and prepared food is a realistic, not disappointing, picture of what's actually there -- confirm its current season and hours directly before planning around it, since a seasonal, single-location business like this can shift its schedule from one year to the next.

Little Diamond Island: No Dining Establishment of Any Kind

Little Diamond Island is the honest exception on this list: no restaurant, cafe, store, or any other dining establishment was found there, this pass or in the research behind it. That's consistent with the island's character -- a tiny, mostly-vacant, privately-owned seasonal-cottage enclave with as few as a handful of year-round residents and a winter water system that's shut off, which limits any kind of permanent commercial presence. Anyone planning to stay on Little Diamond should plan to bring their own food and expect to travel to a neighboring island or the mainland for any meal out; nothing on this island fills that role today.

What This Means Before You Visit or Move

Put together, honestly: across these five islands, the real, currently-named dining roster is Chebeague Island Inn, The Niblic, and the Slow Bell Cafe on Chebeague; Diamond's Edge Restaurant & Marina and the Diamond Cove General Store on Great Diamond; Byers & Sons Long Island Bakehouse and the Long Island Store on Long Island; the Cliff Island Store & Cafe on Cliff Island; and nothing confirmed on Little Diamond Island. That's it -- a small number of named, often-seasonal businesses spread across five separate, ferry-only communities, not a food scene you'd compare to a mainland resort town. All of it still travels by the same Casco Bay Lines ferry system that serves all seven stops in the bay (Peaks, Little Diamond, Great Diamond, Diamond Cove, Long, Chebeague, and Cliff) at flat round-trip fares regardless of distance -- fares that have risen twice in recent years and were, as of mid-2026, under a formal Maine Public Utilities Commission investigation into the increases themselves. Grocery and prepared-food supply on every one of these islands ultimately depends on that same ferry link, which is exactly why a single closure like Doughty's Island Market on Chebeague can matter so much more here than the same closure would in a mainland town with other options nearby.

Before you plan a visit or a move around any of this: confirm current hours, seasonal opening dates, and whether a given business is still operating directly with the business itself or a current local listing, verify Casco Bay Lines' current fares and schedule directly with the carrier, and don't assume a name on this page is still open years from now -- small, seasonal, ferry-dependent island businesses can and do close or change hands quickly. If you want a fuller, more resort-scale dining scene along with easy access to downtown Portland's own acclaimed food city, that's Peaks Island's story, not this one -- see this site's separate Peaks Island dining page for that. Nothing on this page is financial or relocation advice.