Things to Do in Ellsworth, Maine

There are two Ellsworths

This is the thing to understand before you do anything else. Ellsworth is the seat of Hancock County and the commercial hub for a big rural area, so it carries a retail strip out of proportion to its size. That strip is High Street (Route 3) and it is where every car heading for Bar Harbor queues in July. Big boxes, chain restaurants, plazas. If your only impression of Ellsworth is that road, you will conclude there is nothing here.

The other Ellsworth is downtown: Main Street and Water Street, dropping toward the Union River, a compact brick-fronted grid with a theater, galleries, several very good restaurants and a park on the water. It is a ten-minute walk end to end. That is where this guide spends most of its time.

Downtown

The Grand

The Grand (4.7 from 133 reviews, 165 Main Street) is the anchor of downtown. A restored theater running films, live music and stage work through the year. It is the rare small-city venue that programs seriously rather than just showing whatever is on release, and it is the answer to a wet evening. Check what is on before you commit to a night in town; the schedule is the whole variable.

Galleries and makers

• The Rock and Art Shop (4.7 from 62 reviews, 163 Main Street). Minerals, fossils, oddities and local art in one cluttered, genuinely interesting room. Good with kids who like rocks and skulls.
• Atlantic Art Glass (4.9 from 36 reviews, 25 Pine Street): a working glassblowing studio, and the highest-rated arts business in town. Watch if the furnace is running.
• Courthouse Gallery Fine Art (4.4 from 22 reviews, 6 Court Street), contemporary Maine painting and sculpture in a converted courthouse building.
• Old Creamery Antique Mall (4.7 from 179 reviews, 13 Hancock Street), a multi-dealer antiques barn with more reviews than any other non-restaurant downtown. Easy hour.

The riverfront

Ellsworth Harbor Park and Marina (4.5 from 389 reviews, 413 Water Street) sits below downtown on the Union River, with a gazebo, a boat launch and a short waterfront path. It is a place to eat a sandwich and watch the tide turn rather than an attraction, but it is the piece of Ellsworth that reminds you the town was a shipbuilding and lumber port long before it was a gateway.

Uphill, Knowlton Park (4.6 from 415 reviews, 160 State Street) is the town's main green space and one of the most-reviewed spots in Ellsworth: playground, trees, room for kids to run off a long drive.

Woodlawn

Woodlawn (the grounds and trails rate 4.8 from 21 reviews, 19 Black House Drive) is the best single sight in Ellsworth and the one most visitors drive past without noticing. It is an early-nineteenth-century Federal mansion (the Black House) set in formal gardens with woodland trails behind, left largely as its last family kept it.

The house runs on seasonal hours and guided visits; the grounds and trails are open far more generously and are free to walk. Even if the house is shut, park and walk the trails: there are a couple of miles of easy paths through mixed woods, well marked and almost never busy. In winter the same ground is used for sledding and skiing.

Birdsacre

The Stanwood Wildlife Sanctuary (4.6 from 196 reviews, 289 High Street) (everyone calls it Birdsacre) is a wooded sanctuary and bird rehabilitation center right on the strip, which is exactly why it works. You turn off a road lined with parking lots and are in quiet woods within thirty seconds.

The site was the homestead of Cordelia Stanwood, a self-taught ornithologist and bird photographer who did serious field work here. There are nature trails, a small homestead museum, and enclosures housing raptors that cannot be released. It is small. It is also free to walk, and a much better twenty minutes than sitting in Route 3 traffic.

The Telephone Museum

The Telephone Museum (4.9 from 36 reviews, 166 Winkumpaugh Road) is the most surprising thing in the area and rates 4.9 from the people who make it out there. It houses working electromechanical switching equipment (the actual clattering machinery that connected calls before software did) and the volunteers run it for you.

Two warnings. It is out of town on a back road, and its opening is limited and seasonal, typically a couple of days a week in summer. Confirm before you drive. If you have any interest in how infrastructure works, it is worth the effort; if you do not, it will not convert you.

Water, woods and a swim

Ellsworth is not a beach town (it sits on a tidal river a few miles up from the sea) and the coastal listings here reflect that. Note also that the Sand Beach filed under Ellsworth is not the famous one; the Sand Beach with 4.8 from 970 reviews is in Bar Harbor, inside Acadia National Park. They are entirely different places.

What Ellsworth does have is fresh water and woods:

• Branch Lake Public Forest (4.9 from 19 reviews, off US-1A): the highest-rated outdoor spot in town, with trails through the woods above the lake. Branch Lake is Ellsworth's drinking water supply, so expect restrictions on what you can do in it.
• Sand Beach at Branch Lake (4.6 from 24 reviews, 294 Branchview Drive): the local freshwater swim, small and warm by mid-summer.
• Jordan Homestead Preserve (4.7 from 50 reviews, Bayside Road), easy walking on old farm land.
• Indian Point Trail (4.6 from 42 reviews, 17 Tinker Farm Way): short and quiet.
• Meadowbrook Forest (4.6 from 7 reviews, Bucksport Road), held by the Blue Hill Heritage Trust: barely visited, which is the appeal.

For salt water, drive fifteen minutes southeast to Lamoine. Lamoine State Park (4.6 from 486 reviews, 23 State Park Road) has a shore-front campground and picnic ground looking straight across Frenchman Bay at the mountains of Mount Desert Island, and Lamoine Beach Park (4.7 from 468 reviews) is the town beach next door. It is the best cheap view of Acadia there is, and almost nobody staying in Bar Harbor thinks to come this way.

Where to eat

Ellsworth eats far better than a gateway town has any right to. The table below ranks by rating weighted against review volume: a measure that rewards places that are both well-liked and consistently busy, rather than a perfect score from a handful of visits.

Zeppa's comes out on top and deserves it, 4.9 across 524 reviews is an unusually strong combination for a pizza place anywhere. Provender and 86 This are the two proper downtown dinners, both on Main Street, both in the 4.7 range across serious volume. Finn's is the pub everyone ends up in.

Helen's has the biggest review count in town by a distance, at 2,329, and a lower 4.3 average, the classic signature of a high-turnover roadside institution that everyone visits once. Go for the pie and set your expectations accordingly.

Worth knowing beyond the table: Brick House Soups (5.0 from 339 reviews, 27 High Street) holds a perfect score across a real sample, which almost nothing does. Taste Jamaica (4.8 from 410) and Cilantro Indian Bistro & Bar (4.8 from 272) give the town more range than you would guess. And Dorr Lobster Seafood Market (4.7 from 540, 372 Shore Road) is where to buy lobster to cook yourself.

Beer and a bowling alley

Two breweries: Fogtown Brewing Company (4.7 from 323 reviews, 25 Pine Street), the better-rated and the one downtown, and Airline Brewing Company (4.4 from 773 reviews, 173 West Main Street), which has the larger following.

For a rainy afternoon with children, Ellsworth's Candlepin Bowling Alley (4.9 from 383 reviews, 25 Eastward Lane) is a genuinely good call. Candlepin is the New England variant (skinny pins, small handheld balls, three rolls a frame) and it is much more forgiving for small arms than ten-pin.

The honest drawback

Route 3 through Ellsworth in high summer is a slog. Everything bound for Mount Desert Island funnels through the same few lights, and a two-mile stretch can take twenty-five minutes on a Saturday afternoon in August. Plan around it: cross town early or late, and if you are staying on the island and coming back for dinner, expect the return to cost you.

The second honest note is that Ellsworth is a working town rather than a pretty one. Downtown is handsome and the food is strong, but there is no harbor full of schooners and no waterfront promenade. Come for a good dinner, a theater night, a museum that runs on volunteers and a couple of quiet trails, not for postcard scenery, which is fifteen miles further on.

Where to go next

Ellsworth's whole geography is about what is around it. Acadia and Bar Harbor are twenty to thirty minutes southeast on Route 3, and Southwest Harbor a little beyond on the quiet side of the island. Blue Hill is forty minutes southwest for a much smaller, artier village. Bangor is half an hour inland for the airport and a bigger city. Full listings for the town sit on our Ellsworth page.

Frequently asked questions

Is Ellsworth worth stopping in on the way to Acadia?

Yes, but stop downtown rather than on the Route 3 strip. Main Street and Water Street have the theater, galleries and the best restaurants, and Woodlawn's trails are five minutes away. Half a day covers it comfortably. Stocking up here is also cheaper and easier than doing it in Bar Harbor.

What is the best restaurant in Ellsworth, Maine?

By rating weighted against review volume, Zeppa's Pizza leads at 4.9 from 524 reviews. For a sit-down dinner downtown, Provender Kitchen + Bar (4.7 from 716) and 86 This (4.7 from 646) are the two strongest. Helen's has the most reviews in town at 2,329, though its 4.3 average is lower.

How far is Ellsworth from Bar Harbor?

About twenty miles, or twenty-five to thirty minutes on Route 3 outside of summer. In July and August allow considerably more, because all Mount Desert Island traffic passes through Ellsworth on the same road and the town's lights become a genuine bottleneck at peak times.

Are there beaches in Ellsworth, Maine?

Not really. Ellsworth sits on a tidal river rather than open coast, and its swimming is freshwater. Sand Beach at Branch Lake rates 4.6 from 24 reviews. Note that the famous Sand Beach, rated 4.8 from 970 reviews, is in Acadia at Bar Harbor and is a different place. For salt water, Lamoine Beach Park is fifteen minutes away.