At the edge of Portland’s Eastside is an old dive bar, Tomaso’s Canteen. For decades, this was a legendary dive bar, Sangillo’s Tavern, known for its 8am opening, cheap beer, and rough crowds, and it was a well-known hangout for those coming off a night shift. Unfortunately, various events at Sangillo’s drew the notice of first the police, and then the liquor board, and Sangillo’s lost its liquor license, permanently closing on February 14, 2015. A few months later it opened as Tomaso’s Canteen. Shorter hours (11am opening now), bar food, and a better tap list, it’s still a dive bar, but on the less-divey end.
We discovered Tomaso’s almost a decade ago, when we were waiting for a seat at nearby The Honey Paw, and wandered in to get a beer while waiting for our table to get ready. Enjoying a good local beer, we saw a lot of good sandwiches, hot dogs, and wings come out, and I decided to come back at some point. Which apparently wasn’t until 2026, when I stopped by here after a day of Robotics judging in nearby Falmouth, Maine.
Walking inside, you can tell that Tomaso’s is staying true to it’s “dive bar” roots. It’s definitely had a few cleanings and renovations since its days as Sangillo’s, but the immediate vibe is that this isn’t a fancy bar, but gritty in a deliberate way, and very much a locals’ hangout. Think beer-sticker-adorned walls and ceiling, wooden bars, small tables, and the distinct color cast from the various neon lights in the windows. And the place is pretty much always busy, with a moderate amount of noise, and a healthy collection of locals, most wearing jeans and hoodies, and more than a few of them nursing beer bottles as they vent about the shift they just finished.
Sangillo’s turned into Tomaso’s right as the craft beer movement was really starting to kick into overdrive, and with that, Tomaso’s leaned into the local craft beer scene. While you can certainly get classic dive bar beers here, they maintain a solid list of draft lines and cans with a well-curated selection of local beers. I opted for a Super Prime IPA from local brewery Goodfire Brewing Co, enjoying my beer as various locals talked about their Saturday evenings.
But the real reason I came here was to get a light dinner, and I knew from my previous trip that Tomaso’s had exactly what I was hoping for: some Red Snappers. No, in Maine “Red Snapper” doesn’t generally refer to the fish (although it still makes think of this clip), but the specific-to-Maine hot dog variety. Like most New England heritage hot dogs, these are actually a beef-pork mixture, spiced a little more heavily than a New York hot dog (but a bit less than most Connecticut-style dogs like Hummels), but the two key factors are natural casings (only, they have to have that “snap”) and the bright neon-red, artificial dye color. This is distinctive to the handful of Maine meatpackers (W. A. Bean is the largest, but several others including Maine Family Farms still crank them out as well), and the exact reason for the coloring is now lost to history, but it’s definitely part of the local tradition. Tomaso’s serves them simply, grilled in hot oil (giving them a slight crisping, akin to the more extreme crisping of a “Ripper” at Rutt’s Hut), on the obligatory New-England-Style top-split bun, also grilled in lots of butter. Along with some nicely-crisped fries, this was the exact sort of light dinner I was looking for.
Overall, while a lot of Portland has gentrified from a fishing-industry town into a fairly upscale tourist town (there are several places walking distance from Tomaso’s where I can easily drop a C-note on dinner for two), it’s good to see that they are keeping much of the “dive bar” concept alive and well, and having some good food to go with it. The awning outside says “Cold Beer – Hot Sausage”, and it does what it says on the tin. It’s definitely worth a stop.
