Josh Johnson, of Biddeford, had a front row seat to the start of Instagram. It begins, as it probably should, with a phone call from the two Instagram founders who were still figuring out what they had built. Josh Johnson had been posting every day—quietly, methodically—on an app that had barely introduced itself to the world. Three days after it launched, he downloaded it because someone on a podcast said it made photos look better. There were no hashtags yet, no search, no

Frank Coletti, owner of Coletti's Pizza in Biddeford, Maine, owns one of the most popular pizza shops in the state of Maine. At five years old, Frank lived through the 1980 earthquake in Naples, Italy. His family spent the next five years in temporary housing. I’ve been gone a long time. Twenty-five years. Most of that time was in Orlando, where the pizza restaurants tend to feel interchangeable after a while—Ferrara's, Nona Street, Flame, Blaze—different names, same menus,

Tori and Abby opened Bird Bones Tattoo Studio on Elm Street in Biddeford in 2024. The Entrance Tori, left, and Abby in the lobby of Bird Bones Tattoo Studio. The door opens into something that doesn’t feel like a waiting room. A desk sits just inside, but it’s surrounded—framed, stacked, layered. A mounted muskrat looks out from the wall to the left. Above it, turkey wings. Behind the desk, shelves hold objects that feel collected over time, not ordered all at once. The wall

Michael Macomber and Katie Pinard outside Elements on a cold March morning in Biddeford. Inside, the shop has been a gathering place on Main Street for 13 years. On the second day of March, winter in Biddeford feels less certain. The cold is still sharp enough to stiffen your fingers, but the light has changed. It comes in clearer now, a brighter blue stretched over Main Street. Snowbanks along the curb have thinned and grayed at the edges. Meltwater runs in narrow ribbons to

Peter McPheeters, of Biddeford Pool, rows his boat around Wood Island Lighthouse during sunrise on February 22, 2025. Photo by Cy Cyr/ BrickTides.com The flagpole snapped in the dark. The wind came hard through Biddeford Pool on Monday — snow moving sideways, drifts building against the harbor-facing buildings, the kind of February storm that reminds you who owns the coastline. By Tuesday morning the blizzard had moved offshore. The sky was hard blue. The Pool lay exposed at

April Laverriere, of Kennebunkport, started competing on her bike after a foot injury sidelined her running career. It was five degrees when we met, the kind of clear January morning in Biddeford where the light is sharp and the cold doesn’t pretend otherwise. We were inside a small studio near The Lincoln, catching up after a long gap, talking easily in that way that only happens when you’ve known someone since before life got complicated. April Laverriere and I graduated

Randy Forcier, left and Chris Bedard, right, at their office above Social House Kitchen in Saco, Maine. The CMG Home Loans office on Beach Street is quiet in the way a busy place gets when it’s between waves. A couple chairs are pushed in like someone tried to be tidy before the next appointment. A conference room sits ready—four walls, a table, a few pens that don’t belong to anyone in particular. Downstairs, there’s coffee and movement at Social House Kitchen, the kind of p

Thomas Collier, of Saco, Maine, poses with the prototype trophy he helped create for the PGA Tour. Thomas Collier, 34, Was Eight Years Old When the Computer Arrived.  It ran on MS-DOS, and came with floppy disks. One of them held a flight simulator game called Aces of the Pacific . The graphics were crude. The sounds were beeps and buzzes. He remembers less about the game than the feeling of the machine itself. The fact that this box could do  something. That it could be open

Nick and Emily Conley, of Waterboro, are on pace to sells tens of thousands of bags of their Ruff Pine Dog Treats in 2026. The story of  Ruff Pine Dog Treats  starts with a purchase on Facebook Marketplace. In 2019, Nick and Emily Conley are twenty-one, recently out of college, and five years into a relationship that started when they were sixteen. Nick is from Biddeford. Emily is from Saco. They buy a 1993 Ford Falcon camper van and decide to travel the country. They don’t

Driving through Biddeford, you can tell something about a house by how close it sits to the road. The older the house, the less it seems to care about being polite. Steve’s house sits so near the intersection it feels like the road had to adjust its plans. Not the other way around. Steve's house was constructed when the 8th US President was serving, Martin Van Buren. Subscribe to BrickTides.com. The workshop is not where you expect it. To reach it, you have to step outside a

Jacqui DeFranca and Jon Denton, owners of Sweetcream Dairy in Biddeford, Maine. The science, the stubbornness, and the shared joy that brought Jon Denton back home to Biddeford — and let his wife Jacqui build a life around it The Sweetcream Dairy storefront. Sweetcream Dairy sits on Main Street in Biddeford like it belongs there, like it always knew it would end up exactly where it is. Not because the path was obvious. Not because it was easy. But because this is what happens

Jimmy Haight, left and George Matelich, right, met over coffee and quickly built a community of like-minded Mainers in technology roles. And, starting it all, was an email that ended up in a spam folder. A Soft Morning in Kennebunkport The meteorologists had promised drama. Strong winds were coming, they said. Heavy rain too. But that morning in Kennebunkport, nothing had arrived yet. The air was still. The harbor barely moved. It was one of those Maine mornings where the fo

Sarah Hoover, program director at Apex Youth Connection in Biddeford, Maine. From the outside, Apex Youth Connection doesn’t try to impress you. The building on Granite Street isn’t pretty. It’s scrappy. It looks like a place built for use, not for show. The kind of place that gets the job done and doesn’t apologize for it. Inside, the order reveals itself. Bikes and bike parts are everywhere, but nothing is careless. Handlebars hang in clean rows. Cranks, chains, gears — al

The foundation was only a few feet out of the frozen Scarborough ground, a neat geometry of concrete catching the winter sun. Ten degrees, bright and wind-bitten. Snow from last week still rimmed the perimeter, crisp and untouched. An excavator growled to life, a skid steer answered, and the Atlantic glinted coldly just beyond the lot. This is where something long imagined begins to become real. After a year of planning, Christi stands inside the early shape of a home she onc

Heather Paquette, President of Good Shepherd Food Bank of Maine. Photo by Cy Cyr Outside the Good Shepherd Food Bank in Auburn, the morning felt unmistakably like Maine. The sun was bright, the air was cold, the wind was sharp, and snow clung to the edges of the parking lot. It was the kind of day that makes you hurry from your car to the door. Inside, the world felt entirely different. The warehouse moved with purpose. Volunteers sorted boxes beneath lights that cast winte

Denis Garriepy, Chief Operating Officer of Landry / French Construction, at a job site in Alfred, Maine on Wednesday, November, 26, 2025. On a recent morning in Alfred, Denis Garriepy checked the time before stepping into the unfinished York County First Responders Training Center. He had already visited one project earlier that day and had two more scheduled before heading back to the office. Landry / French Construction currently has fifteen active projects across the regio

From President Bush at Cape Arundel to mornings on the Atlantic, a family’s life on the land Greg, left, and Bob Searle on the first hole at Abenakee Club. If you arrive before sunrise at the Abenakee Club in Biddeford Pool, you can watch the world brighten in layers. The ocean moves first, catching a strip of pink before anything else. Wood Island Lighthouse glows white long before the neighborhoods wake up. And then, at a certain angle that only appears in spring and fall,

Michelle and John Corgan outside Bell Farm Shops. They purchased the property in 2017 and have transformed it into one of the most beloved shopping destinations on the Seacoast. Bell Farm Shops in York has a presence that stops people in their tracks. The tall red barn at 244 US Route 1 looks like it could be the set of a movie. The cupola rises above the rooftops with a horse weathervane. The morning sun rests on the shingles and the red picket fence. Wind chimes move on the

Kim Cochrane-Coleman is the owner of Biddeford Painting in Southern Maine. Photographed on November 3, 2025 in Biddeford, Maine. Jasper fixed appliances, Scott ran the lanes that kept Biddeford rolling, and Kim paints the places people live their lives. In this city of brick mills and salt air, the Cochrane name has long meant something simple but powerful: care for what’s yours, and care even more for what you share. Three generations have done that in three different ways—

Colleen Miller The wind was moving that afternoon in Biddeford, sharp enough to lift the last of October’s leaves and send them tapping against the tall windows of The Lincoln. Downstairs, the team at Batson River had started to hang Christmas lights, strings of gold flickering over the clink of glassware. Every terminal in sight ran on Toast. At Batson River, at Spinning Jenny’s, even in the cafe where we sat, the same platform powered orders, payments, takeout, and delivery