He spent eight years living around the world. Then he came home to make clam chowder.

Aug 24

Chauncey Erskine spent nearly eight years living abroad after college, volunteering and teaching in countries including Vietnam, Spain, and Guatemala. Every so often, someone would ask him to make food that represented where he came from.

At first, he wasn’t sure what that meant.

“What am I going to make, a hamburger?” he remembers thinking.

But that wasn’t his food. Erskine grew up in South Bristol, on Rutherford Island. His family has been in Maine since the early 1700s. What eventually came to mind was clam chowder.

So, thousands of miles from home, he would track down milk and whatever seafood he could find and make chowder.

“I never thought I’d start a restaurant when I was doing that,” he says. “But here we are.”

Erskine returned to Maine in 2019. He later opened Maine Booch, a hard kombucha bar in Damariscotta, where he says he learned what could happen when a business deliberately made room for people to connect. Friendships formed there. Couples met. When the business closed, the lesson stuck.

In February 2025, he opened Panacea at 100 Main Street in Wiscasset. The menu is intentionally small: clam chowder and comfort food, including grilled cheese made on focaccia with combinations like Maine blueberries and yams or seaweed, green apple and maple miso.

The room is just as specific. Erskine built and upcycled much of it himself. An old shipwreck piece frames the service window. Nautical photographs, maps, and a collection of sea captain figurines he acquired from a man whose wife wanted them gone when the couple downsized.

At the center is a communal table.

“There’s nothing better than meeting a stranger over a bowl of chowder and getting to know each other and sharing your life story,” Erskine says.

In the quieter months, Panacea hosts live music, poetry and other gatherings. Every Sunday through the coldest part of the year, a small group meets for a polar plunge.

Erskine sees businesses like his as part of a changing Wiscasset and a changing Maine. He welcomes people who grew up here and people who chose to come here, arguing that the combination can help Maine hold onto its culture while allowing it to evolve.

His description of the state is considerably shorter.

“It’s salty and gritty,” he says, “but it’s not divisive or mean.”

Famous for:
The clam chowder gets most of the attention. But Chauncey says plenty of older customers have told him Panacea makes the best grilled cheese they've ever had.

Address:
100 Main St in Wiscasset, ME