Michael Boland ’94
Restaurant ecologist
By Kiera O’Brien ’18
Early in his first summer season on Mount Desert Island, Michael Boland '94 wasn’t sure he would be sticking around for long. “I was bartending in town, and someone came in boasting about how it was their sixth season in Bar Harbor,” Boland recalls, laughing. “I remember thinking to myself, Good for you, this is my first and my only. I’m moving on!”
Thirty-odd summer seasons later, Boland is a committed MDI community member, not to mention one of Maine’s most preeminent restaurateurs. The success of Boland’s restaurants—from the award-winning Latin fusion of Havana to the cozy year-round fare of Choco-Latte Cafe—are a testament to just how much he changed his mind after that first summer. “I was only 19 or 20 at the time, but I do remember at some point realizing, This is where I am going to spend the rest of my life.”
Boland’s transformation from single-season transplant to dedicated local entrepreneur was aided by his discovery of College of the Atlantic: “I didn’t originally move to Maine to go to COA, but in many ways, it was the perfect fit for me.” The college’s interdisciplinary, self-directed format was especially appealing. “One of the things I loved most about COA was that I was able to meld my love of travel with my studies in marine biology, environmental sciences, and ecology.”
For his senior project, Boland studied the prevalence of Inia geoffrensis, or pink river dolphins, along the Rupununi River in Brazil and Guyana. It was an important turning point. As he puts it, “I enjoyed the project but I also learned that wildlife biology involves a lot of statistics—whether the dolphins are there or not.” Realizing that the hours of office work that accompany field work weren’t for him, Boland put his time on the river to good use. Shortly after graduating, he opened his first restaurant, The Rupununi, in downtown Bar Harbor.
“I was working in restaurants on the island every summer, trying to make enough money to travel in the winters,” says Boland. “I realized: I’m good at restaurants. They’re complex, and they require a very interdisciplinary approach.”
Restaurants also offered a way for him to have a positive impact on the local community he had decided to call home. “Rupununi was one of the first restaurants to state on our menu that we weren’t using Gulf of Mexico shrimp. From the beginning, we sourced our shrimp from local Gulf of Maine fishermen,” shares Boland. Havana, which he opened with his wife, Deirdre Swords, in 1999, was another early leader in championing locally-sourced, organic ingredients across its menu. “We have the ability to have an impact on food systems, on where we're buying our food, on what we're eating, and what my guests are eating.”
Since 2017, Boland has served on College of the Atlantic’s Board of Trustees, a responsibility he feels lucky to hold. He especially enjoys chairing the board committee for Buildings & Grounds, as he’s “always had a passion for the campus buildings and the historic architecture of the campus.”
Reminiscing about his favorite spots on campus as a student, Boland uncovers a piece of COA history for me: “It had to be the yurt! It’s not there anymore, but it was built in the '80s, in a copse of trees near the Shrine (also no longer there). It had a woodburning stove. Students could apply to live in it.” After a pause, he chuckles: “I can’t believe they let students live there!” We both laugh at this. The yurt may not be there anymore, but the spirit of it certainly is.
