Jordan Benissan, owner Mé Lon Togo, stands in the dining room of his Waterville restaurant, which he closed in 2019 and reopened in Rockland. Now, Benissan is moving the restaurant to Freeport. David Leaming/Morning Sentinel file

After three years in Rockland, West African restaurant Mé Lon Togo is moving to downtown Freeport, where it plans to reopen in two phases starting this spring.

The restaurant will be located at 58 Main St. in an 1,800-square-foot space that can seat about 50 people, with up to 15 more outside in season. Chef-owner Jordan Benissan said the kitchen won’t be complete for some months, in part because it needs an expensive new sprinkler system.

In side the bar area at Mé Lon Togo in Freeport, which chef-owner Jordan Benissan expects to open by the end of April. Photo courtesy of Me Lon Togo

Benissan plans to open the bar area first, by the end of April. He’ll be able to accommodate 25-30 customers, with a limited menu of West African braises and stews, some European dishes like beef bourguignon and monkfish osso buco and a full beverage program of beer, wine and cocktails.

Benissan expects the restaurant to be fully open by next winter, once the kitchen work is completed. He said he plans to try to crowdsource funding to help offset the cost of the roughly $92,000 sprinkler system.

Mé Lon Togo first opened in Searsport in 2017. Benissan launched a second location in Waterville in 2019, which closed in 2020. He also opened in Camden for a year, before moving and consolidating his operation to one venue in Rockland in 2021, which he closed last December.

Benissan said many customers of Mé Lon Togo in Rockland were from Southern Maine, Boston, New Hampshire and Connecticut, and they told him they wished the restaurant were located a little farther south. Seasonal fluctuations were also behind the move.

“In the summer, we do well. But in the winter, everything slows down on the Midcoast,” Benissan said.

Benissan, who has also been a music professor at Colby College for nearly 25 years, said Mé Lon Togo allows him to serve as a kind of cultural ambassador to introduce people to the cuisine of West Africa, his home region.

“I’m trying to help Africa come into the conversation when you talk about dining,” he said.