This year, we will celebrate our sixth New Year’s Eve dinner at Newcastle Inn, and our special entrée will be a first – roast crown of pork.

The unofficial first New Year’s Eve dinner took place in 2008, the year I purchased the inn. Some guests that I knew, from my previous job at a Vermont inn, decided to spend New Year’s Eve in Maine instead of Vermont. That first year, Trey and Tricia showed up with two bags of groceries (they had discovered Whole Foods in Portland as they left the airport), and Trey cooked for us every night. He is a wonderful cook, and while not professionally trained, had worked for a number of years at an inn with a full service restaurant near their home in Latta, S.C. By day he is an interior designer.

I jokingly asked him if he would come back the next year and cook dinner for my inn guests and he said yes. The rest is history.  Currently there is a core group of three couples that comes every year for the dinner (they make their reservations for the following year when they check out) with others joining in. One of the couples has been with us since 2009, which is the first year it was a special event at the inn.

We’ve never served crown roast of pork, although I’ve been wanting to for several years. The rest of the menu is still being finalized at the moment. Even when we say the menu is complete we sometimes will make last minute changes once Trey arrives a few days before the dinner and we see what looks good in the grocery store. What I can tell you is that you won’t be disappointed, and you won’t leave the table hungry!

The dinner costs $60 a person and includes hors d’oeuvres starting at the 7 p.m. The four-course dinner will be served at 8. Alcohol and gratuity are not included in the price. The New Year’s Eve dinner is a wonderful way to catch up with old friends and meet some new ones. We hope you’ll join us. Visit our website to reserve a room at the Newcastle Inn.