Start from 24 curated places around Belfast, Maine, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Young's Lobster Pound
A sprawling harborfront pound where you pick your lobster straight from a 30,000-pound tank before sitting outside on the deck overlooking Penobscot Bay. The shore dinner — lobster bisque, steamers, corn, and a whole lobster — is the no-frills Maine seafood experience this coast is famous for. BYO beer or wine and plan to linger.
Chase's Daily
A beloved Belfast institution that is simultaneously a vegetarian restaurant, a bustling bakery, a farm market, and a gallery hung with rotating local art. Everything on the menu comes from the Chase family's own farm, and the Indian-inflected vegetarian cooking — dals, roasted vegetable plates, hand-stretched flatbreads — is so satisfying that meat-eaters leave baffled by how full they are.
Trails & outdoors
Belfast Rail Trail
A 2.3-mile crushed gravel trail built on the old Belfast & Moosehead Lake Railroad bed that follows the Passagassawakeag River through mixed forest, connecting downtown Belfast to the outer neighborhoods. It is flat, wide, and exceptionally well-maintained — the most popular run and bike commute in town, and an easy walk with a stroller or dog.
Moose Point State Park Trails
A trio of short, easy trails — the Big Spruce Trail, Moose Trail, and Meadow Trail — that total about 1.4 miles through coastal forest and along a rocky Penobscot Bay shoreline. The park is four miles north of downtown Belfast on Route 1, and the Meadow Trail passes two stairways down to a pebble beach that is perfect for a post-hike sit in the sun.
Things to do
Colonial Theatre
A century-old cinema with a distinctive mint-green facade that has anchored Belfast's downtown cultural life through multiple eras of entertainment. The Dreamland stage hosts live music, comedy, and theatrical performances, while three screens show first-run films and independent titles. It remains the beating heart of Belfast's arts scene in a way no streaming service can replicate.
Belfast Maskers Community Theater
A community theater with nearly four decades of continuous production history, staging both classic plays and original works in an intimate Court Street space. The productions run the gamut from Shakespeare to contemporary comedies, and the acting quality is high enough that it draws audiences from across Waldo County — a genuinely local cultural institution.
Landmarks & sights
Belfast Harborwalk
A nearly 3-mile pedestrian walkway that traces the city's working waterfront from the Armistice Bridge upstream along the Passagassawakeag River, past working lobster boats, sailboats at anchor, and interpretive panels that tell Belfast's 19th-century shipbuilding story. The waterfront section at sunset, when the light catches Penobscot Bay, is the defining Belfast image.
Waterfall Arts
The creative hub of Midcoast Maine — a nonprofit arts center housed in a converted mill building on High Street that runs rotating gallery exhibitions, pottery studios, after-school programs, and the beloved Free Range Music series. The Clifford Gallery changes shows regularly, and the ceramic studio is one of the most active community ceramics programs in New England.