Mold Remediation in New Bedford, MA

Pizza connoisseur and Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy paid a visit to New Bedford on October 7 to give locals a taste of his viral “One Bite” pizza review series.

Portnoy, known for his no-holds-barred ratings and blunt commentary, stopped by several well-known spots in the area, and his highly anticipated YouTube reviews are now live.

Here’s how each New Bedford based slice stacked up according to the "One Bite" standard.

At Dipper Cafe, Portnoy enjoyed the “sea vibes” ambiance but mentioned the pizza had a slight grease factor, though not as intense as Ray’s.

He likened Dipper Cafe’s pizza to a “bar pie,” describing it as satisfying with good taste. Its balance of flavors and texture impressed Portnoy enough to award a respectable 7.6 score.

Portnoy’s second stop was Ray’s Pizza, an old-school joint that’s a New Bedford staple. True to his signature style, he appreciated the traditional vibe but noted the pizza was incredibly greasy, earning it the title “Grease Ball.”

Despite needing four paper towels to tackle the grease, Portnoy praised the crust’s crispness and flavor. However, the extra oil knocked it down a bit in his books, leading to a final rating of 7.3.

Finally, Portnoy hit up Pa Raffa’s, a beloved, family-run pizzeria. Although he admired the nostalgic mom-and-pop atmosphere, he noted the pizza’s “floppy” consistency and commented it could use a bit more “crunch.” He coined it a “cracker pizza” and remarked on its pleasant flavors, giving it a slightly lower rating of 7.1.

Portnoy also made a quick trip to Central Cafe in Middleboro, extending his SouthCoast pizza tour beyond New Bedford.

At the end of the day, regardless of the scores, his visit put a spotlight on New Bedford’s pizzerias and showcased the character and quality that define the area’s pizza spots.

The Best of South Shore Bar Pizza

There's pizza, and then there's South Shore Bar Pizza. Birthed in Brockton (and to this writer, perfected in Randolph – Lynwood Café is the true G.O.A.T.), it must meet certain qualifications to be considered "SSBP," which include: it's a 10-inch pie; it has a thin, cracker-like crust with minimal "flop;" the cheese is a blend that features more cheddar than mozzarella; and bonus points if you take it home between two carboard-type plates wrapped in flat brown paper bag. They also usually come with "laced" or "burnt" edges (terminology depends on where you are ordering), which is when the sauce and cheese are extended all the way to the edge of the pan, creating a crispy, flavorful coating to the crust. We reached out to the hugely popular South Shore Bar Pizza Social Club Facebook group to ask the experts to share the best of the best (in no particular order).

25 of the Best Pizza Spots on the SouthCoast

Not all pizza is created equal, but the SouthCoast has plenty of options for a high-quality slice. Choose from any of these 25 spots to fully take advantage of National Pizza Day.

Thanksgiving Pizza on the SouthCoast and Beyond

Looking for your entire Thanksgiving dinner to be hand held? These Massachusetts and Rhode Island pizza shops can help you out with that. See how many Thanksgiving favorites you can fit in one slice.

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With Thanksgiving just around the corner, restaurants across the SouthCoast are whipping up a delicious holiday meal.

It can be overwhelming to host, prepare, and clean up a complete Thanksgiving dinner with all the fixings, thankfully you can skip all the fuss and make a reservation to your favorite eatery.

According to a survey last year from Popmenu, 32% of Americans said they’ll be ordering their meal to-go this year, while another 17% would be dining in a restaurant.

Those dining out are looking for an easier, more convenient, way to celebrate the holiday. For stress-free meal planning here are some Greater New Bedford restaurants gearing up for Thanksgiving:

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There’s a Thanksgiving Bountiful Buffet at Bittersweet Farm, 38 Main Road, Westport. Get all your favorites with fall appetizers like country bread and chicken rice soup; delicious sides like Portuguese stuffing, smoked salmon, and butternut pumpkin ravioli; turkey and prime rib carving stations; and yummy desserts. It is $48 per person and $18 for children 12 and under. To reserve your spot, call 508-636-0085.

Thanksgiving calls for a visit to Merrill's on the Waterfront for their Thanksgiving Harvest Buffet at 36 Homer’s Wharf, New Bedford. Start with a fresh vegetable crudite or a harvest salad; dig into seafood paella, apple cider glazed chicken thighs or the hand-carved turkey or prime rib; and enjoy all the sides and delightful desserts. It is $48 per person and $18 for children 12 and under. Make your reservation at https://www.merrillswaterfront.com/holiday-reservations.

Reservations are being taken at BOCCA for Thanksgiving Day at 100 Alden Road, Fairhaven. They will have a limited menu including including a traditional roasted turkey dinner, honey glazed ham, chef specials, and favorites from their regular dinner menu. Call 508-993-9913 to hold your reservation with a credit card.

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Make Thanksgiving easy by giving Fireside Classic American Grille a call at 508-947-5333 for a reservation. At 30 Bedford St., Middleboro, they will be dishing out entrees like a Traditional Native Turkey Dinner, vegetarian wellington, short ribs, baked stuffed shrimp, fresh New England haddock, and three different-sized cuts of prime rib.

You will be able to get dinner at The Inn on Shipyard Park, 13 Water St., Mattapoisett, for Thanksgiving. They are accepting reservations from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. by calling 508-758-4922.

White's of Westport is hosting a delicious Bountiful Harvest Buffet at 66 State Road Westport. From fresh apple cider and cheese and crackers to Seafood Newburg and all the vegetables, the buffet is jam-packed. There are also turkey and sirloin carving stations and a bunch of desserts to taste test. It is $43 for adults and $19 for children 12 and under. Buy your tickets at https://simpletix.com/e/thanksgiving-bountiful-harvest-buffet-tickets-189934.

NEW BEDFORD — The state’s alternative-energy development agency has chosen a waterfront spot for a center devoted to ocean-related power research, building and field-testing equipment, and cultivating new enterprises.

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center wants to lease less than half an acre from the New Bedford Port Authority on MacArthur Boulevard encompassing the 19th-century Bourne Counting House and a parking area next to it.

The stone structure would provide office and meeting space. A portion of the parking lot is slated for a new structure for building prototypes for ocean-related energy technology — chiefly, but not exclusively, wind power.

“This project is an exciting new opportunity for New Bedford to develop technology businesses, generate new demand for existing businesses, and elevate its stature as a leader in maritime industries,” Mayor Jon Mitchell wrote in a letter to the City Council, sending along a proposed 15-year lease for consideration this week.

Mitchell wrote that the center — to be established next to Merrill’s restaurant, across MacArthur Boulevard from the Fairfield Inn & Suites — “will establish a platform on which marine technology of all types can be developed and commercialized into new businesses.” He said it will also serve as a meeting point for industry conferences.

“There is an emerging marine science and tech cluster in the South Coast and the Rhode Island area. We want to support that,” said Bruce Carlisle, managing director of offshore wind for MassCEC. “This will expand New Bedford’s role around ocean renewable energy and ocean climate tech.”

Carlisle said early this year that because New Bedford is becoming a center of the offshore wind industry, it made sense as a spot for the Ocean Renewable Energy Innovation Center. He said then that the project would enhance the city’s role in the industry and be part of the state’s effort to reduce carbon emissions to curb climate change.

“New Bedford has a tremendous amount of infrastructure, marine services, and a deep water port,” Carlisle said. “We believe that, if we are going to lean into an innovation center, it should be in New Bedford.”

Carlisle has estimated that the center will cost about $1.5 million a year to operate, likely supported by a mix of federal funds, corporate sponsorships, and lease payments from main tenants.

He said earlier this year that the center is meant to eventually accommodate about two dozen startup companies at full capacity and five to eight industry partners. He added that the industry partners likely won’t have their main offices in the center, but will instead use the center for their research and development teams.

In an interview with The Light on Monday, Mayor Mitchell spoke of the importance of broadening the scope of industries on the Port of New Bedford. While previous investment has focused on physical jobs related to the offshore wind industry, the center is among the first projects that expand into the creative and innovative spaces of the clean-energy industry.

“When it comes to the maritime industries, we want to be a city of both big shoulders and big brains,” Mitchell said. “There is a tremendous amount of pent-up knowledge and know-how here in New Bedford. A place like this that enables researchers and corporations to put their heads together will create greater efficiencies and great new ideas and businesses to emerge.”

The CEC’s schedule calls for work on the project to begin early next year and operations starting in the summer of 2026. The state has allocated $15 million for the venture, including $10 million from federal American Rescue Plan Act funds.

“We have built out a great deal of the port over the last few years,” Mitchell said. “We also need a place where new innovation is materialized and commercialized so that we can continue to have a competitive edge over other ports.”

The project includes no costs for the city, Mitchell says. Starting next January, the city is due to collect $38,000 a year in lease payments, adjustable annually to changes in the Consumer Price Index. That’s equal to the sum the Port Authority — which is expected to vote on the lease on Sept. 24 — receives in parking fees from the site, the mayor’s letter says.

“This is all upside for New Bedford,” Mitchell said. “In the best-case scenario, this becomes a national leader in innovation that competes against similar facilities being built elsewhere, like in Brooklyn. In the worst-case scenario, if it doesn’t succeed, the city gets the building at the end of the lease term.”

Merrill’s restaurant is expected to stay open, and the Ground Floor coffee shop and catering business are expected to continue operations in the counting house, also known as the Merrill’s Wharf Building. The hotel and the restaurant, which use the parking lot, will be accommodated with parking across the street at the old Eversource site, Mitchell’s letter says.

A CEC summary of the project prepared for the City Council this month says the site was chosen from an original list of seven prospects, winnowed to five. The agency issued a 100-page report on the venture last December, and put out a request for information on potential sites early this year.

The agency originally said they were looking for building space at least 37,000 square feet within a quarter-mile of the waterfront.

“You can open a coworking space anywhere,” Carlisle said. “The differentiator here is direct access to the ocean. If we are going to be a leader in climate tech and innovation, these startups need to be able to demonstrate to their buyers that their technology works in its intended environment: the ocean.”

Mitchell says there’s good reason to believe the center will succeed.

“Incubators work best when they are in a fertile economic ecosystem,” he said, in an interview. “We have one of the densest concentrations of maritime businesses in the U.S. A place where people can bring their ideas to be implemented is exactly what we have needed for a long time.”

Earlier this year, both Mitchell and Carlisle mentioned the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult in the United Kingdom as a model for what this center in New Bedford could become. If the operation here is doing that kind of work in five to 10 years, it would be a success, Carlisle said at the time.

The Catapult web site shows that the operation, established in 2013, has built more robust supply chains for the industry, and has worked on wind turbine blade design, cable systems, robotics for maintenance, and better communications to bolster worker safety in remote field locations.

Recent events have spotlighted continuing challenges in wind turbine technology, and field practices.

In July, a blade on an offshore turbine that is part of the Vineyard Wind 1 project broke off, scattering fiberglass and foam debris that washed up on beaches in Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard and Westport. The manufacturer, GE Vernova, in early reports attributed the failure to a manufacturing error.

In August, another GE Vernova turbine blade failed, this time at the Dogger Bank wind farm off the northeast coast of England. It was the third blade failure in four months.

GE Vernova has said the incidents were not related. The first was tied to an installation error, and the most recent was apparently due to human error, in that the blade was left locked in a fixed position that made it more susceptible to breaking during high winds.

The ORE center would complement New Bedford’s role as the staging ground for the Vineyard Wind 1 project, one of the United States’ first commercial wind farms, being built about 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. The farm is designed to include 62 turbines producing 800 megawatts, or about enough electricity to power 400,000 homes. Vineyard Wind’s first turbines began delivering power to the electric grid in early January. Its electricity production has been suspended since July because of the broken blade.

Last spring, the first turbine parts arrived at the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal from Portugal aboard a heavy-load carrier.

The moment was a turning point the work developing the Port of New Bedford for offshore wind operations that began about eight years ago, involving about $1 billion in city, state, federal and private investment, including removing polychlorinated biphenyl, or PCB contamination, from the harbor after decades of industrial dumping.

New Bedford Light reporter Will Sennott contributed to this story. You can reach the reporters at ahirsch@newbedfordlight.org and wsennott@newbedfordlight.org.