Cheryl Rust gets Maine Restaurant Association’s lifetime achievement award

Wed, 03/29/2017 - 8:45pm

Maine Restaurant Association announced March 29, Cheryl Lee Rust has won its Bill Zoidis Lifetime Achievement Award. Rust owns Wiscasset’s popular Le Garage restaurant and recently announced it will be closing after 40 years in business. Rust is being honored for her restaurant and for her volunteer work in mental health.

“I’m overwhelmed and humbled by it,” Rust told the Wiscasset Newspaper March 30. She said she shares the award with Le Garage’s hundreds of staff who over the years have shown their commitment to both the restaurant and the community. Her involvement in the restaurant industry has introduced her to wonderful people who have enriched her life enormously, she said.

Zoidis, manager of the Pilots Grill in Bangor for 50 years, died in 2016.

In 2016, Rust received the Wiscasset Area Chamber of Commerce’s lifetime achievement award.

Holiday Inn by the Bay in Portland hosted the MRA’s awards dinner on March 28.  The dinner featured the winning three-course meal from the association’s recent ProStart high school challenge. The team from Northern Penobscot Tech Region III was helping in the kitchen and will compete in the ProStart Nationals this spring. The MRA represents, promotes and educates Maine’s food service industry.