Flood’s, a restaurant that served retro tavern-style food from chef Greg Mitchell, will not reopen and has moved its furnishings out of its space on Congress Street. Just over one year ago, the Portland Press Herald gave it four stars.

Mitchell announced in August that the restaurant at 747 Congress St. was closing, but left open the hope that it might return in a different form. Mitchell could not be reached for comment Friday, but a manager at The Francis hotel, which is in the same building as Flood’s, confirmed that the restaurant space was cleared out this week.

When it opened 17 months ago, the restaurant served idiosyncratic food and cocktails – such as beef tongue and chicken schnitzel, Sazeracs and New York Sours – and also wonderful burgers. It pivoted during the pandemic to create a more COVID-friendly version of itself, which Mitchell dubbed Mister Burger. That iteration closed at the end of the summer.

“Times are tough right now, for everyone, and we’re going to sit this one out for a while and put our energy elsewhere for a little bit,” Mitchell wrote on Instagram at the time. “…Whatever we come back with on the ‘other side’ of this thing will probably look a little different, but we’re excited for what the future holds.”

Flood’s was named for an eccentric seafood-loving composite character created by writer Joseph Mitchell in the pages of the New Yorker in 1944.