Sarah Coons
Passion, Purpose, and Pastry
Prep Cook · Dishwasher · Continental
Pictured are Sarah’s Cats:
Liliana (left) and Josu (right)
Community Spotlight: Sarah Coons
There is something quietly remarkable about someone who carries a handwritten cookbook of over 700 recipes: not on a screen, not in a file, but on paper, page after page filled in alongside her mother. For Sarah Coons, a prep cook, dishwasher, and continental breakfast team member at Rodney’s Restaurant, that cookbook is more than a collection of recipes. It is a living record of who she is, where she came from, and what drives her into the kitchen every single day.
This April marks Sarah’s one-year anniversary in her current role at Rodney’s, with a remarkable nine years in culinary altogether. In that time, she has grown from a culinary student in Limestone, Maine, into a skilled and creative kitchen contributor who brings curiosity, warmth, and a deep love of bold flavor to everything she touches.
Roots & Beginnings
Sarah and her mother made the move to Presque Isle from Buffalo, New York, sixteen years ago, and she will tell you without hesitation that this community has become home. “Part of what makes Presque Isle so great is that you are part of a tight-knit and active community” she says, “which we really enjoy.“
It was her mother who first encouraged her to pursue culinary arts, nudging her toward Job Corps in Limestone, where Sarah threw herself into the program with the kind of self-motivated drive that would define her career. She graduated in under a year, earning her ServSafe Management Certification and her first real taste of professional kitchen life at the Loring Job Corps Center, where she worked with industrial-scale equipment and learned what it means to collaborate with people of all different backgrounds toward a single shared goal.
What is one mistake you grew from? “I have learned not to stay in one job too long if it is not helping me grow, and to seek a workplace where I can expand alongside my peers.”
Finding Rodney’s
After years in the field, Sarah was looking for a change of pace, a chance to experience hospitality from the hotel and restaurant side of things, and to work alongside a team she could genuinely respect. Rodney’s offered exactly that.
“It is a smaller operation,” she notes, comparing the kitchen here to her time at Loring, “with smaller equipment and tools, but in the same sense, it is much easier to communicate needs and issues with Executive Chef Joey, who is always happy to assist with cross training and meal preparation.” That closeness and accessibility, she says, makes all the difference.
When asked how she would describe the kitchen’s culinary identity in just a few words, she does not hesitate: “Imaginative, open-minded, and caring. The staff is there for one another when it matters, and that matters.“
A Kitchen Full of Personality
Ask Sarah what guests don’t see when they sit down for a meal, and she lights up. “All the personalities in the kitchen, and the culture that goes alongside that,” she says with a smile. “We are a bunch of nerds who care for and help one another. We enjoy listening to music while we work and preparing food for our guests.“
One moment has become something of a legend in the Rodney’s kitchen: during Lobster Week last year, as Sarah and her colleagues, Elijah, Seth, and others, were preparing their seafood, Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” came on over the speakers just as the lobsters met the pot. “We just lost it,” she laughs. “It’s a little messed up, but the timing was brilliant.”
How do you want guests to feel after tasting a dish you helped create? “Happy, and I hope they enjoyed the flavor as well as the time and effort it took to make the meal. We love receiving feedback to work from and improve upon.”
The Food She Loves
Sarah’s palate leans toward the bold, the layered, and the globally inspired. Her favorite dishes to prepare include curries, gumbos, schnitzel, and other richly seasoned ethnic foods, the kind of cooking that, as she puts it, offers “a strong flavor and punch with the feeling of home.” Her comfort food is Asian and Indian cuisine: “I like the complex flavor of seasonings and the challenge of making it.“
The team at Rodney’s is currently developing a tikka masala curry, one she is particularly excited about. “That is an uncommon flavor up here,” she says, “and we hope it will help to broaden Presque Isle’s palette to new and exciting foods.“
She is equally enthusiastic about what is coming from close to home. The Mi’qmac Farms brook trout, sourced locally and featured on the menu as a grilled trout dish, is something she finds genuinely exciting. CEO LeRae Kinny has even mentioned the possibility of a kitchen trip to the farm, a chance for the team to see exactly where their food is coming from. “That is really cool,” Sarah says simply.
Craft, Technique & the Humble Cookie
For all her love of global cuisine, the dish Sarah says represents her most is something far closer to home: baked cookies. “They can be complex or simple,” she explains, “and they are fun to do with friends and family while spending time together.” It is a reflection of the same philosophy that runs through everything she does: food is about connection, memory, and the people you share it with.
The technique she is most proud of having mastered is menu building, the art of weaving together an appetizer, entree, salad, drink, and dessert into a complete, harmonious dining experience. It is a skill that requires both creativity and restraint, and one that she clearly takes seriously.
Her three kitchen tools of choice? A whisk, a house knife, and a potato peeler. And her tip for home cooks just finding their footing? “Practice with basic recipes first before trying more complex ones. Give yourself time and room to grow into it.“
Beyond the Kitchen
Sarah’s creativity doesn’t stop at the stovetop. Outside of work, she is an accomplished artist who paints, draws, and crochets, and her talents have already left a mark on the hotel itself. When CEO LeRae Kinny and Community Impact Director Collin Darrell approached her about painting the hotel’s windows last November, she jumped at the opportunity. It is the kind of contribution that speaks to who Sarah is: someone who shows up fully, in every room she occupies.
After a long shift, you will find her unwinding the best way she knows how: curled up with her cats, watching television. And if she could share a dinner table with anyone, living or dead? Freddie Mercury, Till Lindemann of Rammstein, and her mother, always first.
If you spot Sarah in the hallway, stop and ask what she recommends. She will have an answer tailored just for you. And if you are looking for a place to start, she has one suggestion of her own:
The Braised Pork Belly Appetizer.
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