It started in 2008 when faced with the annual question of how Maine's restaurants would get through winter. Most owners and chefs had just one choice. They would scale their staff to minimum size, cut hours, reduce orders. That was the story for many winters before MRW was born. Local- and independently-owned restaurants mostly went quiet during winter, hoping summer business would make up for winter. For many years, restaurant owners had to reinvent themselves each spring and hope for talented laid-off staff returning to the team so the identity of the operation would again be whole.