PiaNeilson

PIA NEILSON

Co-Owner, Solo Bistro

Bath, Maine

For Pia Neilson, owning and operating a busy restaurant means dealing with new surprises, and gaining new satisfactions, every day. Solo Bistro, co-owned with her husband, Will Neilson, has developed a well-earned reputation for sophisticated, flavor-filled cuisine and using fresh, seasonal Maine ingredients.

Salient in the unique mix of elements that makes the restaurant stand out from the pack, is Pia’s design panache. The “feel” and look of Solo Bistro – gained in part from her roots growing up in Denmark – has been a key ingredient in making the inventive Maine restaurant the resounding success it is today.

“At our restaurant, we’re fortunate that we have a dedicated group of individuals working together to produce a great dining experience,” Pia notes. “It’s very rewarding when we’re firing on all cylinders to deliver great food and great service in a seamless way.”

Never one to rest on past successes, Pia understands that she has to recreate that top-notch dining experience every single day. “I see the hard work that everyone on our team gives to customers, both in our bustling kitchen, and in our busy dining rooms,” she notes. “If running this type of business was easy, it simply wouldn’t be as rewarding.”

Neilson traveled considerably throughout Europe and other parts of the world before she and her husband arrived in Maine. She draws on her exposure to many different cultures in her work at Solo Bistro, as well as in her neighboring clothing and home-furnishing boutique, The Design Connection. Pia beautifully combines classically modern ideas that have a European flair with a sense of Maine’s down-to-earth, unhurried culture.

Solo Bistro may at first seem unusual in terms of its setting; the popular restaurant is situated in the middle of historic downtown Bath. The scenic town boasts a brick and stone commercial district which dates back to the heyday of US shipbuilding, when Bath was one of the major centers. But Pia has no fixed notion of the way a type of place should look, and her outlook brings a great sense of setting and comfortable experience to both of her Maine businesses.

“I appreciate history and historic spaces, and one of my fundamental principles is that we honor the past in keeping its products relevant in the present. It is important to me that historic places be as useful, functional and beautiful to us today as they were when they were built, and it is exciting to try to translate the physical and aesthetic strengths of another time into a modern idiom,” she notes.

To that end, Pia has furnished Solo Bistro with classic modern lighting, chic glass partitions, simple blond wood tables built to her own specification, warm, wooden floors, appealing Finnish tableware and glassware, bright, award-winning chairs from Barcelona-based designer Jorge Pensi, and wall hangings from Maine’s own award-winning modern designer, Angela Adams. The result is a welcoming combination of comfort, intelligence and sleek ambiance.

“People come to a restaurant to enjoy good food and good company,” Pia says. “We strive to deliver great food every day, and to serve it with a modern sensibility that is warm, informal and thoroughly professional.”

For restaurant information, please

email info@solobistro.com

or call 207/443-3373

For press information about Solo Bistro or The Design Connection,

or to request an interview with Pia Neilson, contact:

Thom Householder

Front Burner PR, LLC

207/699-5501

thom@frontburnerpr.com

Image of Pia Neilson

www.fullfocusphoto.com