It wasn't that Portland is lacking in the amount of restaurants per capita, or an absence of new and fresh eateries on the market.
It wasn't an appetite for the mundane or a need for the reassuring feeling that comes from ordering the same dish, the same way, from the same restaurant.
"It's not that I didn't know about (other restaurants)," he said. "I didn't remember them when I was walking out the door."
Keeping track of the many current and opening restaurants, bars and bakeries is no easy task, often requiring at least a phone book or a trip to Google and some patience.
Fotiades saw a need. He created a map.
The Portland Food Map, is not what you may first expect. Instead of a geographic overview of the city's eating establishments, Fotiades' map lays out Portland according to what and how you want to eat.
There are no streets or avenues. Instead, Fotiades displays the dining-choice questions we often ask as guideposts -- "Eating Out," "Grab a Bite," or "Drinks."
But the site offers more than just an overview -- it culls the Internet for helpful tools for the hungry, including reviews, restaurant Web sites and maps.
While showcasing what Portland's restaurants and markets have to offer, the Portland Food Map joins a growing crowd of Web sites, blogs and forums that use Internet tools to share a devotion to food culture.
At first impression the food map may more closely resemble a science class diagram or basketball tournament bracket.
The map includes more than 400 listings, broken down into six categories, ranging from "Nibble and Sip" to "Take Home." Each category branches off into smaller groups, so "Eat Out" leads to American food, barbecue, vegetarian or Thai.
From there a simple click on a place like Uncle Billy's Resto Bar brings up separate information in a different window, including the restaurant's Web site, and a collection of reviews from sources such as the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, the Portland Phoenix or The Bollard.
The food map also links to the Google Maps application to geographically pinpoint a single eatery or multiple places across the city.
By trade Fotiades is a Web usability professional, who looks at Web design and software that makes sites easier to use.
He also is a foodie, so going out to eat, searching for reviews and trying new markets was already part of his life.
He decided to start a project to centralize all the information on Portland's food scene into one place. It all started with a loose diagram, categorizing and connecting all of the businesses that deal with food. It was only natural to go online.
"The visualization has that strength so that you can see all of Portland's food businesses at once," he said.
Where many Web sites or guides require users to parse down their choices, stripping away the qualities to come up with the right restaurant, Fotiades said it was important to instead show the connections between businesses.
He expanded the map from his initial idea to include features such as an under-construction page, which lists the status of restaurants in various stages of opening.
Under the nonedible category, you'll find stores that sell cooking equipment, bookstores and local blogs such as Portland Psst!, which offers news and gossip from all around Portland's food culture.
"It's all sort of knit together," he said. "It's hard to draw a line that things beyond this point don't fall in."
When Fotiades sat back to look at the map, he realized there are parts of Portland's food scene that go beyond bakeries, bars and cafes.
Aside from a Web-hosting fee and domain name, Fotiades said the most expensive part of maintaining the food map is going out to eat regularly -- something he was already...
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