BLUE HILL — A downtown landmark for more than 170 years, the Blue Hill Inn is now welcoming dinner guests five nights a week.

Owner and innkeeper Sarah Pebworth said there is historical precedent for dinners at the inn — E.B. White was a frequent dinner guest — but this is the first time she has opened the intimate dinning room to the general public.

She said that since she bought the inn four years ago, chefs have approached her about serving dinners at the inn, “but no one had an idea that was good for Blue Hill.”

“That changed when the Table closed,” she added. “We definitely needed a second fine-dinning option here in the village.”

Pebworth knew who could achieve that and immediately hired chef Devin Finigan to manage the kitchen and create dinner menus.

“Once I had Devin’s cooking and saw menus she had designed, it occurred to me that if I ever do dinner at the Blue Hill Inn, that is what I’d want,” she said.

The inn has offered dinner Monday through Friday since the end of May. Pebworth said the buzz is “not that we’re serving dinner at the Blue Hill Inn, but that chef Devin Finigan is at the Blue Hill Inn.”

Many area diners will be familiar with Finigan’s work in the kitchen from her seven-year tenure at The Lookout Inn in Brooklin.

“I just have fun in the kitchen,” Finigan said. “I’m young, and I try to be as creative as possible with the menu.

“I just try to have a fabulous menu. I want people to be blown away. I want them to take the menu with them.”

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