WELLFLEET — On the night after Alex Hay, Garrett Smythe, and Sebastien Taffara closed on a deal to buy the Wicked Oyster, the trio brought their families to the restaurant and made a big dinner to celebrate. The kids ran around in the dining room as the parents cooked in the industrial kitchen. They plan to reopen the restaurant in May.
“We want to become that place that is open and steady, where our friends and families can all gather,” Hay told the Independent on April 20, exactly 20 years after Ken Kozak and Eliza Fitts opened the newly renamed Wicked Oyster in 2004. Since then, the restaurant has been a fixture among local businesses. Its maroon-and-gold sign at 50 Main St. acts like a welcome to Wellfleet’s downtown for drivers turning off Route 6.
The trio said they are keeping the sign and the name. “We want to continue what was started,” said Smythe. Taking the reins of the restaurant is a full-circle moment for Smythe, who first came to Wellfleet to work at the Wicked Oyster in its infancy.
“Twenty years ago, Ken Kozak was shaking my hand in the kitchen hiring me, and 20 years later in the same exact spot he is shaking my hand selling it to me,” Smythe said.
Smythe now lives in Eastham with his family, as do Sebastien Taffara and his family. Smythe previously worked as a chef at The Pheasant in Dennis, and before that was chef and partner at Sunbird in Orleans.
Taffara worked as manager of the restaurant Cuvée at Chatham Inn after working for the Prentice Hospitality Group in Portland, Maine. Hay, who lives in Wellfleet, owns seafood purveyor Wellfleet Shellfish Company. Together they are the “three legs of a stool,” Smythe said — the cuisine, the hospitality, and the business.
The trio first met in October to discuss opening a restaurant together. A round of “speed dating” in Hay’s office revealed that they shared key values: “We love food, and we love to have people gather,” Hay said.
They started looking for viable real estate from Orleans to Truro to set up shop, but nothing was suitable. Then they had the idea to approach Fitts and Kozak, and with the help of broker John Ciluzzi they struck a $2.6-million deal.
Fitts said that he and Kozak had not been entirely ready to hand off the business but felt they could not find better successors.
“They are local people who know us, know the building, and are committed to the community,” Fitts said. “It was kismet. We could not be happier.”
At its April 16 meeting, the Wellfleet Select Board approved the trio’s application to convert the Wicked Oyster’s alcohol license to year-round. If all goes according to plan, the Wicked Oyster will become one of the town’s only year-round restaurants.
“Wellfleet is lacking a community base that is open year-round and you can count on being open,” said Hay. Last winter, Hay’s jazz band played next door at the Fox & Crow on Thursday nights. While that restaurant is now closed for good, the experience opened Hay’s eyes “to the winter scene that is viable here,” he said.
“I’m just buying this restaurant so my band has somewhere to play on Thursday nights,” Hay added.
A lot is still in flux, including what to call the menu’s cuisine. Is it “new American” or “coastal”? “All the words sound wrong,” said Smythe.
The menu will focus on locally sourced ingredients. “We believe in our ingredients and the people who are producing them,” Smythe said. The aim is to “showcase all the great local product we have here,” Hay said.
But if you still need an elevator pitch, Smythe said, it’s “food you know, done well. And there will definitely be wicked oysters on the menu.”
With a planned May opening date just around the corner, the mood in the restaurant is more giddy than frantic. The trio bounce ideas off each other and finish each other’s sentences.
“Our conversations are not about what we’ll be doing in June, but what we’ll be doing 15 years from now,” said Hay. “This is not a sprint — it’s a marathon.”
