Meetings Ahead
Thursday, Feb. 20
- Local Housing Partnership, 4 p.m., Town Hall
Saturday, Feb. 22
- Nauset Regional School Negotiations Subcommittee, 9 a.m. Central Administration Building, 78 Eldredge Parkway, Orleans
Conversation Starters
Make Way for Beer Trailer
After 15 years at that location, Russ and Marie Swart have sold the Marconi Beach BBQ & Seafood Restaurant at 545 State Hwy. to Beth Andreoli and Patrick Pokras of South Dennis. The couple still plan to serve barbecue and fried chicken, she said. But the restaurant, Block & Tackle, will have new twist.
“We drove a beer trailer with 24 taps from California,” she said.
The couple own the business Beer Without Borders and hope to use the trailer in their first season at their new place if they receive all the necessary permits, she said. The select board transferred the liquor license to their company, Bapps Taps LLC, on Feb. 11.
Block & Tackle will be open year-round, though the owners may need to close for a few months to do renovations the first winter, Beth added.
Mayo Beach Blues
The nonprofit Cape Cod Blue Economy Foundation, created by the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce in 2017, is considering placing a small modernist building with information about shellfishing at Mayo Beach as part of a Cape-wide effort to highlight cultural connections with the waterfront economy. But on Feb. 11 Wellfleet Select Board Chair Janet Reinhart delayed the blue economy presentation until they could have a larger discussion on the plans for the entire harbor area.
“Cultural tourism is huge now,” Reinhart said. But she added, “Our harbor needs some love.”
Using the same rationale, she also delayed making a decision on the town’s shellfish shack, but not before another heated discussion about the long-simmering conflict over whether to tear it down.
Board Member Mike DeVasto proposed stripping it down to bare walls and allowing the black mold to dry, then using it as a bathhouse. It would have no water or heat. The town could do this for $37,000, he said, which is not much more than it would cost to demolish it.
Pamela Grandin, who organized a group called “Friends of Mayo Beach House,” said the 1948 structure is worth saving. Her group is applying for Community Preservation Act funds. The group’s first request for funds was rejected because they lacked information, due to the select board failing to respond to Grandin’s emails. Reinhart said she never received the request.
Board Member Kathleen Bacon said it was time for the building to go. “Burn it,” she said.
Board Member Helen Miranda Wilson agreed, saying less is more; she would like the beach to be as pristine as possible.
David Wright, a landscaper, offered a compromise of sorts. He suggested that the Blue Economy Foundation use the shellfish shack as their structure in Wellfleet and pay for it to be stripped down into a beach changing shack. That, he said, would be better than building something new.
With no conclusion in sight, Town Administrator Dan Hoort agreed to convene a meeting of staff to discuss the harbor area in general. —K.C. Myers
