Update: In a comment, Josh tells us that The Breachway Grill opened on Friday, May 6. Thanks Josh!
I don’t envy people in the restaurant business in Charlestown. The tourist season is all too short for someone thinking about paying rent the year-round. My entire staff and I visit restaurants a lot during the winter and you can often see us at The Cove on Monday nights for the burger and chicken sandwich special. We feel that the restaurants staying open in the winter are doing us a service and we need to try to help them out.
I don’t envy people in the restaurant business in Charlestown. The tourist season is all too short for someone thinking about paying rent the year-round. My entire staff and I visit restaurants a lot during the winter and you can often see us at The Cove on Monday nights for the burger and chicken sandwich special. We feel that the restaurants staying open in the winter are doing us a service and we need to try to help them out.
To get back to the subject of this article, a couple of energetic guys are refurbishing the former site of Flip Flops on the corner of Charlestown Beach Road and Matunuck Schoolhouse Road. This location should be great with its proximity to the summer homes near the beach but the recent attempts at a restaurant didn’t survive too long. Perhaps the building needs some feng shui but Flip Flops suffered from a late opening last season.
It will be called The Breachway Grill and should be open by mid-April. Craig Marr and executive chef Andrew Blumin are determined to have the menu fine-tuned and all of the service kinks worked out before the summer season gets rolling.
Craig and Andrew have a varied background including being co-founders of the mobile marketing company Innovate M, based in New York City. Craig also has experience as a firefighter in Greenwich, CT and is now a volunteer with the Watch Hill Fire Department. (Disclosure: your humble writer is a volunteer with the Charlestown Fire District.) Andrew grew up as a world traveler, with parents in the Peace Corps, and acquired his appreciation for good food in Africa and Europe. His high school and college years were spent in Paris, France and he has considerable restaurant experience in New York.
There has been a rumor around town that it will be an Italian restaurant but that isn’t correct. They plan to offer several dishes you would call Comfort Food and they will have New York style thin-crust pizza. They will be trying out numerous specials at first; they mentioned fish tacos and that they will have a couple Italian dishes for those people disappointed that the rumor isn’t true.
They are frank in saying that their menu will evolve as they strive to develop an identity that is unique and gives us new choices in town. Reminding me of the success restaurants have seen with promotions of local food (Matunuck Oyster Company, Bridge Restaurant, Celestial Café and others), they will be featuring local producers of seafood, meat and produce.
They will be open for lunch and dinner adding breakfast during the summer season. They were able to obtain the beer and wine license of the previous restaurant and you will see some regional craft beers in addition to the usual suspects.
Update: If you haven't seen our update article look here.
Author: Tom Ferrio