The boys of summer, kings of the Long Island Sound
The Pier Restaurant and Tiki Bar occupies a corner near a dock on the Long Island Sound where the Playland boardwalk ends.
The long tiki bar has a thatched roof with leaves like giant pointed banana peels or yellowed corn stalks that don”™t bend in the wind the way grass would. They are more wood than they are leaf and look as if they could withstand the force of a hammer.
Those sitting on bar stools with their backs to the small indoor area have a 180-degree view of the water, stretching from a nature sanctuary and the Playland log flume on the left over to the county beach, Rye Town Park and Oakland Beach on the right.
John Ambrose, who co-owns the restaurant, was in shorts, a fedora and a pastel golf shirt on a recent afternoon just days after Tiki Bar opened for spring. Tiki, and Seaside Johnnie”™s, its sister restaurant just down the coastline, are two of only a few Westchester restaurants that are seasonal and link their success directly to sun and beach weather.
There is indoor seating at Tiki, but almost no one eats inside except during the most humid days of summer, either to sit in the air conditioning or because all of the outdoor seating is occupied. When it”™s warm, the day crowd spills over from Playland”™s outer rim and orders seafood dishes like a Maine lobster roll or fried scallops from cartoonishly large plastic-laminated menus. Steel-drum music plays in the background. At dusk, it becomes a lively nightspot, with live music and crowds sipping bright tropical drinks with chunks of pineapple as a garnish. A common refrain from customers is they don”™t feel like they”™re in Westchester there.
It feels more like vacation, they say, as if Playland Parkway had pushed them through a wormhole on Purchase Street and transported them to a Caribbean getaway or Floridian vacation destination.
“I tell them, ”˜I saved you the airfare,”™” Ambrose said.
It was a sunny day in the mid-70s, but he recoiled when a customer mentioned rain was forecast for tomorrow.
“That”™s a dirty, four-letter word to me,” he said with a laugh. He already knew about the forecast. He checks forecasts on television, radio and on his phone constantly. At night he predicts the weather for the following day and decides whether to reduce his seafood orders, which he places daily. If the forecast is especially bad, he”™ll put a reduced staff on duty anticipating sparse crowds. Whereas a 12-month restaurant might see a loss of business of about 5 percent due to bad weather, a downpour could mean a swing of as much as 80 percent for Ambrose”™s seasonal spots.
It was the week before the unofficial start of summer, Memorial Day, and Playland was yet to open on weekdays. Although the restaurants had just recently opened their doors, the preparations had been underway since March, when a seemingly endless winter was persisting. The buildings were repainted, much of the wood was refinished and the menus from last year were assessed, analyzed and modified. The wine list is also rewritten annually.
“Every year there seems to be more flavors du jour,” he said. Both bars have to be entirely restocked each year as alcohol cannot be stored in the offseason.
The restaurants were both preparing for warmer weather and bigger crowds. Through the summer season, Tiki Bar will have about 180 employees and Seaside”™s staff will be roughly two-thirds that size.
You could take the 15-minute walk from Tiki to Seaside, down the Playland boardwalk ”“ past the familiar spot where Tom Hanks made a wish on a Zoltar machine in the movie “Big” ”“ and along the beach through Rye Town Park.
Seaside, which sits on a perch overlooking Oakland Beach, is more of a traditional restaurant. Its menu caters to a more traditional, sit-down clientele. There are items like a seafood kebob and a combination dinner platter, and on most nights during the summer there is a dedicated sushi chef. The restaurant is in a retrofitted 100-year-old building with unique Spanish ceramic tile roofing. Seaside operates two concession stands on the beach itself and its daytime crowd is often parkgoers and beach families. At night, Seaside has a regular dinner crowd ”“ and on Wednesdays and Fridays the outdoor seating has a clear view of the Playland fireworks being shot across the bay near Tiki Bar.
Seaside brings back many of the same staff members each spring, even after being closed for half the year. Ambrose said he works with his longtime employees to place them in other restaurants owned by acquaintances during winter with the understanding they”™ll come back once the weather warms up.
Ambrose has spent 40 years in the restaurant business and formerly ran the Crab Shanty in Mamaroneck from 1979 until 2004. Prior to that, he worked on City Island, where his partner, Sam Chernin, still owns several restaurants ”“ The Sea Shore, Sammy”™s Fish Box and Sammy”™s Shrimp Box. It”™s a whole different game running a restaurant that closes for fall and winter.
“A seasonal restaurant is a more exacting science,” Ambrose said.
In the early months of spring, when the cold weather finally breaks, Ambrose said he starts looking forward to the first day the restaurants will open. He, his staff and regular customers look at Tiki and Seaside as something distinctly summer ”“ the same way a baseball fan might anticipate opening day.
When the doors open, he tries to take a step back and enjoy it and perhaps not think about the weather. At least for a few moments.
“I would not trade my locations for any other restaurant locations in New York,” he said. “This is almost a wellness center. When you leave here, whatever weight was on your shoulders when you came in is gone.”