Landmark Nantucket Restaurant Sold to Make Way for Housing Development
A landmark restaurant in Nantucket that served celebrities such as New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, the late “Meet the Press” moderator Tim Russert, and former President Joe Biden is closing its doors.
The Faregrounds Restaurant & Pudley’s Pub has been sold to a Braintree-based developer along with another plot of land on Fairgrounds Road. The two parcels of land will become home to an eight-lot cul-de-sac community.
According to a MassLive report, preliminary plans filed in Nantucket’s Planning & Land Use Services office late last month combine the adjacent lots at 25 and 27 Fairgrounds Road and then subdivide them into eight lots suitable for development.
To accommodate the development, Faregrounds Restaurant would be torn down as part of the project, and the adjacent wooded lot would be cleared to make way for the housing development.
According to MassLive, each new lot in the 2-acre subdivision would be approximately 10,000 square feet in size. The properties, located adjacent to the affordable-housing apartment complex under construction on Wiggles Way, are assessed at $3,108,500, according to town property records.
For Bill and Kim Puder, who have owned Faregrounds Restaurant & Pudley’s Pub for more than 25 years, it’s the end of an era. In 2022, the couple decided to gauge interest in identifying a buyer for the restaurant, but they were unsuccessful. In the fall of 2022, the Puders received approval from the Nantucket Planning Board to subdivide the property into four lots, three for housing and one for the restaurant building. Ultimately, the Puders agreed to a purchase deal of the properties with Brad Cartwright of the Granite Street Realty Corp., based in Braintree.
The Nantucket Planning Board reviewed the preliminary housing development plan on Monday, March 10. Planning Board staff are recommending approval of the plan, which is subject to refinement.