At the eastern end of Montauk, fashionable locals and tourists have spent the summer sipping Matcharitas and eating lamb merguez hot dogs on baguettes. Outside a 1970s-era building, they sit at picnic tables under lanterns. Inside, a disco ball and a funky portrait of George Washington preside over the dining room.
This is the Lighthouse Café, which opened in June under the beam of the Montauk Point lighthouse. It’s been something of a white whale for Sean MacPherson, the prolific hotelier behind the Bowery and Chelsea Hotels in Manhattan, who lives in the area and has wanted to open a restaurant here for 25 years. He and his business partner, Celine Valensi, run the nearby Crow’s Nest, a waterside three-acre property with a hotel and restaurant that is a celebrity favorite.
Opening a restaurant is hard enough these days with rising food costs and fewer young people drinking. It’s even trickier in Montauk, where an establishment basically has the three summer months to make a profit. But their newest spot takes it to a new level.
It’s on a bluff in Montauk Point State Park, known locally as the “End of the World,” since there is only open ocean between there and Europe. Winds can reach 80 miles per hour, cell service is sparse and there is little light at night.
The still-operational lighthouse, commissioned by George Washington and built in 1796, attracts visitors from across the globe each summer. It’s a storied spot where the notorious pirate Captain William Kidd supposedly buried treasure, and the military had a base that was the inspiration for the Netflix show “Stranger Things.”
“It’s mystical, and there is all this folklore,” Mr. MacPherson said. The area reminds him of Malibu, where he grew up. “This spot has always spoken to me.”
But it’s a challenging venture for a host of reasons, said Timothy Watson, New York State’s park operations manager for Montauk. The cost of living in the Hamptons is high, which makes staffing difficult. And even though the cafe is in a weather-dependent, seasonal location, the state mandates it must be open every day from late March to the weekend after Thanksgiving.
Ms. Valensi has been figuring out a mix of food that appeals to the chic Hamptons crowd, locals who keep things casual and tourists.
The menu at the 7,000-square-foot cafe, a three-minute walk from the lighthouse, includes classics like lobster salad and fish sandwiches, inspired by southwest coastal France, where Ms. Valensi’s family is from and which is just across the water.
“You can swim there,” she said laughing.
The food is light and simple, served picnic-style on paper plates. There are salads (beets and blue cheese, and haricots verts with almonds) and mains like a croque monsieur. Deserts include a lemon ripieno, a lemon sorbet served inside a hallowed out lemon shell.
Since it opened, Ms. Valensi has tried to make sure the food is not too fancy, with items like chicken fingers and French fries. “We found the most organic kind we could,” Ms. Valensi said.
The logistics of operating a government-owned space, however, was the real hurdle. Mr. MacPherson and Ms. Valensi bid on the property three times in the last decade, only to lose each time. They were given a four-year contract in March only after the winning bidder backed out.
The deal includes running the Hither Hills General Store on the western side of Montauk in a campground. This summer, they set up a bar that serves daiquiris and dark and stormies, and a store that sells candy, locally made ice cream and egg sandwiches.
The two transformed the cafe, which was filled with old restaurant equipment and merchandise and had sparse furnishings and décor, into a chic beachy atmosphere with white furniture from Mexico and exposed brick walls.
“We inherited a space that looked like a McDonalds from 1987,” Ms. Valensi said.
Everything brought into the cafe (even the disco ball Mr. MacPherson drove from his home in Los Angeles) becomes state property. And each supplier must be vetted by the state and subjected to a bidding process. (When she discovered the kitchen hood system didn’t work, Ms. Valensi had to get proposals from four local vendors before hiring one.)
Tourists have steadily trickled in for coffee in the morning or a light lunch, but attracting locals has been more of a challenge.
“You would be surprised by how many people who grew up in East Hampton have never actually been to the Lighthouse,” said David Lys, deputy supervisor for the town of East Hampton. Ms. Valensi has been organizing comedy and karaoke nights to drive traffic.
Mr. MacPherson also negotiated with the state to allow for private events by brands after the space closes to the public. Malbon, a golf fashion brand, held an event earlier this summer.
“This is a new revenue stream,” said Mr. Watson, the park operations manager, who believes this could be a viable model for other concession operators in the future. “We recognize the concessions are struggling, and we want people to want to come in and be successful.”
There is one local who is definitely thrilled about the Lighthouse Café opening: Joe Gaviola, the president of the Montauk Historical Society, who lives in a two-bedroom apartment in the lighthouse.
“It can get quiet up here at the end of the world,” he said. “Now I have a great local restaurant I go to three times a week.”
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