At Moby Dick's, seafood is in season
WELLFLEET -- Moby Dick's dining room is a giant screened-in porch, with plastic red and white checkered cloths on picnic tables and colorful fish lights strung along the rafters. The line to order dinner snakes up the wood stairs and stretches the length of the room. No one seems fazed by the wait. In fact, the crowd is in a good mood, sampling fried clams from the wait staff, who cheerfully offer to put any bring-your-own beer or wine on ice until you're seated.
It's summer on Cape Cod, and the staff are not cranky. That's only part of the popularity of this inauspicious-looking seasonal establishment.
The other is the food: local oysters, steamers, lobsters, mussels, clams, swordfish, salmon, you name it. Add to this list a traditional clam chowder, lobster bisque, raw bar, burgers, salads, crab cakes made with real lump crab meat, and sides of baked potatoes and corn on the cob, and you can understand why the place is jammed every day from May through Columbus Day.
Todd Barry and his family own the restaurant. In 1982, Barry's parents and their four children drove here from their home in Connecticut for Easter weekend. They spotted a "for sale" sign at the former Al's Hamburgers. "My father had worked for Anchor Glass, in the container business," says Barry, 42. "He thought a restaurant would provide great summer jobs for his four teenagers." They opened that year, serving only burgers, fries, and drinks, then closed after Labor Day. The following May, the place reopened as Moby Dick's.
They decided to do more fish than burgers. "We started frying, then broiling, then offered lobsters in the rough. Last year we changed from a flat top to a charcoal grill for kebabs, salmon, and tuna."
The three brothers and sister worked through their high school and college years. Todd Barry is the only family member still in the business. Eleven years ago, a young woman came for dinner after a whale watch in Provincetown. She ended up staying for good. "My mother was working that night," says Barry. "She fixed us up."
Todd and Mignon Barry are also business partners. Mignon is running the upper dining room on this summer night, greeting guests, cleaning tables, and lighting candles with an electric clicker. "Some people thought it was a cattle prod," she says. Todd is supervising the other end of the rambling building, past the central area where you place your order, in a cozier room divided into three sections. The decor throughout is nautical: fishnet drapes, colorful buoys, clam baskets filled with shells, and framed snapshots of customers wearing Moby Dick's shirts on vacations in Athens, Cairo, Tokyo, Sidney, and Fiji.
Ken Borer of Reading, Conn., a customer for almost 20 years, says, "He's got a beautiful system here." Customers order their food at a counter, then sit down. The staff brings the dinners, along with drinks. And no matter how many there are in a party, all the food arrives at the same time.
Katy Kmiec, 30, of Eastham, agrees. "We come as soon as they open for the season. They have the best clam chowder and the best French fries. The chowder is thick and really tastes clammy. Some chowders don't have a good clam flavor. I've been eating here for 15 years." The secret to this loyalty, says Barry, is "consistency. That's something I worry about all the time. Everything has to be fresh, from the seafood to the frying oil."
And it helps to have a friendly staff. In a place where summer help can be hard to come by, Barry has a hard-working crew of 20. When he noticed 10 years ago that many American students had to leave for college in the middle of August, he began looking overseas, sponsoring first British and Irish students and now Eastern European and Russian students, all of whom work the longer "shoulder season," well into the fall.
Ausra Merksaityte, 23, of Lithuania, is studying for a degree in education at home. This is her second summer on a temporary visa that keeps her here through mid-October. "I like my employer," she says. "I like the system here. Everyone is working, and we are all equal."
"I liken myself to a college basketball coach," Barry says. "Each year I lose a few talented people and I get a few new ones to replace them. I can't have a season of all new staff."
The enterprising restaurateur also had the foresight to buy a few houses and cottages, so his workers have places to stay. "These kids work hard," says Barry, "but on their days off they go swimming in the ponds, they have barbecues. They burn the candle at both ends."
When you finally make it to your table -- the wait isn't so long after all -- everything comes to you. "I want people to be able to make a mess and have a good time," Barry says. "My best compliment this year was from someone who said, `I feel like I'm at home.' "
Except home doesn't come with a friendly waitress handing out samples of fried clams while you wait for dinner.
Moby Dick's Restaurant is on Route 6 across from Gull Pond Road. 508-349-9795.
