Faregrounds Restaurant To Be Sold To Ethan Devine

Faregrounds Restaurant and Pudley's Pub, a longtime Nantucket dining establishment, will soon be sold, but will continue on as a year-round restaurant serving the island community.

The beloved mid-island restaurant operated by Bill and Kim Puder for more than 25 years is being sold to Ethan Devine, whose family previously operated the Veranda House hotel when it was known as the Overlook.

“Alexis and I hope to continue the legacy of a community-oriented restaurant that Bill and Kim have kept going for 29 years, and before them so many great Nantucketers like Mr. Holdgate and the Menards and the Barretts and the Malaveses,” Devine said in a statement, mentioning his wife Alexis. “It’s a long list of great people who have kept The Knotty Pines going under many different names over the years.”

The Puders will be sitting down for an interview with the Current to discuss the sale of the Faregrounds on Monday (stay tuned for that follow-up report).

Devine grew up around The Overlook when its restaurant was a destination for island residents to enjoy breakfast and favorites like whale-shaped pancakes when it was open to the public on Sundays. Devine was working on Wall Street at Goldman Sachs when his uncle, who was running the Veranda House at the time, passed away. Devine and his wife decided to take over the establishment and ran the hotel for several years up until 2006, when they sold it to Dale and Susan Hamilton, then the proprietors of the Sherburne Inn.

The sale allowed him to buy a home and start a family, but after a career in finance and what he described as "the rat race," Devine said he realized he wanted to come back to Nantucket.

“I have been looking for a business to get into since we moved back, and when I saw that Faregrounds became available again, I jumped at the opportunity,” Devine added. “Our family loves food, which is good because this is definitely an all-hands-on-deck type of business. Peri and Sam have lots of great ideas about what kids want to see on the menu. And we have a young chef with a lot of energy. He has experience in fine dining but has always wanted to open a diner. So we aren’t looking to go in a different direction, just update a little bit.”

“Bill and Kim have been so generous in working with us to help keep this a restaurant," Devine continued. "It isn’t easy to pass the baton and keep a restaurant operating through a change in ownership. Our goal is to stay open other than a couple short periods (hopefully weeks) for paint and cosmetic repairs to the front of the house and modernizing some of the back of house. We hope to keep all of our regulars and continue to host the Rotary Club and other community organizations and family gatherings.”

The Puders first explored selling the restaurant in 2022, when the town kicked the tires on a potential acquisition that never came to fruition. Earlier this year, the Puders reached a deal with abutting property owner Suzanne Davis to sell their Fairgrounds Road properties together to a developer planning an eight-lot housing subdivision on the two lots. While those plans were ultimately approved by the Nantucket Planning Board, the deal fell through in May.

The Puders took over the restaurant property in 1997 when it was known as The Pines. After a naming contest, it was dubbed The Faregrounds Restaurant & Pudleys Pub after the Puders’ potbellied pig. The property has a long and colorful history as a local restaurant going back to 1948 when Parker Gray opened The Knotty Pines Bar-B-Q.

Faregrounds has long been a beloved favorite of island residents - one of the few year-round staples of the dining scene - as well as visiting dignitaries such as former President Joe Biden, who for many years ordered his Thanksgiving dinner from the Puders' restaurant during his family's annual visit.