Faces Of Nantucket: Brian Butler

Faces of Nantucket: Brian Butler

Years on the island: 20

Favorite things about Nantucket: The outdoors. Great Point, scalloping, clamming, and fishing. 

Brian Butler has one general rule of thumb while driving the Cisco Brewers shuttle:

"What happens on the bus, stays on the bus!" he says with a laugh.

Butler's been part of the brewery since its early days, and he's been behind the wheel of Cisco's shuttle for more than a decade now. For many visitors, he's one of the first people they meet on the island, and Butler is something of an ambassador - for both the brewery and Nantucket itself.

"I do like meeting people, and I also really like telling people about the island," he said. "I enjoy them. I want them to have a good experience while they're here. I'm not a historian by any means, but I know enough of the basics. You know, Maria Mitchell, the whaling captains, the reason why people were here."

In that seven-minute ride from downtown out to the brewery, Butler also gives his passengers - most of whom have never been to Nantucket or Cisco before - a rundown of what to expect, from the bands to the food and the booze.

"I tell them there's really only one thing on the island, and that's really just be nice, you know? Just be nice to everybody," he says.

Butler repeats that ride dozens of times per day and hundreds - perhaps thousands - of times each summer. How does he deal with the traffic, as well as some of Nantucket's bad drivers, and passengers who don't heed his call to be nice?

"Pretty much, I play the Grateful Dead," he says. "You're probably gonna hear some Grateful Dead album concert going on. Other than that, I always try to remember it's only seven minutes, and then it changes."

Butler has brought thousands of people out to the brewery over the past decade, and some of those rides have been more memorable than others, of course. One that he'll never forget, however, was the time New England Patriots legends Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman came out to the island for Memorial Day Weekend in 2016, and Cisco Brewers CEO Jay Harman elected Butler to be their driver for the weekend.

"I'd never been around that much testosterone in my entire life, you know?" Butler said with a laugh. "That's why my beard went gray."

Other than a quick nap for a few hours, Butler was with the Patriots duo for the entire weekend.

"They're really nice people, honestly," he said. "We hung out quite a bit. They had a good time, they were ripping it up, you know? But they were always in control even though they were going hard. It was right before they were going to training camp, so it was like the last time they were having any liquor before the season. So it was fun, and they were really nice."

Originally from Delaware, Butler moved to Maine after college, where he met his ex-wife, who had ties to Nantucket. That was how he first got introduced to the island many years ago.

During the offseason, when the Cisco Brewers shuttle isn't running, Butler goes back to carpentry. Before that, he was doing commercial fishing on the island with Andy Roberts.

In his spare time, Butler's hobby is leatherwork, making bags and other small items. The work is intricate and well-crafted, but Butler says he doesn't do it to make money. Usually, he'll give it away to friends or for a benefit auction.

"I make things, and I give them away to people," he said. "It's a healthier hobby than some of the ones I've had in my life!"