Most Wellfleetians have an affinity for the picturesque desolateness of our off-season. Which is not to say that in a chilly, snowy January we don’t appreciate the occasional warm spot.
On Main Street, the logical place to look for signs of life, we have, let’s see… The Wellfleet Marketplace continues to provide a steady pulse for Main Street. A few doors down, Wellfleet Spirits Shoppe is a fixture, providing cheer both in what you buy and in the buying. Still farther along, a little banter with a funloving teller at Cape Cod Five can make your day.
The award for Comeback Restaurant of the Year goes to the Lighthouse, that venerable downtown venue whose light has been flickering in recent years. Joe Wanco, co-owner and owner for over 30 years, decided, since nobody had made him an offer on the place he couldn’t refuse, to bring new life to the old spot. In a bold and creative move he built a handsome horseshoe-shaped bar smack in the middle of the main dining room.
Private drinking is all very well in its way, but a good public house anchoring downtown is good to see. Open until what passes for late in this town, that bar is a welcome bubble of warmth and life on an otherwise deserted Main Street of a winter evening. At least one group of old roustabouts has started convening there semi-regularly on Monday nights.
There is still plenty of space for dining and in fact Joe has brought back the lunch specials, a hearty plateful of meatloaf or roast pork or what have you, a really good deal at $5.95
I don’t know about the fat end of the Cape, but here at the skinny end we still speak of the “off-season”, which has an off-putting, self- fulfilling- prophecy feeling to it. Of course a lot of us rather like a long season of off after the summer’s feeding frenzy. But like it or not, in the last few years off-season has been replaced by what might be called a second season. An off-season season.
There’s mid-October’s Oyster Fest of course. That amazing all-town celebration of local life, drawing tens of thousands from all over, feels like the final beat of the summer season. Then, just as we’re ready to hit the snooze alarm, we ‘re prodded to civic life by Yule for Fuel. This review punctuates the late fall between Thanksgiving and Christmas with four weekends of music, readings, holiday energy and fun, local talent on display.
Yule for Fuel is held at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater. WHAT, inspired by its brilliant new building is coming up with all kinds of ways to interrupt anything resembling hibernation. A mid-winter play. Opera projected live from the Met on WHAT’s wonderful screen. (Check their website, what.org, for the complete schedule.)
A hot spot in the winter season schedule is the 8th annual Merci D’avance Dance (thanks- in- advance -dance), a fundraiser for our unofficial sister town of Matenwa in Haiti, where Ellen Lebow and others have catalyzed an artist’s cooperative. (Website: artmatenwa.org for more of their story.)
There is a special urgency this year. “When a recession hits us here, disaster hits a place like Haiti,” says Lebow. In the depths of our season of cold it’s a chance to warm our hearts by focussing on a warm p lace that also happens to be one of the poorest places in the world. But the many who have attended in the past know this is not a huge sacrifice requiring great nobility of soul. Its a great party, with Caribbean music, dancing, food, and delightful art to view and purchase.
January 16 from 6 PM Till Midnight at Messina Restaurant, 4100 Rt. 6 in Eastham. Locals, never shy when it comes to a good party, will no doubt make it a hot time in that spot on Route 6 that night, no matter what the weather.
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