Billie's, Ethos and The Pearl Are Closed Right Now. Their Liquor Licenses Explain the Reopening Dates.

Ethos Wine Bar & Bistro at 18 Broad Street is dark this week, and so is American Seasons at 80 Centre Street. The two closures are not the same. Ethos has a return date of November 24 on the Town of Nantucket's weekly restaurant list. American Seasons says on its own site that it is closed for the 2026 season and will reopen in April 2027.

That difference between a date in a few weeks and a date next spring follows the downtown dining calendar between now and Thanksgiving. Most of the restaurants taking a break right now have announced exactly when they'll be back. The reason is less about kitchen staff schedules than about the kind of liquor license over the door.

Four restaurants, three return dates

The Town's Restaurants Open list for October 19 through 25, updated October 23, shows four sit-down restaurants as temporarily closed with set reopening dates.

1. Wednesday, November 11: Billie's on Broad, 20 Broad Street. Billie's own website carries the same message, "Back November 11," and says reservations are open. The schedule on its site has dinner from 5 p.m. every night except Tuesday.
2. Wednesday, November 18: Boarding House and The Pearl, which share 12 Federal Street. The Pearl's site says the two restaurants share a kitchen and menu, and lists Monday through Saturday service from 5 p.m., closed Sundays.
3. Tuesday, November 24: Ethos Wine Bar & Bistro, 18 Broad Street, two days before Thanksgiving.

So by Thanksgiving week, both blocks of Broad Street and the stretch of Federal Street around the Boarding House should have their usual dinner choices back. Every one of these breaks is shorter than seven weeks.

The rule behind the date

Any Nantucket restaurant or bar with a year-round liquor license, which the town calls an "annual" license, has to tell the town before closing for an extended stretch. The Town's Restaurant Closure Notification form puts it plainly: "Extended Closures of 2 weeks or more must be reported and approved by the Select Board/Town Administration." The form asks for an expected closing date and an expected reopening date. A November break on an annual license starts with a calendar the town has to approve.

There is also a cost for closing longer. In February 2024 the Select Board voted unanimously to start enforcing a penalty on annual licensees that close for 60 or more consecutive days in the offseason, The Inquirer and Mirror reported. The penalty had been on the books since 2019 but went unenforced during the pandemic. The paper put the fee at $500 to $600 and said it is meant to cover the difference between an annual license and the cheaper seasonal one. In its coverage of the 2023-24 offseason, the Nantucket Current described the 2019 fee as $3,900. The two reports give different amounts, so the Town Licensing Office is the place to get the current figure.

The town's position comes through in what board members said during that February 2024 meeting. "It's pretty hard for us to force someone to stay open and lose money," Select Board member Brooke Mohr said, according to The Inquirer and Mirror. "When there aren't enough places to (dine) out, it becomes a problem for the community." The board also turned down a proposal to let restaurants that close for the offseason open on popular weekends like Easter. Matt Fee, a board member who also runs Something Natural, explained why: "The restaurants that stay open all winter, a lot are doing so at a loss, in order to retain staff or doing it for the community. They look forward to big weekends to make winter work. If you let everyone in, it hurts those that stay open year-round."

All of this explains the posted date. On an annual license, a short break is a reported, approved stop, and the reopening date is part of the request.

Why the breaks keep happening

The licensing structure makes short breaks the workable option, but the pressure behind them goes back further. In the 2023-24 offseason, the Nantucket Current reported that 14 restaurants with year-round licenses had asked for extended closures, and that about 10 of the island's 57 annual license holders had asked to convert to seasonal licenses. By February 2024, The Inquirer and Mirror reported, the town's licensing administrator had a list of 21 annual licensees planning extended closures that year.

Licensing administrator Amy Baxter told the Select Board then that she had asked those 10 annual holders to hold off on switching "to see if there's any other solutions to help stop everyone from being seasonal and not having anything open January through March," according to the Current. Matt Fee described the squeeze to the Current at the same hearing: "What I'm seeing is the busy times are busier, and the shoulders (seasons) and times like now are just dead." He gave the causes as "staffing, housing, and a lack of business."

Those figures are from two winters ago. Still, they show what a break of a few weeks protects. Billie's, Boarding House, The Pearl and Ethos are all coming back on announced dates, and each is keeping its place among the restaurants the town counts on in January.

Dark nights before the reopenings

The closures above are only part of the picture through mid-November. The same Town list for October 19 through 25 shows that many of the restaurants still open are also closed on certain weeknights.

On Tuesday, Gaslight at 3 North Union Street, Via Mare at 17 Broad Street and Ventuno at 21 Federal Street are all on their three-night weekly break, and Proprietors at 9 India Street and Oran Mor at 2 South Beach Street are both closed. Billie's will be closed Tuesdays too once it returns.

That edition lists several restaurants with no closed night. Brotherhood of Thieves at 23 Broad Street, bACKyard Barbecue at 20 Straight Wharf, Rose and Crown at 23 South Water Street, Casa Real at 5 Macys Lane, Kitty Murtaugh's at 4 West Creek Road and Island Blend at 149 Orange Street are all listed for lunch and dinner. Surfside Taco Stand at 2 Broad Street runs 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Easy Street Restaurant, Crosswinds at the Airport and Toppers at 120 Wauwinet Road are listed for all three meals.

Some newer and relocated names also appear on that list. The Dive, Sneaky Good Hospitality Group's partnership with Nantucket restaurateur Denise Corson at 15 South Water Street, serves lunch Friday through Sunday and dinner Tuesday through Sunday. Downyflake now serves breakfast at 27 Fairgrounds Road and is closed Mondays.

Breeze runs its own calendar

Breeze at the Nantucket Hotel, 77 Easton Street, avoids a full break by skipping specific nights. Its autumn season runs September 27 through January 3, 2027, with breakfast Monday through Saturday, Sunday brunch and dinner Wednesday through Saturday. The hotel lists no dinner service on Saturday, November 7, Thursday, November 12, Saturday, November 14, and Saturday, November 21. It does list Thanksgiving service on November 26. On the nights it is open, Breeze runs "Taste of Spain" Wednesdays and "Fondue Fridays."

Saturday, November 14 is the toughest date on the calendar. Breeze has no dinner that night, Boarding House and The Pearl don't return for four more days, and Ethos is still ten days away. Billie's, back since November 11, will be the only one of the four short-break restaurants open that weekend.

The list that keeps up

The Town keeps its open-restaurant list under the Culture & Tourism office's Open Restaurants page and updates it weekly. The hours in this post come from the October 19 through 25 edition. A newer edition will be posted by the time you read this, and it will show any change to the November 11, 18 and 24 dates before the restaurants open their doors.

This post describes the town's licensing rules for general information only. It is not legal or financial advice, and restaurant owners should confirm their own obligations with the Town Licensing Office or their own advisors.

Many of the people Carl works with ask him where to have dinner on a quiet Tuesday in November, and he's glad to share what he knows about how the island's off-season works. If you'd like to talk about life on Nantucket after Columbus Day, or anything else on your mind, Carl Lindvall would be glad to hear from you. Let's Start a Conversation.