It’s all relative.
Lucy Vincent may be your idea of an idyllic beach, but that opinion can turn on a dime if a naked, overweight stockbroker, caked in clay like a Beef Wellington, sits down beside you.
Similarly, it may be just a plain doughnut, but when you’ve been out clubbing all night and you’re famished and it’s served to you after hours from the back door of MV Gourmet Café and Bakery in Oak Bluffs, it’s as good as anything you could get at L’étoile.
Which leads us to this year’s Best of the Vineyard awards. Our readers have thoughtfully chosen their favorites in categories ranging from Best Bait to Best Bank. And that’s all well and good – for them. But often it’s your own personal experience that can elevate something from the mundane to the sublime (or vice versa) and since the magazine asked me to comment on this year’s awards, I think it only fitting that I filter the Vineyard bests through the personal lens of me.
And so with that, I give you a few of my personal bests. Drum roll, please:
best tattoo
A guy used to come to our house and spray for bugs. His name was John, and I thought I knew him pretty well, until one day he asked, “Did I ever show you my tattoo?” and the next thing I knew, I was staring at a giant spider that extended from the top of his shoulder nearly down to his elbow with the
inscription “The Bug Man.”
best hitchhiker
As a rule, you would think that if you’re going to hitchhike, you should probably leave your chainsaw at home. You might as well be wearing a goalie mask. Nonetheless, for years, Johnny Seaview has been able to pull it off.
best shucker
When Teddy Karalekas was at the Hot Tin Roof, he’d shuck an oyster for me and put a little vodka in it, wink, and say, “Here you go, Cap’n.” There may be faster shuckers, but there is none better.
best emergency roadside assistance
When they were repaving Main Street in Vineyard Haven, I somehow took a wrong turn and managed to back my truck into an open manhole. If Tim Sylvia hadn’t been there with a backhoe, I’d probably still be there.
best ferry
It doesn’t matter which boat it is, it’s any ferry around the holidays that’s full of kids coming back from college, and for forty-five minutes you get to see the world through the hungry eyes of young people just back from what we think of as America.
best athletic event
We’ve seen some great contests here on the Island, but my vote goes to the cow-chip bingo game held on the high-school football field about ten years ago. The field was lined in a grid and spectators would bet on where the cows would deposit their chips. What it lacked in tradition and excitement, it more
than made up for in boredom and absurdity.
But enough about me. Let’s take a look at what our readers have deemed their personal favorites.
Not that I really care.
Each July, Martha’s Vineyard Magazine polls a group of profoundly knowledgeable voters to find out which businesses on the Island are the very best at what they do. This year we canvassed our subscribers and those who purchased the magazine at a newsstand. Over the fall, winter, and spring, we received
some 400 ballots, so the list doesn’t get more definitive or Vineyard-specific than this one. (Look for the 2007 Best of the Vineyard ballot in the August
edition of the magazine and on line at www.mvmagazine.com.)
We’ve been conducting this vote for a few years now, and that put us in mind of history: What would we receive, we wondered, if we asked the winning companies to open their scrapbooks and send us pictures and mementos from the earliest days of their enterprises? Tom Dresser, our reporter for the Best of the Vineyard section this year, came into the office with a fine collection of Vineyard artifacts and stories. Just have a look.
best auto repair shop
Cars Unlimited
“It’s been ten years since we’ve owned the building here at the Airport Business Park,” says Terry Pothier, office manager of Cars Unlimited and co-owner of the company with her husband David Pothier. But that’s not where Cars Unlimited got underway. After working in the auto-repair business for fourteen years, both on-Island and off, David started his own business in a rented garage on Dukes County Avenue, across from Tony’s Market, in Oak Bluffs. (That’s David with the balloons on opening day in April 1987.) After two moves, the company settled at the business park in April 1996. How did Cars Unlimited win the award for best auto repair shop? “Having the right technicians and training that goes into this. Finding the right mix of guys to work and training them,” says David. Terry looks around the facility, which is state of the art. Then she looks at the photo of David with the balloons on opening day, and decides that what’s at the heart of Cars Unlimited hasn’t really changed. “This is a family business,” she says. “A mom-and-pop shop.”
best lunch restaurant
Slice of Life
best dinner restaurant
The Sweet Life Café
“It’s the first time we won first place for both places in the same year,” says Mary Kenworth, co-owner with husband Jackson of Slice of Life (best lunch restaurant) and The Sweet Life Café (best dinner restaurant), across the street from each other on Circuit Avenue in Oak Bluffs. Though the Kenworths keep receipts with the names of famous patrons encircled by hearts (sirloin and salmon for Tom Hanks, duck hash and an oatmeal for President Clinton), our favorite item from the Sweet Life and Slice of Life scrapbooks is a June 6, 2005, letter from nine-year-old Rosie Cipolla of Oak Bluffs to the crème brûlée she’d just had for dessert: “The first time I had you I was 4. It was at the Sweet Life and after that I really did have a sweet life!!!! You’re so good with a creamy center like a thick [sensation]. With a crunchy cooked coasted sueger that tasts like the sweetest thing you could ever have!!!! You’re the best thing, I’m sorry I have to do this to [you:] crunch, crunch, crunch. xxxooo. Your favorite fan, Rosie Cipolla.”
best garden center or nursery
Donaroma’s Nursery and Landscape Services
This hot-pink T-shirt was the official Donaroma work shirt back in the early 1970s. Though the image on the back has faded a bit, the symbolism would have been hard to parse out even when the shirt was brand new.
Basically, the rising sun illuminates a handshake between a lawn (the green arm) and a human (the checked-shirt arm), which illustrates how lawn and man need each other to thrive.
The ivy that borders the whole image represents friendship and fidelity and is a favorite plant of founder Mike Donaroma’s, says Mariko Kawaguchi, senior designer of the Edgartown company that won best garden center or nursery this year. “Yes,” said Mariko when asked the obvious question.
“Mike’s crew really did work in this shirt. They had to be very brave, very virile guys – even in the groovy early 1970s.”
best women’s clothing store
The Green Room
At the end of the summer of 2003, the employees at The Green Room – winner this year of the best women’s clothing store – gave founder and owner Elaine Barse a collage to commemorate the season just gone by. It hangs by Elaine’s desk at her store on Main Street in Vineyard Haven, and we point out two Australian employees, Alison Bishop and Melissa Morgan, who have worked at The Green Room for three years, and actually put together the collage. The image shows Alison and Melissa getting ready to hit the water with their boards at Long Point in West Tisbury.
“I started The Green Room in 1994, just me, me, me, and the bank,” says Elaine. The business got underway as a surf shop on Spring Street. “We purchased LeRoux Clothing in 2003 and got into women’s clothing. It’s allowed me to grow my business, to grow as a person, and to have a lot of fun with it.
“My boyfriend has been wonderful. Chris Egan has been the guy behind the scenes, the computer networking, physical maintenance, and that’s allowed me to develop my business.”
best bank
Martha’s Vineyard Co-operative Bank
The toddler standing on the stoop of the office of Dr. Thomas C. Cosgrove of Vineyard Haven is Donald DeSorcy of Tisbury. The date is April 13, 1930. What’s remarkable about the shot is that the Martha’s Vineyard Co-operative Bank would move to the office of Dr. Cosgrove after he left the Island in the 1950s. And Donald DeSorcy grew up to serve as vice chairman of the board of directors of the bank, which was voted the best on the Island by our readers this year.
best antique store
Past and Presents
“This is the English gentleman who makes it all happen,” says Beverly Fearey, who, with Jane Norton, runs Past and Presents, the Edgartown company that won best antique store this year. Anthony Newman serves as the British courier to Past and Presents. “He’s seventy years old and has been doing this for a million years,” says Beverly. “In England, where we buy most of our stuff, Tony takes us to places not open to the public, and to places all over the countryside. Tony [keeps track of] prices, the circa dates, and describes and numbers each item. The shipper puts it in a forty-foot container and sends it to New York and by barge to Boston.” When Trip Barnes, the Tisbury mover, hauls the treasure to Edgartown, “they close off Main Street to unload our furniture. It’s so much fun.”
best breakfast restaurant
ArtCliff Diner
Tina Miller gave this matchbook to Gina Stanley, who owns the ArtCliff Diner in Vineyard Haven, which won the award for best breakfast restaurant this year. After the death of Milton Burt, a native of North Tisbury, there was a yard sale. Tina, a food writer from West Tisbury, purchased a quarter of Milton’s Vineyard matchbook collection. (She has between thirty and fifty of them.) “One has Alley’s General Store when it was Mayhew’s. It used to be a form of advertising.”
The diner has been in business since 1943, and this matchbook is from that era. “It’s a local hangout with an old vintage feel,” says Gina. “I love the fact it has atmosphere. Lots of locals say it’s not pristine, but kind of quirky. The girls are very friendly. They don’t wear uniforms. Many people say they feel like they’re sitting in their mother’s kitchen, eating breakfast. This is my sixth season. I do love it.”
best caterer
Fella Caters
Jane Cecilio of Fella Caters hands over a thank-you note from Jackie Onassis, a summer resident of Aquinnah. “Her parties ranged from 80 to 120 people. It was the Sunday of Labor Day, and it was her party for the Kennedy clan. They came over by boats or buses. It was a fun beach day for them, swimming, volleyball, burgers, and barbecue chicken – casual but nice. We catered her parties from 1985 to 1993.”
Fella Caters was established in May 1984. The company set up a deli in the former Biga Bakery in North Tisbury in November of last year. “We’ve been around a long time, and we take a lot of pride. It’s nice to get the recognition,” says Jane of the award for best caterer. Each season Fella caters about 100 events, ranging from 20 to 600 customers each. “One way we expanded the business several years ago is we market our own barbecue sauce and fresh salsa. It gives us more name recognition. We do breakfast sandwiches and muffins, and pizza slices, and we plan to do nighttime pizza. This summer it will be seven days a week, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.”
best landscape company
Landscope
“That’s Bob Vila’s house,” says John Clift, manager and designer at Landscope, which won the award for best landscape company. “Fred [Fred Fournier, founder of Landscope] designed and installed the landscaping. The men with him” – from left to right in this photo from the early 1990s: Mark Lema, Fred Fournier, Brian Lee, Dave Durren – “are full-time employees. Some of the landscaping was filmed for Home Again and shown on TV. Fred had his fifteen seconds of fame on camera with the stone work.”
John says that Fred was inspired to create Landscope in 1980 by Paul Flynn, a landscape architect professor at the University of Vermont in the late 1970s. Landscope is known for its stone masonry and walls, native-tree and wildflower meadows, and paths and parking courts that accent its landscape designs.
best jeweler
CB Stark
Of CB Stark, the Vineyard Haven and Edgartown company that regularly wins the award for best jeweler on the Vineyard, Cheryl Stark says: “I started it in 1966. I came here to teach jewelry making through the craft center. The next year I opened a leather and silver shop, where the Black Dog Bakery is now. I was there seventeen years, then came up to Main Street. In 1972 Margery Meltzer apprenticed and became my partner, both in the shop and in life.
“The first twenty years I had to scallop, paint houses, waitress, pick tomatoes. We were the first hand-made-jewelry store on the Island.”
best chowder
The Net Result
Andrew Larsen, then age four, rides on the back of his father Louis, who founded The Net Result of Vineyard Haven back in 1985. It wins the award for best chowder in 2006.
“Louis worked for his parents’ fish market [in Menemsha, now run by his sister Betsy] and went fishing with his father but wanted his own business,” says his wife Beth. “We have three boys and they’ve all worked at The Net Result. Travis and Hans are through college, but Andrew just finished his sophomore year and will work there full time this summer.” The chowder, which wins Island competitions besides this one, comes by the bowl, cup – or bag, which serves eight.
best fitness center
Vineyard Tennis Center, Workout and Spa
In September 1995, Ken Martin of Tisbury and Connie McHugh of Edgartown met at a community gathering to urge the town of Tisbury to build a bubble over a pair of new tennis courts near the Lagoon. The town decided not to do it. But Ken and Connie kept talking after one of those meetings and discovered they shared a vision: to open the first genuine, indoor, year-round tennis facility on the Vineyard. Within a year, they secured the land, developed the blueprints, obtained the permits and financing, and built the facility. The Vineyard Tennis Center opened in September 1996.
Since then, the facility – located on the Airport Road in West Tisbury, and winner for the second time this year of the award for best fitness center – has grown to include a fitness club, hot tub, steam room, and sauna. There are more than thirty fitness classes, five personal trainers, a certified professional from the United States Professional Tennis Association, a full-time massage therapist, and several receptionists. “Two perfect strangers have truly remained perfect business partners,” says Connie.
