Sunday was the last day of business for the tiny cafe at the Poxabogue golf course and driving range, and after its nearly 20 years in residence, a legion of regular customers was there to pay respects.
“We raised all four of our grandchildren here, and we watched Danny’s kids grow up here,” nearly tearful patron Pam Levy said of owner Dan Murray as she paid her check and gave longtime Fairway chef Michael Grant a long hug. “It’s like an appendage. Everything in East Hampton has changed. Here, they kept it the way it used to be. Now it’s going to change too.”
The fate of the Fairway was sealed last Thursday when a personal appeal by members of the Southampton Town Board failed to convince Poxabogue’s manager, Ed Wankel, to adjust the terms of the restaurant’s lease. Mr. Murray has said the terms of the lease offered to him by Mr. Wankel, who was awarded a five-year management contract by the towns of Southampton and East Hampton in 2007, are unfairly restrictive of his business.
“It’s despicable what they’re doing to him,” longtime customer Sandy Keidan said on Sunday.
Southampton and East Hampton towns purchased the Poxabogue property in 2003, using money from the Community Preservation Fund to save the golf facility, the only public golf facility in Southampton Town, from residential development. After negotiating annual leases for the restaurant space with Mr. Murray for four years, in 2007 the towns agreed to include control over the restaurant lease in the management contract for the entire property.
“We made it very clear that we would prefer to see Dan stay,” said Southampton Town Councilman Chris Nuzzi, who spearheaded the efforts to convince Mr. Wankel to renew Mr. Murray’s lease in recent months. “I don’t fully understand the reasoning behind his decision. He keeps reiterating that his offer was refused, and that he had proceeded forward, looking elsewhere, and that’s the direction he wants to continue to go.”
