Between 1924 when it opened as Gus’s clam shack, and last October, the kitchen at what today is Iggy’s Doughboys and Chowder House was tiny – only about 400 square feet. In April, the Warwick restaurant will reopen after renovations with a kitchen nearly four times that size, at 1,500 square feet.
The Oakland Beach restaurant, located steps from Greenwich Bay, also will have an added service window and an express counter for soda and its popular doughboys, smaller versions of fried dough or funnel cake that are sold by the half-dozen.
Owner David Gravino, whose father bought the Oakland Beach Avenue business in 1989, said increasing the kitchen size and revamping the dining room – adding a new roof, façade and fixtures – will make his restaurant more attractive to current customers.
“I think the same clientele is going to come, but instead of a line that goes all the way down the road, they’ll be helped much quicker,” he told Providence Business News last week.
But a larger Iggy’s also might draw more traffic to Oakland Beach, a summer community that never fully recovered from massive hurricanes during 1938 and 1954. The shack that houses Iggy’s survived both storms, Gravino said.
Warwick Department of Tourism, Culture and Development Director Karen Jedson said Oakland Beach is promoted as one of the city’s main tourist attractions.
“When we’re talking about the positive attributes that the city has, Oakland Beach is definitely one of them because of the public beach access,” she said.
Many visitors come to Warwick from Northern Rhode Island because they don’t want to make the trip to South County beaches, Jedson said. Other visitors wander over from Warwick’s 15 hotels.
“Whether they’ve come from Providence or they’re just staying here for a day or a week in our hotels, they find it convenient,” Jedson said.
Jeff Hodge, co-owner with Todd Benoit of Captain Seaweed’s, a full-service restaurant set to open in April next to Iggy’s, is hoping that some of that hotel traffic will make its way to his restaurant.
As the former owner of Best Taxi, a limousine company that serviced many of the area’s hotels, he said he’s hoping to capitalize on his connections to make Oakland Beach one of the city’s main attractions.
“I want the hotel to tell guests to come here when they say, ‘Where’s the best place to eat around here?’ ” Hodge told a visitor in the future dining room of the 120-seat Seaweed’s.
The restaurant will offer a full seafood menu and outdoor clambakes, which haven’t been offered there before, said Benoit. The restaurant had been The Sandbar until this spring.
“We’re hoping to attract a little nicer clientele. [We] want to make it a little more of a destination,” he said. “And it will be nice because you don’t have to drive all the way to Misquamicut Beach with gas at $3.50 a gallon.”
But Hodge said they are also relying on the customer base that’s been built up by the former owners.
Also on the block, Timmy’s One Bay Avenue Restaurant & Landing will open a new restaurant in a building that housed the former Cherrystones. It will be called Top of the Bay Restaurant.
Jedson said the city doesn’t track the number of travelers headed to Oakland Beach each year. But summer events held there are some of the city’s largest annual draws.
This summer, the city will bring in a carnival there the week before Fourth of July. It will be culminated by the July 3 fireworks display. That fireworks show returned to Oakland Beach recently, after being held at Warwick’s City Park for years, Jedson said.
For Hodge, those attractions are second to the main reason visitors should come to Oakland Beach. “It’s the view,” he said, pointing out the wide windows at the back of Captain Seaweed’s to the inviting water. •
