Liam’s at Nauset Beach in Orleans
ORLEANS – The fate of Liam’s restaurant at Nauset Beach will be left up to Mother Nature to decide.
Orleans Selectmen recently abandoned a plan to tear down the current building and relocate the restaurant to a modular facility further back in the parking lot. Erosion has chewed away at the dune in front of the building in recent years.
The beach lost about 12 feet during one storm three years ago and has been stable since.
Restaurant owner John Ohman said he will honor the lease, which has three years remaining, and hope for the best.
“They are going to let it be – let it go to the sea as the sea will take it,” Ohman said.
Ohman pays the town $100,000 per year to lease the building and cost estimates for the earlier proposed modular facility was around $500,000.
“They decided that it’s not that much money. One-hundred grand a year is not that much money compared to what it would cost them to build and replace Liam’s with a modular building,” Ohman said.
“It was a financial decision on their part.”
Ohman plans to open the restaurant on May 25, the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. “[I’m going to] operate it just as I have and hope that nature does not take its course,” Ohman said.
The restaurant has been run by Ohman for nearly three decades. The owner said he is unsure what would happen if the building ended up in the sea before the lease ends.
“It’s very unclear what they result would be if they are unable to fulfill the contract with the building in place as it stands now,” he said.
The town administrator John Kelly said if the building has to be demolished, the lease would be terminated.
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