Business & Tech

Stirling Square Project Aiming for Memorial Day Opening

Keith Luce will be designing the menus at the four-site location in Greenport.

After purchasing the North Fork Oyster Company – along with several other properties in Stirling Square – in mid-March, chef Keith Luce and the rest of his management team are aiming for a Memorial Day opening for most of the operations.

With a rebranding, the four locations in the historic Stirling Square will be known as Main/Meet/Nosh/Prep once they open their doors.

North Fork Oyster Co., Luce said, will be named Main Restaurant & Oyster Bar. The café formerly known as the Sweet Spot will be known as Nosh. A previously-vacant space across the way from Nosh, and next to Stirling Yoga, will be Prep. And last but not least, the space on Main Street which briefly housed a skating shop recently will be Meet.

"This is the only walking village on the North Fork, so once we get the whole square kicking, this is going to be its own little culinary destination," Luce said. "It will be like a little village inside a village."

The North Fork Hospitality Holding LLC – which owns the four properties – is a company led by Luce, his wife Marta, Scott and Veronica Hunzinger, and Jason and Kara Graves; the team's collective experience includes expertise in finance, marketing and business development.

"When (Luce) walked me through the Square and described his initial thoughts for the Square, I could envision everything he was describing and saw the tremendous potential of each of the individual locations...but also how each location will help support the others," said Scott Hunzinger – whose family was in the food business when he was younger – in an email. "Kind of like a great partnership."

At Prep, Luce is installing a full service carry-away production kitchen. On site, flatbreads, gelato, baked goods, and something Luce has been looking forward to making – his cured meats – will all be made, some to be sold through a take-away window, others at Nosh, which will still provide a café setting.

Meet – which Luce said is hoping to open in June – will serve as a tasting room featuring North Fork wines and beers, and retail outlet, for kitchen tools and locally-sourced products.

Luce said the menu at Main, for the most part, shouldn't change too much, though he'd like to offer a wider variety of oysters.

Luce raised over $51,000 in a Kickstarter campaign earlier this year, though instead of opening the cured meats house on Love Lane, opted to open in Greenport instead.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here