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New eatery with new terms for Goat Hill

JULIE LANE PHOTO The Shelter Island Country Club's clubhouse at Goat Hill.
JULIE LANE PHOTO
The Shelter Island Country Club’s clubhouse at Goat Hill.

The Shelter Island Country Club (SICC) announced Sunday a new restaurant is slated for the Goat Hill clubhouse.

John DeLeo, who has operated restaurants at other clubs on the East End, has signed a three-year lease with the SICC, according to a press release.

Mr. Deleo has run Montauk Lighthouse Grill, the Quogue Snack Bar Pavilion as well as eateries at Hither Hills State Park, Wildwood State Park, Ponquogue Beach, and Tiana Beach.

“We’re fortunate to have DeLeo on board,” said Ron Lucas, SICC president. “Outsourcing the restaurant and bar to a professional operator will enable us to focus on golf.  DeLeo’s business plan and extensive experience just fits the bill. We look forward to working with him.”

That business plan, according to the release, is to serve breakfast, lunch and dinner during the golf season and dinner on weekends before and after the season. The operation will be one of causal dining, hoping to make it a family-friendly restaurant.

Over the past several years, there have been a series of restaurant operators. Fresh closed just before Labor Day in 2013, succeeded by Fairway in 2014, VUE in 2015 and Endless Grille, operated by veteran restaurateur Peter Ambrose, this past summer.

What’s new, Mr. Lucas said, is that the restaurant operator now will collect the bar receipts. In the past the club took all wine, liquor and beer sales.

Mr. Ambrose, commenting on a Reporter story on his one-year residency at Goat Hill, said, “It is difficult for a restaurant to succeed without the bar … The club needs to act as a landlord and landlord only, I feel, and to do that it [has] to give up the bar.”