Owner of Red Hook Tavern Has a New Restaurant

Billy Durney, the owner of Red Hook Tavern and Hometown Bar-B-Que, is opening something new in the Hamptons. Durney teased that Sag Harbor Tavern is on the way to the Hamptons town of the same name. It’s on track for a May opening at 26 Bay Street, at Rysam Street, once home to the longtime stalwart, Dockside Bar & Grill.

Comedian and talk show host, Jimmy Fallon, who has a second home in the Hamptons, commented, “I want a booth!” — one of many notes flooding the post with words of encouragement.

How closely the Sag Harbor Tavern menu will track with Red Hook Tavern was not immediately clear, but the website seems to show the same burger. Durney says that it will tread more seafood-focused than in Brooklyn, with 40 seats inside and approximately 70 seats outside.

Red Hook Tavern opened in 2019, as an ode to old-school New York working-class institutions like McSorley’s. When Durney opened a restaurant not focused on barbecue, it seemed natural that people were focused on the burger, made with an eight-ounce patty that’s hulking compared to the smash burger joints that have since flooded the city. Prepared in the style of Peter Luger, it comes with a slice of onion but is otherwise simple without lettuce or tomato. “For bona fide meat lovers, the Red Hook burger is a BUY, a rating that also holds true for locals who don’t mind putting their names down for a long wait,” former Eater critic Ryan Sutton wrote in his review. These days, the burger is served with cottage fries.

The Bay Street restaurant space, now in Durney’s hands, was recently Sag Harbor Kitchen, led by chef Melissa O’Donnell, who years ago owned the Lebanese Lil’ Gem and Thelma on Clinton on the Lower East Side, and before that the well-reviewed Stella, launching in Soho in 2001. (She wasn’t the first operator that had eyed the longtime Dockside Grill space in recent years, either.) But less than a year after opening her restaurant in June 2023, this March, O’Donnell announced that she was already passing on the torch to Durney, calling his plans: “destined to be an instant classic.” The commercial storefront shares a history with Sag Harbor American Legion, the veteran headquarters. “We will be in an old American Legion Hall which is special to me as I grew up in and around a very similar space,” says Durney.

Sag Harbor Tavern is not Durney’s first expansion outside of Brooklyn; he owns a Hometown Bar-B-Que outpost in Miami, in addition to those in Red Hook and Industry City. He joins other Brooklyn restaurateurs that have recently opened offshoots in the Hamptons, such as Sean Feeney, who last year debuted a Fini Pizza in Amagansett.