On summer weekends, the Right Fork Diner is a small circus, with kids, music, food and a chance to see the Island from the seat of a classic biplane.
The evening sun illuminates a rusty corrugated airplane hangar, re-assembled from debris after the hurricane of 1944. Above the hangar flies an orange windsock. Cessnas, biplanes, gliders and other small aircraft come and go on the grass runways.
The small diner, now celebrating its 10th year, stands virtually alone at the edge of the Katama airfield. But every summer visitors from on and off-Island flock to this unique Vineyard destination. On a large wooden deck, people enjoy traditional American fare, occasionally shouting over the sound of airplanes, which taxi and take off just yards from the diner. Outside, children attempt to throw beanbags through small holes in wooden platforms — a popular beach game called cornhole that is new to the diner this year.
Live music was also new this year, adding to the colorful mix of restaurant, airfield and glacial outwash plain. Little has changed here since the 1920s, when the airfield was founded. The plains are still home to several rare and endangered plant and animal species.
“This is my favorite gig,” Island musician Dave Soltz said between sets on Sunday, as airplanes and beanbags sailed through the air. “The kids are playing cornhole, and the planes are coming and going. The sun’s going down. You can’t beat this. The epitome of a sweet Vineyard scene.”
Mr. Soltz’s blend of country blues, folk and Americana feels right at home at an old airfield. His performance on Sunday was his last of the season at the diner, which closed for dinner on Monday. “This has always been some sort of food or snack shack,” said owner Jamie Langley on Sunday, taking a break in the cool evening air. Before she took over, it was Hoosie’s and before that it was Mel’s. She started opening for dinners seven nights a week about four years ago.
The diner will stay open for breakfast and lunch through Labor Day, but after that, things tend to quiet down. Winter in Katama is a much different scene, mostly absent of people, music and flying beanbags. Planes are stowed away in hangars and few people venture out to the ocean just beyond the airfield.
“There are literally tumbleweeds that collect in the biplane stand and along the fences,” Ms. Langley said. But throughout July and August, visitors bike, walk and drive to the diner.
“It’s my little escape,” said Juli Vanderhoop, owner of the Orange Peel Bakery in Aquinnah, where she is also a selectman. Sitting at the bar on Sunday, under a fleet of model airplanes hanging from the ceiling, she debated whether to cap off the night with a banana split.
“I guess this really is the last of the season,” she said.
Josep Belles and Luis Alonso, originally from Spain but now living in Boston, had flown in from Lawrence on a white and blue Beechcraft Bananza and were enjoying drinks on the deck. Mr. Belles, a student pilot, had joined his friend for the trip. “That’s why we came here, because he wanted to show me this place,” Mr. Belles said. “But I have to admit it’s pretty amazing.”
At precisely 7 p.m., the Beechcraft Bonanza taxied into position next to the diner. With a slight jolt, it screamed off down the runway, leaving a trail of golden dust, and wobbled into the air.
Fly-ins often hail from Rhode Island, Plymouth and Marstons Mills, Ms. Langley said. “Especially in the shoulder seasons, we get a lot of activity, which is fun.” Classic Aviators offers visitors their own chance to see the Vineyard from above. Its 1941 red biplane, stored in a wooden hanger from 1940, is owned by Mike Creato, whose family founded the airfield in 1924.
On Sunday, kids marveled at the many small aircraft positioned around the airfield, some of them just a beanbag’s throw from the diner. Parents stood along the split-rail fence holding their babies and pointing to the planes.
“It’s perfect for kids,” said Ashley Harmon, a seasonal Chappaquiddick resident who discovered the diner this summer and was visiting with three generations of her family on Sunday. “We have a 16 month old who loves airplanes. This is like the most exciting night of summer.”
Others make it a daily ritual.
“We usually stay around here and bike in here in the morning,” said Josiah Klebaner, whose three young children began making the trek with him this year – one in a baby seat and another in a bike trailer. They watch the wooden hangar open and the red biplane make its test flight every morning.
His oldest daughter, Ella, likes the pancakes more than anything (except, perhaps, the biplane). “They’re just good,” she said, holding a beanbag and rallying family members for a game of cornhole. Later in the evening, the sun fell behind a shelf of blue haze and wispy clouds. Kids and adults continued to play in the dusk before heading in for burgers and fries on the deck. Headlights appeared across the plain on the road to the beach. Next year, Ms. Langley hopes to have a food truck for beachgoers, and to pursue a grant for a new playground. She also hopes to add a new deck and bar, but that depends on whether the old metal hangar is replaced with a new one. That would free up space in the diner, she said, which now houses the airfield office.
But even without the old metal hangar, which adds a historical flavor, the diner is one of a kind. “As a business person, I couldn’t just uproot it and do the same application somewhere else,” Ms. Langley said. “We exist because of children and families who summer in Katama and live here and ride their bikes.” In the summer, she said, bikes often pile up around the property.
At around 8 p.m. on Sunday, the diner was bustling inside and out as waiters made the rounds and people enjoyed the cool summer evening. As a young patron named Elle was getting ready to leave with her family, Mr. Soltz bid farewell by singing the 1925 classic Show Me The Way To Go Home (forever enshrined in Vineyard culture by the film Jaws). People on the deck sang along, as they often have this summer.
“Goodnight!” said Elle.
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