The future owners of the historic cliffside Aquinnah Shop Restaurant say they hope to reopen the restaurant as soon as this season.

At an Aquinnah select board meeting Tuesday, Wenonah Madison, president of the Aquinnah Land Initiative, which announced plans to purchase the iconic restaurant last year, said she hopes to have it back in operation this summer.

“There are plans to open this season but they’re still being ironed out,” she said in a text message the next day. “We will share the information as it becomes available.”

Last August, the Native Land Conservancy announced they had purchased the Aquinnah Shop Restaurant and surrounding land for $2 million with plans to sell to the Aquinnah Land Initiative once the money could be raised. At Tuesday’s meeting, Ms. Madison said the nonprofit plans to buy the property with a state grant aimed at improving towns’ climate resiliency and returning historically indigenous land to indigenous care.

The restaurant had been indigenously owned and operated for over a century by the Madison and Vanderhoop families, before being bought by a real estate trust in 2016. The purchase by the Aquinnah Land Initiative will bring the restaurant back into Wampanoag ownership.

But its location, perched precariously over the clay cliffs, has grown more precarious over the years. The grant proposal is part of a larger ask led by Aquinnah climate committee chair Bill Lake looking to combat erosion at the iconic clay cliffs, which has accelerated in recent years due to seeping groundwater.

Using funding available through the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness program, Mr. Lake plans to hire a hydrologist to address the town’s groundwater problem without impacting the drinking water supply.

“The Aquinnah Shop Restaurant is obviously very invested in the health and longevity of the cliffs,” Ms. Madison said at the meeting.

The full request would total $2.25 million, with $250,000 going towards erosion solutions and $2 million going towards the restaurant and land purchase. The town will know if the funding comes through by the end of the year, Mr. Lake said.

The Aquinnah select board unanimously approved the proposal.

“The cliffs are arguably the most important piece of real estate on this Island,” select board member Tom Murphy said. “I’d hate to lose them for sure.”