Something New Is in Store for Menemsha

This September, the Menemsha Market is returning to the historic fishing village, this time with a new name and a mission to benefit the fishing identity of Menemsha. 

The general goods and grocery store, which has been running on and off next to the Menemsha Galley since 1948, is being revived as the Menemsha Store. The mainstay will reside in the old deli, next to the former Poole fish processing plant, and will be part of a joint effort that will boost the Martha’s Vineyard Fishermen’s Preservation Trust, a nonprofit that supports the Island’s working waterfront.

The plant, deli and a nearby cottage were all part of a major real estate deal in 2025. Sarah Bernard and James Seppala purchased the property, which all fall under 10 Basin Road, for $3.1 million. 

The couple are leasing the property out to the Fishermen’s Preservation Trust, as well as Kevin and Liz Oliver, who will return to run the Menemsha Store. In place of a traditional lease, 30 per cent of the store’s net profits will be donated to the trust, according to Mr. Oliver. 

“If this place can maintain its character as a working fishing village, it’s the right thing,” said Mr. Oliver. “And to be a part of that, the setup that we have, where our rent is actually going to help support their endeavors, is a really cool thing.” 

The Menemsha Store is scheduled to open just after Labor Day and offer coffee, baked goods, a variety of prepared foods and made-to-order sandwiches. It will also have a small grocery section, and fixings for both sunset beachgoers and early-morning fishermen. 

“That’s the missing piece to Menemsha, especially for the boat people that come,” said Ms. Oliver. 

The store aims to provide the convenience of local groceries, so residents won’t have to go to West Tisbury or a supermarket for provisions. And unlike the Menemsha Market — which the Olivers ran for many seasons until an electrical fire shut down business in 2019 — the Menemsha Store will be open year-round. 

“We are going to try to keep the store open — open, open,” said Mr. Oliver. “We do understand the importance of the community’s needs…People find when they’re here in Menemsha, they like to stay here in Menemsha.” 

The Menemsha Market is an important piece of the Olivers’ family and personal history. Ms. Oliver’s family, the Sewards, ran the market for its first 32 seasons, and Ms. Oliver’s dad grew up in the apartment above the market. Ms. Oliver, then Ms. Seward, worked at the market through high school and college, when it was owned by the Packer family. 

She and Mr. Oliver opened the market the summer after they graduated from college in 1997. That June, they got married. 

The Olivers ran the market for 16 years before stepping away in 2012. They returned to the market in 2017, but the market closed in 2019 after it was badly damaged in a fire.

It was during this era that the Fishermen’s Preservation Trust was born and began to grow. 

Today, it runs multiple programs, including the Seafood Collaborative, a wholesale market that buys fishermen’s catch to donate or distribute to other markets.

The collaborative operates out of the former Menemsha Fish House, a 600-square-foot facility where the organization fillets, processes and stores fishermen’s catch. The collaborative and other programs hope to move their headquarters to the old Poole plant, expanding storage, freezer space and processing capacities, according to preservation trust executive director Shelley Edmundson. 

That expansion will help scale up the trust’s processing of fish and shellfish for consumers, which will be important for the fleet, especially to support a surge of younger fishermen that are bringing Menemsha Harbor back to life, said John Keene, president and founding member of the trust. 

“With the storage we’ll have with this new building, we’ll never have to turn people away,” he said.  

The organization recently began fundraising for the facility’s renovation, he said. “The loss of infrastructure would be the Achilles heel of the [fishing] industry,” said Mr. Keene. “So being able to expand on the ability to have stable infrastructure, refrigeration, storage — it just secures the future of reestablishing fishing on the Island in a very healthy way.”

The Menemsha Store also nods to the village’s fishing industry in other ways, including Menemsha art from Ms. Oliver’s father’s collection, and a latte menu featuring names of different boats in the fishing fleet. 

Mr. Oliver said he hopes the menu will open a conversation with customers about the trust and how it is working together with the Menemsha Store. The idea came about when, crafting the lattes, the Olivers were puzzling over the names. 

“Why don’t we take a walk and figure it out?” Mr. Oliver recalled. After the stroll around the harbor, it hit him. “Why don’t we name [them] after Menemsha?”

This article appears in August 28, 2026.