Seven years after the Aquinnah Shop Restaurant first left Wampanoag hands, the property and business have gone up for sale once again with an asking price of $3.5 million.
The iconic restaurant is on the market for $1.475 million, the result of a years-long dispute between brothers Matthew and David Vanderhoop, whose family started the business in the 1940s.
You won’t find beef tripe on the menu at the Aquinnah Shop Restaurant. It’s made from part of a cow’s stomach, which may be slightly less appealing to Island visitors than fresh seafood caught offshore. But Jacob Vanderhoop, head chef at the restaurant, knows how to cook tripe. He learned this and other exotic cooking techniques at Le Cordon Bleu Culinary School in Cambridge this past winter.
The Aquinnah Shop Restaurant atop the Gay Head Cliffs is a morning ritual for many early risers. What it lacks for convenience, it makes up for with spectacular vistas. The scent of blueberry pancakes, or the homemade fishcakes, adds to the sensory seductiveness. A metal spoon jingles in every hot coffee that is served, always in a glass cup.