Whalehouse Point Reopens at Watch Hill After Six-Year Rebuild

After six years of serving visitors from a food truck and a beach bar tent on the sands of Watch Hill, Doug and Lee Biviano opened the doors of the new Whalehouse Point Restaurant and Bar last Friday, completing a rebuild they began in the weeks after a September 2019 fire destroyed the original structure on the Fire Island National Seashore.

The soft opening on May 22 fulfilled a promise the Bivianos had made to their regulars every season since the fire: the building would come back. A grand opening celebration, with live music and the full menu, is set for June 20.

Watch Hill sits within the Fire Island National Seashore, a federally managed park accessible by ferry from Patchogue. The Davis Park Ferry departs from Patchogue Marina and reaches Watch Hill in about 25 minutes. No cars are permitted on the National Seashore; all visitors arrive by foot or ferry. For the Bivianos, operating inside a national park meant navigating a layer of National Park Service approvals on top of standard construction permitting, a process that pushed timelines well past original estimates.

The Bivianos hold the LoveFINS concession contract for both Watch Hill and the nearby Sailors Haven facility. After the 2019 fire, they kept services running at Watch Hill for six consecutive seasons from a food truck and a weather-exposed beach bar tent, maintaining a consistent presence that regulars credited with keeping the community gathering at the site through the rebuild years.

"Rain or shine" became shorthand among Watch Hill regulars for the Bivianos' approach through those six seasons. Last Friday, that persistence produced a building.

The new Whalehouse Point is built around an island bar at its center, engineered to serve indoor and outdoor seating simultaneously. An elevated deck facing the Great South Bay is large enough to handle a full crowd and offers an unobstructed view of the sunset over the water. Indoor weather-protected seating extends the venue's usefulness on overcast or rainy days, a practical upgrade from the tent setup that Watch Hill visitors had grown accustomed to since 2019.

The Watch Hill Marina opened its renovated facility on May 18, four days before Whalehouse Point's soft open. Together, the two openings mark a return to a level of services at Watch Hill that has not been available since before the fire, and they arrive in the same week as the start of Memorial Day weekend, which historically draws some of the highest day-visitor numbers of the season.

The 2026 season will include an expanded live music calendar, with programming running through Labor Day. Specific dates will be posted to the LoveFINS website and social channels as bookings are confirmed. Reservations for the June 20 grand opening will be required, given Watch Hill's daily visitor capacity limits under National Park Service rules.

Ferry schedules and day-use permit information for Watch Hill are available through the National Park Service at nps.gov/fiis. Davis Park Ferry schedules for summer 2026 are at davisparkferry.com.