Hamptons hotspots back on block at steep discounts as high prices, cumbersome rules slam businesses

Two popular Hamptons restaurants have been put back up for sale — this time at steep discounts as a COVID-era boom that boosted the posh enclave shows signs of waning, Side Dish has learned.

East End restaurateurs gripe that “excessive” inspections by local agencies are still slamming businesses — even as exorbitant prices for summer rentals have driven away all but the super-rich. Instead, they lament that New York’s summer vacationers are taking advantage of cheap plane tickets to Europe.

Sel Rrose, an upscale oyster bar and restaurant in Montauk one block from the ocean, slashed its price to $4.35 million, down from $6.29 million last year.

Tauk at Trail’s End, another Montauk mainstay that has been around for almost 100 years, trimmed its ask to $3.99 million from $4.69 million.

The iconic spot, with its vintage and grandfathered  neon sign in the center of town, comes with a five-bedroom home.

Many business owners have clashed with East Hampton’s notorious noise police, who they say target them with an overwhelming amount of “excessive” inspections by the State Liquor Authority and other agencies.

“It’s so frustrating,” one hotelier told Side Dish, declining to be named. “We stay compliant but at the end of the day you are either a pro-business town or you are not.”

An equally troubling problem is the runaway cost of spending a weekend, let alone a week or the entire summer, in the formerly sleepy beach towns on the South Fork.

Rentals are down 30% this summer, according to reports, due partly to COVID-era buyers who bought homes at inflated prices and now need to charge an arm and a leg just to break even.

“The days of the Memorial Day to Labor Day rentals are over,” one local real estate broker said.

Even local marinas are suffering as middle-class and upper-middle class fishermen and boaters are priced out of town, a real estate mogul said.

“A friend of mine who owns a little marina had the worst summer,” he told Side Dish.

“A lot of people aren’t coming at all with $1,000 a night hotel rooms and $5,000 bottle service. He used to kill it but Montauk is only for the very rich now  — and it backfired.”

The high prices have chased away longtime visitors who have ditched the Hamptons for popular European hotspots in St. Tropez, Ibiza and Mykonos.

“The Hamptons is facing competition. The Euro summer has become dramatically more popular,” Juriël Zeligman, co-founder of Gospël in Manhattan and at Ruschmeyers in Montauk, told Side Dish.

“People get more bang for the buck, plus five-star accommodations and a better quality of life than a $100,000 or $200,000 rental for the month of August.”

He noted that even the groceries are cheaper — and better — in Europe.

“I was in Cannes staying at a friend’s beautiful villa and I wanted to cook a meal, so I went to the fanciest supermarket, with better produce than in the US, and I paid 80 euros for two bags of groceries that would have been $300 here,” Zeligman said.

He added that next summer, Gospël may do just a couple of days a week for the summer or a focused 10 day stretch at Ruschmeyers.

“I think people want variety now. There are so many options and they are here less,” Zeligman said.

Sel Rrose — named after Marcel Duchamp’s female alter ego — is an outpost of a popular Lower East Side hotspot that opened in Montauk in 2019 and had been a frequent target of inspections, as Side Dish previously reported.

Owner Kristin Vincent said her desire to sell the 79-seat eatery, and at a more realistic price, had little to do with clampdowns.

“I’ve been in the business for 25 years. This is a personal choice. It’s time to move on and enjoy my life. I want to be the patron now,” she told Side Dish, adding that she will be spending more time in Florida during the winter.

Dylan Eckardt, a real estate reality TV star  known as the “Prince of Montauk,” has both listings — and says the outlook is good.

“Even if you have a house in Sag Harbor, you’re coming to Montauk at least once a week to surf, fish, or go out to party,” Eckardt said. “We took a small town with a drinking problem and turned it into the St Tropez of the East Coast.”

The pro-surfer-turned-broker was confident he’ll “have both places sold by September.”