Long-Time Montauk Restaurant Manucci's Closes

Longtime Montauk staple Manucci’s Restaurant and Bar closed its doors last week after more than a decade of serving up classic Italian cuisine.

Known as one of the only restaurants in Montauk open all year, seven days a week, Manucci’s closing was seemingly a surprise to many of its frequenters, 53 of whom expressed their sadness on its December 9 Facebook post, which stated: “Thank you for 14 wonderful years! Come by tonight for Manucci’s last night. Bar only, 5-close.”

Comments flooded the post, most of which read, “what?” “this is the first I’m hearing of this,” and a simple but compelling, drawn-out “noooooo!”

While Ray Capiello, the owner of Manucci’s, could not be reached for comment, a former server said Mr. Capiello and his wife, Eileen, were beyond dedicated to the restaurant’s success. “Ray Capiello ran the restaurant hands-on every day,” said Kate Maier in an email. “And his wife, Eileen, commuted to Smithtown, where she works as a nurse at St. Catherine’s Hospital, often showing up to run food in her scrubs at the end of her shift.”

But despite their dedication, Ms. Maier, who was a server at Manucci’s for three years starting in 2010, said the restaurant’s closing is representative of a larger issue in the hamlet.

Ms. Maier has lived in Montauk for eight years and said for a time, the restaurant would sustain itself as a year-round business, because so many other restaurants only operated seasonally. But as Montauk grew to be the “it” place, with new restaurants constantly popping up, it was “just enough to push things over the edge for a business that already operated, like so many of us, ‘paycheck to paycheck.’ The ‘little guys,’ or mom-and-pop shops, simply cannot compete in a divided economy,” she said. “It has forced a lot of the character out of the community as a result. Manucci’s was a place were weddings, funerals, and everyday events happened to everyday people in a town that just happens to be in the midst of a massive economic change.”

On November 30, the restaurant donated $2 from each meal during Sunday morning brunch to the Tyler Project, a non-profit organization started by the Valcich family in Montauk for their son, Tyler, who suffered from depression and died last May.

“Manucci’s was something really special, and to me represented everything I loved about Montauk,” said Ms. Maier. “The staff and regulars are like family to me, and I think I can speak for us all when I say we’re devastated by this loss.”