A Beloved Space Reborn: Donohue’s East To Revive Westhampton Beach’s Former Post Stop Cafe

There may be no place left on Main Street in Westhampton Beach to get a burger and a beer, especially in the dead of winter.

But that’s about to change.

Donohue’s East — an offshoot of Donohue’s Steak House in New York City — is set to move into the building that was for decades the home of the venerable Post Stop Cafe, which closed for good at the end of the season last year.

The building that housed Post Stop Cafe was recently purchased by Village Board member and village resident Brian Tymann and a handful of investors, and is undergoing a slight renovation to make way for Donohue’s, which promises to be a year-round restaurant with a year-round clientele in mind, serving burgers, steaks and seafood.

Maureen Donohue, who grew up in Hampton Bays and sees opening the Westhampton Beach eatery as a coming home of sorts, envisions a Father’s Day opening, as long as the state liquor license and other paperwork from the village comes through.

“I am so pumped,” she said last week, standing at the restaurant’s bar with Tymann and one of his principal investors, Britton Bistrian, a part-time village planner who “grew up” going to the Post Stop Cafe. “I’m hoping for a home run. I’m willing to put a ton of work into it.”

That said, Donohue doesn’t plan to change much in the 49-seat restaurant, other than hanging a new sign and making some light changes to the decor. Both she and Tymann noted that the restaurant’s former owner, Sandy Patterson, left it in tip-top shape.

Tymann and his group purchased the building — which historically was home to the village’s first post office — in late March from Patterson for $2.025 million. It was a deal that was several years in the making. He said he first approached her about buying the restaurant five or six years ago, but she wasn’t ready to sell.

Finally, this year, the call came. And he jumped at the opportunity.

“I have been interested for a long time in properties on Main Street, but in particular this one,” said Tymann, who noted that he will not seek reelection to the Village Board this spring, following a decade as a trustee. “It’s just such a great place and it has a great vibe. It’s so positive. It’s a great feeling in here.

“So I approached Sandy and said, ‘Are you thinking of selling?’ And she said, ‘Not yet.’ And I said, ‘Well, when you’re ready.’”

And this year, it all just came together. As he was negotiating to purchase the building, Tymann said, his business partner, Steve Lari, brought Donohue to the table. “And from that point on, everything was about me acquiring it and us getting Maureen to operate here,” he said.

Bistrian said when the opportunity arose for her to be involved in the venture, she jumped at it.

“I grew up going here,” she said. “My grandmother was 104 and died two years ago and lived right down on Main Street. I just had this childhood nostalgia of this place.

“Brian and I are dear friends and involved in other business things together. And he said, ‘I think I’m gonna get the Post Stop.’ And I was like, ‘I’m in. I’m in. Whatever it is, I’m in!’ How do you not walk in here and just feel at home? It’s nostalgic — it’s what the Hamptons were originally years ago.”

For Donohue — who has been working at the New York steakhouse for 45 years, noting that the restaurant just celebrated its 75th year in business this month — the opportunity will allow her the opportunity to spend more time on the East End. She grew up in Hampton Bays and has a home there, but travels back and forth to the city to run the steakhouse. She plans to live full-time in Hampton Bays once the new restaurant opens.

“I’m ready to come back home and open a business and get my home roots back,” she said. “My theory is having a restaurant is an extension of your home, of your living room, you wanna make people comfortable. You wanna serve good food, simple food.”

She said there’s not much to do to get the business ready to go — Tymann is working to connect it to the new village sewer district and some landscaping — as Patterson left it in great shape.

“She left it immaculate,” Donohue said of the former owner.

“I would eat off the floor in that basement,” Bistrian quipped.

“I would set up an air mattress and live in that basement,” Tymann added, “and eat burgers every day.”

It’s going to be cosmetic changes only to the interior, Donohue said — paint, new tablecloths, and the new sign.

“It’ll be hard set of shoes to fill,” she said of Patterson, “because she was so adored by the community.”

The major difference will be that Donohue’s East will be open all year, while the Post Stop Cafe used to close for the winter.

“The summer crowd’s nice, and it’ll get busy,” Tymann said, “but we’re looking to build a sustainable year ’round place that the community really wants and needs.”

“I’m up for the challenge,” Donohue said. “I think it’ll be wonderful.”