Pierre's Is Out At Sagaponack Store; What's Next Remains Unclear

Questions are still swirling around the fate of the building that houses the Sagaponack Post Office and was the former home of the famed Sagaponack General Store.

The iconic structure at 542 Main Street, originally built in 1878, was sold on July 29 for $3.75 million by the Thayer family, which had owned it for generations. The identity of the buyer — listed only as Sagg General Store Partners LLC — is still a subject of speculation and rumor, with residents wondering what’s going on behind the shopfront windows, which have been covered from the inside with brown paper, affixed to the walls with bright blue electrical tape.

A notice from the Suffolk County Department of Health Services, dated September 27, was taped to the front door, notifying the owners of what steps they’d need to take if they wanted to re-open a food establishment and/or start on any significant renovations or remodeling projects, warning that if they did any of that before approval from the Bureau of Public Health Protection, they could be subject to legal action.

Late last week, the most recent tenant said he did not know who the new owners were and was uninterested in finding out. Pierre Weber, who owns Pierre’s restaurant on Main Street in Bridgehampton, had operated a gourmet food market in the space, and confirmed that he’d been asked to vacate the space, a question that had still been up in the air at the time it was sold. He said he was fine with that move, adding that it had been a challenge to run both ventures in the last year, particularly with the ongoing pandemic creating a nationwide staffing shortage, most notably in the food industry.

“When I find out about it, it will be from reading your newspaper,” he said, while attending to customers during a busy day at his restaurant, between the lunch and dinner shifts.

The store was quiet that day, with an occasional resident walking into the post office to collect mail. A post office employee said she was also unaware of who the new owners were or what their plans were for the building.

The store was listed in the fall of 2020 with an original asking price of $3.99 million by Brown Harris Stevens agents Susan L. Ratcliffe and Christopher J. Burnside. Scott Strough of Compass was the selling broker. He said back in mid-August that the store’s critical role in the history of Sagaponack Village was important to the new owners, describing them as “community minded.” But as he did then, when reached by phone last week, he declined to name the new owners or discuss what their plans were for the space.