August 26, 2024, 4:35 p.m. • Last updated: August 26, 2024, 7:36 p.m.
New London – The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection has informed the city that the waterfront restaurant City Dock will not be allowed to operate beyond October.
In a letter, the DEEP stated that the restaurant’s failure to remove the shipping containers that make up the restaurant at the end of each season was a violation of both the DEEP and FEMA’s flood insurance requirements.
Meanwhile, restaurant owner Frank Maratta is trying to sell the shipping containers and oversized tent that make up the City Dock Restaurant and Oyster Bar on Custom House Pier, which he leases from the city, according to a sales post on social media.
Maratta offered the components that make up the “fully equipped container restaurant bar” for sale for $295,000 in a post on Facebook Marketplace earlier this month.
In the post, Maratta said it cost him $1.1 million to build the restaurant out of eight converted shipping containers. The restaurant includes a bar, kitchen and walk-in freezer.
Maratta, owner of the Pavilion in Old Lyme, received a three-year lease from the city in 2020, which was renewed for another five years in 2023. The contract calls for payments of $1,883 per month between April 15 and Oct. 15, when the restaurant operates on the 9,000-square-foot section of the pier, as well as on an unpaved area north of the pier.
Maratta did not respond to calls seeking comment Monday.
City officials, including Mayor Michael Passero and Economic Development and Planning Director Felix Reyes, said Monday they were unaware of Maratta’s attempt to sell the restaurant components.
On Monday afternoon, a few restaurant staff were busy preparing meals in a kitchen set up in a row of converted shipping containers. A lone customer dined at a table overlooking the Thames, not far from a low wooden stage where live music is regularly played. The site offers free docking for vessels up to 300 feet in length.
Passero noted that one of the conditions the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection put in place when approving the restaurant was that it would have to be dismantled at the end of each season and rebuilt in the spring.
Passero said that contrary to that requirement, the restaurant has remained intact since the aftermath of a hurricane scare in August 2021 that necessitated its demolition.
Passero said he did not know why DEEP did not force the restaurant’s eviction, but noted that the restaurant’s state permit will have to be renewed next year.
I’ve heard that (DEEP) wants this place off the pier at the end of each season and will work to make that happen,” he said. “And it’s not a cheap project to take it down and rebuild it every year.”
Maratta told The Day in 2021 that removing and replacing the cargo containers cost him $50,000.
According to a violation letter sent to the City of New London on May 29, inspectors from the DEEP’s Division of Land and Water Resources found that the restaurant shipping containers and related structures had not been seasonally removed since spring 2022.
“Consequently, DEEP will not grant any further extensions of this license nor will it support any new applications for this activity,” the letter states. “Under the current license, the City of New London may maintain the approved structures on the site throughout this summer and fall and remove them no later than October 15, 2024.”
DEEP said the city will not receive “permits to rebuild the structures” for the 2025 season, noting that the pier’s license expires on July 3, 2025.
“If the City fails to comply with this Notice of Violation, DEEP will increase its enforcement actions in accordance with applicable policies,” DEEP wrote.
Passero said that even when Maratta pitched his restaurant idea years ago, attracting visitors to the “urban desert” of the port area was a priority.
“Before that, we only really saw people there at Sailfest,” he said, referring to the annual downtown festival that draws thousands of visitors to the city each year. “From our perspective, (the restaurant) was pretty successful in bringing people to a part of the city that was dead.”
