There was a moment at last year’s Nantucket Book Festival when it started to rain. The audience was gathered inside an old church, the kind of New England venue that already makes you feel like something important is about to happen, and poet and essayist Ocean Vuong was reading a newer work, “Theology,” before a packed holy house. (“Fitting,” Vuong noted at the start.) Something about the moment indeed felt celestial. Nobody moved. Nobody wanted to. “You could hear a pin drop,” says Tim Ehrenberg, president of the event, recalling the scene. “No one wanted to even move, because they were just so mesmerized by him reading his poetry. And you just can’t get that on your screen, on your phone, when you’re scrolling in bed—you don’t get that same human connection and experience. And that happens 32 times in our festival.”

That’s the case the Nantucket Book Festival has been quietly making for 15 years: that a room full of people listening to a writer they love is not only worth getting on a boat for, but worth making a special trip to savor. Next week, from June 11 through 14, the island event marks its crystal anniversary, and for anyone who’s never made the crossing—or who’s filed Nantucket away under “not for me”—the spectacular lineup of bold names (Norah O’Donnell, Richard Russo, Jenna Bush Hager) and cost (most events are free) makes a reasonable case for reconsideration.

The festival’s founding philosophy was never to go big. “Since we’re an island 30 miles to sea, we really want to host a small collection of authors, all different voices, all different genres, and give them their moment,” Ehrenberg says. “So each one has an event that’s pretty much just focused on their book. And then we host them—we have dinners, we have gatherings.” The result is something that feels more like a restorative retreat than a conference. As Ehrenberg notes, “you’ll see your favorite author, and then you’ll see them at the coffee shop.” That kind of casual proximity—the Pulitzer winner ordering a scone, the television anchor browsing shelves—is not something public events usually can deliver.

Jenna Bush Hager will appear with Shannon Garvey, Juliet Faithfull, and Emma Brodie, all authors with titles on the Today with Jenna & Sheinelle co-host’s imprint Thousand Voices. / Courtesy

This year’s roster reflects what Ehrenberg describes as “the full spectrum of the human experience.” Best-selling author Ann Patchett arrives with her brand-new novel Whistler, and sits down with Patrick Ryan, whose novel Buckeye (a “Read with Jenna” selection) became one of the quieter literary pleasures of 2025. The two are pals, and Ehrenberg is looking forward to that Saturday afternoon conversation. “If anyone ever wondered, ‘Do authors have friends; do they go to coffee and talk about their writing life?’ I think this is going to be an event where you see two writers just talking about the love of books and the love of their craft.” Elsewhere on the schedule: Tayari Jones, recently named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People, discussing her novel Kin; Richard Russo, “a GOAT in the fiction world” as Ehrenberg puts it, in conversation about Empire Falls, which turns 25 this year; Jenna Bush Hager, whose book club has done as much as anyone’s in recent memory to keep literary culture alive on network television; and CBS News senior correspondent Norah O’Donnell, who’ll be in conversation with Linda Henry, co-owner and CEO or Boston Globe Media (which, full disclosure, also owns Boston magazine). And there’s also Belle Burden, whose controversial (and wildly popular) memoir Strangers has lately taken over group chats and will be in conversation with Elin Hilderbrand—a pairing that is, for anyone who knows how deeply Hilderbrand’s novels are woven into the fabric of Nantucket life, an event unto itself.

For the adventurous festivalgoer, Ehrenberg recommends a different strategy altogether: pick a name you don’t recognize and show up anyway. He points to Dr. Joshua Bennett, whose new poetry collection We (The People of the United States) carries particular resonance in 2026, and Massachusetts-raised writer Isaac Fitzgerald, whose American Rambler traces the trail of Johnny Appleseed. “Go to an event where you look at our schedule and you’re like, ‘I’ve never heard of that author,'” Ehrenberg says. “Just try it, and you will leave saying, ‘I just met my new favorite author.'”

Novelists Dorothea Benton Frank and Elin Hilderbrand at the Nantucket Book Festival. / Courtesy

One more thing worth knowing, if you assume the festival requires an overnight stay: it doesn’t. Early morning boats from Hyannis arrive in plenty of time for the first sessions, and the last ferry departs after the final event. The logistics are more forgiving than Nantucket’s reputation suggests. And the price of admission, for nearly everything on the schedule, is nothing—a detail that Ehrenberg notes with evident satisfaction. “If you know Nantucket,” he says, “you know ‘free’ is not usually a word you correspond with it.”

By Sunday afternoon, when the weekend winds down at Cisco Brewers, something tends to happen to the people who came. “You leave the weekend going, ‘I learned so much,'” Ehrenberg says. “I just feel a little lighter, and a little bit more that we’re gonna be okay. A little bit more hopeful.” He pauses. “And that is not a political statement: I just think everyone says a little bit right now, ‘Oh, what is the world today?’ And after the weekend, you feel a little bit better about it.”

Yes, please.

Nantucket Book Festival takes place from Thursday, June 11 through Sunday, June, 14. Methodist Church and surrounding venues, downtown Nantucket. Most events free; nantucketbookfestival.org.

The complete author roster:

During a mid-May grand opening party, the new Governor Bradford in Provincetown feels remarkably like the old Governor Bradford. The interior is a bit different, sure: new floors, a new bar with a tile backsplash, a new wood ceiling in the main restaurant area, windows that let in lots more natural light. But that seaside watering hole vibe still permeates the decades-old place at the corner of Commercial and Standish Streets—an enviable spot so bustling that a police officer directs foot and car traffic during busy season—and thankfully.

Governor Bradford. / Courtesy photo

Familiar sights for anyone who’s frequented the tavern abound: the pool table, albeit sporting fresh blue felt to match the refinished chair cushions; the same black and white sign bearing the iconic spot’s name on the wall of the stage that has seen memorable karaoke performances over the past 20-odd years. And because it’s Provincetown, some TVs play the Sox game while others are tuned to RuPaul’s Drag Race. Not that you can hear much over the pleasant hubbub as servers pass around free bites from the new comfort-food-focused menu, including chicken pot pie croquettes and bang bang shrimp. In other words, even if the spot’s handsome wood detailing now boasts a bit of shine, new management (again, following the 2022 changing of the guard) doesn’t change the fact that the Bradford is still a favorite townie bar in the very best possible way.

See also: The Top Restaurants in Provincetown Right Now

“We are big on saying that we are custodians, we are not owners,” says Joe Johnston—the director of operations of Coastal Hospitality Group, which now leases the building—a few hours ahead of the opening party. “I’m not coming into the Bradford and whitewashing it.”

Whitewashing, no—except maybe the new literally gleaming white exterior siding. Another upscale perk: Seats by the new giant accordion windows will be future people-watching spots for the Carnival parade in August and other town events, too. But despite the newness, customers can still sip cocktails in a space full of charm, history, and just the right amount of kitsch.

Mussels Lisbon at Governor Bradford. / Courtesy photo

What helps, surely, is that the staff knows Provincetown. When word came late last year that the building’s owner, Lexvest Group, had found a new tenant for a fifteen-year lease, the town collectively held its breath. Surely, this was another sign of Provincetown’s corporatization—another hospitality giant coming in to kill the local charm. And, yes, Coastal Hospitality Group is, indeed, a group, with four Cape Cod restaurants under its belt (Chapin’s Bayside in Dennis; the Chatham Cut, Codo Mexican Kitchen, and Pate’s in Chatham). “That just means that we have the support to give the buildings what they need,” Johnston says. In Bradford’s case, that means upgraded TVs and a new sound system, a new forthcoming patio, and—hallelujah!—goodbye to the tiny old bathrooms.

Like the restaurant that’s been called the Governor Bradford since 1960, Johnston has been kicking around Provincetown for a while. He was the general manager of seafood-focused Fanizzi’s for two decades. Governor Bradford’s new general manager, Vincent Bosely, worked with Johnston at Fanizzi’s and managed Codo last year. Most of the staff stayed on from the previous incarnation of the Bradford that featured chef/co-owner Collin Kolisko at the helm, serving an izakaya-inspired menu. (Kolisko and his team took over in 2022.)

Clam chowder with a prosciutto straw at Governor Bradford. / Courtesy photo

“It was like a hidden gem,” Johnston says of Kolisko’s concept. “All of our industry was like, ‘Oh, it’s great. You gotta go.’ But it was tough in a tourist town where you walk into this [building] and you don’t necessarily expect that concept.” (Kolisko previously told the Provincetown Independent that he’s looking for a smaller spot in town, and we can’t wait.) “The building dictates what works,” Johnston says. As in, most people walk into a pub and expect pub food.

Johnston developed the new menu of elevated diner-type food himself over about four months and describes it as “comfort chic” and “elevated enough, but still approachable.” Think: a beef Wellington/shepherd’s pie hybrid, branded with the bar’s name on the puff pastry; hearty meatloaf with creamy, garlicky potatoes dauphinoise; shake-and-bake pork schnitzel; and burrata-topped chicken, cod, or shrimp parmigiana. Some particularly retro favorites make the cut, like deviled eggs, oysters Rockefeller, and fondue, not to mention laidback classics like burgers and fried chicken. “We wanted to give you that grandma’s cooking feel,” he says. “The emotional strings that come attached with the food—we really wanted to tug on those.”

Portuguese kale soup at Governor Bradford. / Courtesy photo

Other dishes lean into Provincetown’s Portuguese heritage and the building’s history as a Portuguese fisherman hangout: Portuguese kale soup, for one, as well as cod, seafood stew, and a seven-cheese version of mac and cheese with spicy pork sausage and a garnish of crumbled bolo lêvedo (a slightly sweet Azorean roll that’s like the lovechild of an English muffin and cake).

The bar program boasts some surprises. Johnston is excited to offer wines on draft, including beauties like a rosé from Provence, France; sauvignon blanc from Marlborough, New Zealand; and prosecco—all dispensed from a temperature-controlled system that’s free of potentially wine-spoiling exposures to sunlight and air. “It’s not too prevalent in town,” he says. “It’s a huge up-and-coming trend in Europe. A lot of people think draft wine is like boxed wine, but it’s totally different.” The draft wine program allows easy sampling of different varietals without committing to a whole bottle. Highlights of the cocktail menu, meanwhile, include a blueberry basil smash with gin and a reimagined mint julep with butter-washed whiskey and matcha syrup. Boozy milkshakes and zero-proof offerings (an espresso cocktail with orange zest syrup and a cream float; smoked tea with maple, orange, and club soda) are on offer, too.

Governor Bradford. / Courtesy photo

Governor Bradford, like other spots on Commercial Street, has always pulled triple duty—at once a bar, restaurant, and entertainment venue. The legendary drag karaoke isn’t going anywhere. And at least five nights a week, diners can come in for live music. “In such a huge art community, we wanted to give performers a chance to get their face out there,” Johnston says. And like a heckler in the concert crowd, there are always going to be naysayers when something new—or sort of new—happens in town. That packed first night of service, though, saw Johnston, Bosely, and familiar staff working in harmony. “It put people at ease, seeing Vince and I,” Johnston says. “We’ve worked here [in Provincetown] forever. We’re not strangers.”

Governor Bradford. From left: Ryne Tillman, bar manager; Vincent Boseley, general manager; Joe Johnston, director of operations. / Courtesy photo

312 Commercial St., Provincetown, thegovernorbradford.com.

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IF YOU could conjure a postcard of Cape Cod in your mind, it’d surely look a lot like Chatham. The always-charming town is packed with miles of beaches, sprawling shingle-style homes framed by hydrangeas, and a lighthouse that looks like it came straight out of central casting. It’s also home to one of the most walkable (and shoppable) main streets in all of the Cape, lined with upscale boutiques and ice cream and candy shops. And late June/early July is one of the best times to go, as the town ramps up to its epic July 4 weekend, which includes one of the country’s oldest parades, fireworks, and a carnival along the beach at Chatham Bars Inn, the beating heart of the town’s summer festivities.

The town’s Art in the Park is a summer tradition. / Photo by Greta Georgieva

PLAY

Mornings always start with a stroll down Main Street for coffee at the Snowy Owl Espresso Bar, a little java shack with big ambitions. The day is your oyster (quite literally). You can hit one of the town’s many beaches, from the sweeping Lighthouse Beach to the calm, sea-life-filled waters of Ridgevale. Boating is also a big draw: If you’re staying at Chatham Bars Inn, it’s easy to hop on its gratis boat shuttle over to North Beach Island for a peaceful walk—or charter a vessel for any number of saltwater pursuits, from whale watching to fishing. Prefer to stay on dry land? Watch the seals munch on lunch at the Chatham Fish Pier; take a hike in the Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge; or hop on the Old Colony Rail Trail. It connects to the iconic Cape Cod Rail Trail, which you can pick up from Depot Road in the center of Chatham. Beginning in mid-June, you can also stroll Kate Gould Park to take in works from local artists through the town’s Art in the Park program. See something you like? Go online and bid on it—you’ll find out if it’s yours at the end of the summer.

Drinks with a view at CBI. / Photo courtesy of Chatham Bars Inn

EAT

Another benefit of staying in Chatham is the proximity to so many Boston-quality restaurants. Fuel up for the day’s adventures at Chatham Bars Inn’s Stars restaurant, easily the best breakfast in town (don’t miss the homemade doughnuts on the buffet). Lunch is at Codo Mexican Kitchen, a recently opened counter-service spot with some seriously good tacos and margs. Dinner options abound, whether you go for French at Pain D’Avignon‘s Chatham outpost, seafood at Drifters, or hearty American fare at CBI’s Sacred Cod tavern. But a new town favorite is Aplaya Kitchen + Tiki Bar, where owners Pelinda and Tom Deegan show off Pelinda’s Filipino heritage with homemade lumpia (pork egg rolls), siopao (meat buns), and a tropical tiki-bar ambiance on the patio. And whatever you do, grab a few mini pies from Marion’s Pie Shop after the beach—especially the Razzleberry (blackberry, raspberry, and apple). Our advice? Don’t share.

New boutique Main Street Mahjong is making a splash. / Photo via the Boudreau Group

SHOP

Shopping is one of the best ways to pass the time in Chatham between beach and boating trips—or on a rainy day. You could spend a full afternoon with the kids just hitting up the Chatham Candy Manor and Ducks in the Window, where they’ll delight in choosing from more than 1,000 styles in all shapes, colors, and sizes. Grownups will enjoy browsing the many home, clothing, and souvenir shops, including local fave BroDenim, where you can customize jean jackets and hoodies with cool patches. Newly opened boutique Main Street Mahjong, meanwhile, is a must-visit for those who play the game.

A waterfront deck at the resort. / Photo courtesy of Chatham Bars Inn

STAY

Situated on a pristine stretch of sand, Chatham Bars Inn is the ideal Cape resort—grand enough to feel like a proper getaway, but spread out enough to feel like a home away from home. Accommodations range from luxe rooms in the circa-1914 main inn to multi-room suites with water views—either way, you’ll have access to the resort’s gorgeous oceanfront pool, private beach with cabanas, and fleet of Lexus vehicles for borrowing—including an oversand SUV should you decide to trek out to Race Point Beach at sunset (first come, first served!). Bonus points for a robust kids’ club that keeps the little ones entertained while their parents kick back with a cocktail in hand at the new South Lounge Bar—or unwind at the excellent on-site spa.

GETTING THERE

You know the drill—straight down 93 and Route 3, cross the bridge, U.S. 6 East all the way to Chatham. Easy as pie—unless, of course, there’s traffic, which you know there will be.

This article was first published in the print edition of the June 2026 issue, with the headline,“Chatham, Cape Cod.”

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Thanks to last year’s launch (finally!) of the commuter rail to Fall River, New Bedford, and the surrounding area, it’s particularly easy to take a culinary tour of the southeastern swath of Massachusetts. Dubbed the South Coast, this region is a magical, liminal space: Somehow all at once it’s Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Portugal, with time-jumping layovers through the immigration-influenced past. And even better—the area is home to some wild, wonderful, and delicious hyper-regional cuisine. All aboard for five of these must-try bites.

Awful Awful

“IT’S A DRINK”—so goes the quote on the cups of this dreamy milkshake concoction at regional chain Newport Creamery, with locations in Fall River and Seekonk, along with six more in Rhode Island. Still, Awful Awful, we have questions. Just what are you, why are you so good, and why are there no commas in your name?

The restaurant, which was founded in 1928 in (you guessed it) Newport, Rhode Island, dishes out ice cream, hearty breakfasts, and comfort food—though it’s most loved for the Awful Awful. Which, according to local lore, gets its name because it’s “awful big, awful good.” The thick and indulgent drink replaces ice cream with a signature ice milk, which contains less dairy fat, with flavors amped up by syrups.

“It’s richer and more filling than a typical milkshake and has a loyal following thanks to its unique texture and classic flavor,” says Katelynn Dodson, business manager of Newport Creamery. “It’s been a staple of the region for generations.” While the standard Awful Awful comes in ten flavors ranging from the classic (vanilla and chocolate) to the slightly kooky (cotton candy, anyone?), a very scientific and entirely-not-biased study conducted by this author has concluded that coffee is the ultimate flavor. The sip is sweet and not cloying, thick and cooling enough to pair with a breezy drive out to the beach. Think of it like a sippable summer vacation.

But wait, there’s more: Gander the “topping & fancies” sign outside the walk-up window of the Fall River location on President Avenue, which lists bourbon caramel, hot fudge, and cookie dough pieces as ice cream additions. It’s unclear just what the difference between a topping and a fancy is, so your best bet is to try them all.

Michael’s Provision chouriço franks. / Official Website

Chouriço Hot Dogs

We could spend several hundred words on Portuguese cuisine alone; in fact, we already have in our South Coast-heavy Portuguese dining guide here. But beyond the area’s colossal steaks and soulful seafood options, one favorite dish stands out as a United Nations-esque transatlantic diplomatic alliance: the chouriço dog, a marriage of the all-American hot dog and the Portuguese pork sausage that’s heavily spiced with paprika and garlic. Unlike the thick sausages you can buy at spots in Fall River like Portugalia Marketplace, a chouriço dog is svelte enough for a hot dog bun and could pair well with a dollop of ketchup and mustard at your next cookout.

Both locations of Nick’s Hot Dogs in Fall River deep-fry chouriço dogs to order and serve them with your choice of toppings, such as tangy Coney Island sauce. You can also pick up chouriço dogs (plus leaner linguiça dogs) made by Fall River-based Michael’s Provision and/or North Dartmouth-based Gaspar’s at grocery stores in the South Coast, and often at Stop & Shop in Dorchester’s South Bay shopping center. To kick up your next cookout, toss them on the grill and wait until the skin gets blistered and slightly black in spots before you dig in.

But wait, there’s more: Those same purveyors sell chouriço patties to toss between hamburger buns and top with cheese (either classic American cheese, or tangy Portuguese São Jorge cheese). Different shape, same delivery system for big flavors. In the wonderful land of southeastern Massachusetts, chouriço can be many things—also a pizza topping, for instance, or stuffed inside a sub roll with hand-cut French fries (a chouriço and chips grinder).

Mr. Chen’s chow mein sandwich. / Photo by Dominic Chen

Chow Mein Sandwiches

Not to be confused with another regional cult classic, the chop suey sandwich of the North Shore, the chow mein sandwich is a Fall River original. The seemingly random equation of this dish—a hamburger bun plus fried chow mein noodles plus gravy equals delight—has cultural cross-pollination to thank for its genesis, as do other items on this list. It traces its roots back to the early 1900s, when Chinese restaurant owners were looking for ways to make their cuisine more familiar to waves of European immigrants. Turns out the sandwich is a culinary lingua franca, and the affordable (not to mention delicious) dish took off.

Most versions at local restaurants add bean sprouts and sliced celery to the mix, and the sandwich is a savory flavor-bomb of contrasting crunchy and soft textures. To be fair, the chow mein sandwich is a sandwich in the barest sense of the word: Sure, there’s a hamburger bun involved, but you have to eat it with a knife and fork (unless you want gravy-soaked noodles in your lap). Still, that doesn’t dim the dish’s clear star appeal, as evident when the region collectively melted down when Oriental Chow Mein Co., the Fall River-based company that has produced the noodles since 1938, temporarily stopped production because of a manufacturing mechanical failure, leading to “no-chow-mein May.” Fear not, because the machines are whirring again and cranking out noodles. Find the dish at Mr. Chen in Fall River (where you can add chicken and other proteins to the mix), along with Roger’s Family Restaurant in Somerset.

But wait, there’s more: Oriental Chow Mein Co. also produces the noodles for Hoo-Mee Chow Mein kits, which come with noodles and a gravy packet for you to make the delicacy at home. Find them in the international aisle at local supermarkets or online.

Stuffed quahogs. / Photo by dippy_duck via Flickr/Creative Commons

Stuffed Quahogs

At their shell, stuffed quahogs (alternatively called “stuffies” around Rhode Island) are pretty basic. A stuffing of bread, meat, spices, and chunks of quahog—a large hard-shelled clam—is packed into a quahog shell and baked until golden brown. But like the shimmery purple bands inside a clam shell, the story behind this dish is more vibrant.

Indigenous peoples in the area, including the Narragansett and the Wampanoag, harvested and cooked clams long before English settlers arrived (see “Q is for Quahogs” in our ultimate New England seafood guide), and these culinary traditions led to the New England favorites of clam chowders and clam boils. The influence of Portuguese immigrants over the last 200 years added to the culinary melting pot (er, clam boil pot?) of the Indigenous-British-American dish.

The regional Portuguese version is made with breadcrumbs or crackers (or, ideally, day-old papo seco bread sourced from a local Portuguese bakery) plus chopped chouriço, quahog, and a generous amount of parsley and spices. The appetizer-like bite is rich and savory, with a sea-forward kick: Most versions call for reserving some of the briny boiling leftover liquid to toss it into the stuffing before baking. Find it at plenty of South Coast restaurants. One of our faves is the Cove in Fall River, where a spacious deck overlooks the Taunton River—pair the view with stuffed quahogs and a squeeze of fresh lemon.

But wait, there’s more: New Bedford brand Whaler sells both hot and mild stuffed quahogs online. Or better yet, start at the Cove and then hit the specialty markets around Fall River—like Chaves Market and David’s Fish Market—where they offer quahogs to go.

Venus de Milo’s minestrone soup. / Courtesy photo

Venus De Milo Soup

We have Venus De Milo, a Swansea restaurant and function hall that’s been family-run since the 1960s, to thank for two culinary legends. The first is Emeril Lagasse, who got his start working banquets there, first in the mid-1970s when he was a junior at Diman Vocational Technical High School in Fall River and then for a few years while attending Johnson & Wales University in Providence. The second? Venus De Milo’s famed minestrone, a soul-warming soup with ground beef, vegetables, and pasta.

Venus sells takeout half-gallons of the soup, which—especially during the winter months—basically keeps the community from wandering into the frozen Taunton River. That’s why when the spot closed during COVID, then switched to takeout only for a while, then went on and off the real estate market, everyone’s blood pressure spiked as they wondered just how much soup they could fit in their freezer if the supply dried up.

In another pivot, Venus announced in late 2023 that it would reopen soon for in-person dining after extensive renovations to the vintage, Rat Pack-chic spaces. At the time, I envisioned a feature story about the scrappy function hall and how places like it are often the setting for our best and worst memories—from weddings to bereavement brunches—and called up Lagasse for his take. “They do something really special there and I’m glad to hear they’re opening back up,” he said in October 2023. The reopening, and thus the story, didn’t quite pan out; Venus delayed its plans to resume regular onsite dining. But in the meantime, the location still hosts events and offers takeout, including oven-ready catering pans of prime rib to warm up at home—and, of course, the soup.

But wait, there’s more: “They have baked stuffed shrimp with a butter cracker topping that I really loved,” Lagasse also says.

The New England Travel Awards are back for the third year in a row. Boston magazine is thrilled to once again celebrate the absolute finest hotels, must-visit attractions, and unforgettable destinations across Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Connecticut. And this year, we’re showcasing even more of New England’s most extraordinary travel experiences. Voting closes Friday, June 5.

Look for the October 2026 issue of Boston magazine for the winners.

Also: revisit last year’s New England Travel Awards winners here.

Was it the first fight ever to break out at Nantucket’s annual Christmas Stroll? That we don’t know. But what we do know is this: It was the first Christmas Stroll skirmish ever to end up on TMZ.

On a misty Saturday this past December, the denizens of Nantucket, along with tourists who’d ferried over from the mainland for a visit, gathered in the island’s quaint downtown for the local chamber of commerce’s annual holiday celebration—a charming little affair featuring crafts, seasonal entertainment, all the hot chocolate you could drink, and a visit from Santa himself. Although, as we shall see, the man in the big red suit would soon be overshadowed.

The trouble started inside the Boarding House restaurant when a woman apparently bumped a man at the crowded bar. For whatever reason, the man didn’t take kindly to this; there may, in fact, have been a return shove. In any event, before you knew it, the hubbub inside the bar had spilled out onto the street. When the video starts—because of course there’s video—you see a group of guys pacing around, pointing fingers. Things actually look like they might be simmering down, until one guy makes an aggressive move toward another guy. He’s quickly restrained, but just a few feet away, a third guy takes this opportunity to coldcock a fourth guy, at which point a fifth guy jumps on the fourth guy’s back—and throws him to the ground.

Just like a Bruins game, the benches cleared.

A pack of people, including a sixth young man with a sweatshirt knotted around his neck, goes after Guy Number Five. But Number Five deftly eludes the swarm, ducking under one punch, then backpedaling, Muhammad Ali–style, to avoid another. His agility seems to throw the pack off their rhythm, and after a few more moments, calmer heads prevail. Exhale.

Nantucket is known for its postcard-perfect feel—unless, of course, you found yourself caught up in the Christmas Stroll brawl of 2025. / Photo via X/@ackcurrent

In a different age, of course, that would have been the end of that. But this being the age it is, the end was really just the beginning. Video of the tussle soon made its way into the hands of the Nantucket Current, a local news site, which posted the footage to its Instagram account. Over the next day or so, virality ensued. TMZ did an item about the incident, as did many other click-seeking publications, including Fox News, the New York Post, the Daily Beast, and the Daily Mail. When an eyewitness named Kathleen called into radio station Kiss 108 to talk about the fight—she described it as a battle between twentysomethings and sixtysomethings—video of that conversation was viewed more than 22,000 times. But who could blame people for being interested? As Kathleen put it, “It was like the Sharks and the Jets from West Side Story, only in Ralph Lauren and Burberry.”

My hunch is that the Nantucket Christmas Stroll Brawl of 2025 will be a one-off; it’s hard to imagine the island’s powers that be allowing a rematch or teaming up with UFC for something bigger. That said, the buzz about the incident is absolutely emblematic of the current cultural fascination with all things Nantucket.

For decades, New Englanders looked at the island as the pretty, preppy destination just off the coast where a certain well-heeled segment of the population spent its summers. Today, though, Nantucket has become something more than that: a symbol to the rest of America—maybe even the world—of life among the billionaire class.

And they—and we—can’t get enough. Nantucket-set books and shows are having a moment. Nantucket-focused content creators are swimming in views. Meanwhile, journalists are spilling buckets of digital ink about Nantucket, from stories about the fast-rising cost of island real estate to its ever-swelling number of billionaires. (One estimate puts the total at more than 75, including financiers David Rubenstein and Stephen Schwarzman, Fidelity honcho Abigail Johnson, and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.)

And then there are the delicious tales of Rich Nantucketers Behaving Badly, which includes not just the Christmas Stroll fight, God bless it, but also the tale of the über-wealthy Nantucketer who chainsawed his neighbor’s trees to improve his view of the ocean. There’s the recent litigation-filled feud among three Nantucket titans over a clam shack downtown. And then there’s the elevated levels of cocaine in Nantucket’s wastewater, discovered last summer and continuing into recent months (which, come to think of it, may explain all the other incidents).

What’s going on here? Well, in part it reflects our current cultural interest in money, which I’d argue is greater than at any point since the 1980s. Not only are business titans now treated like Hollywood stars—Jeff Bezos’s nuptials last year were covered like a royal wedding—but in a survey not long ago, nearly 50 percent of Gen Z and Millennial respondents described themselves as “obsessed” with becoming wealthy.

But I also think our great Nantucket fascination says something about Nantucket itself. As I learned on a recent excursion there, there’s something about the place, sociologically speaking, that’s not quite the same as other rich locales.

Then again, it’s possible I’m overthinking all this. As longtime Nantucketer David Worth opined to me, “Maybe it’s just human nature to enjoy the spectacle of privileged people with sweaters tied around their necks, young and old, pummeling one another.”

Fair.

Photo by Dennis Weeks/Creative Commons

A few weeks after the Christmas Stroll, I find myself on a chilly January day in downtown Nantucket. Locals describe winter here as “peaceful,” although another apt term would be “dead.” As I texted my wife on the lonely ferry ride over from Hyannis, “I think there might be more golden retrievers on board than people.”

Fortunately, I discover that plenty of islanders, perhaps because they’re bored stiff, are game to chat, including Bernadette Meyer, an engaging woman who happens to be one of Nantucket’s most successful real estate agents.

“Nothing surprises me anymore,” she says when we start talking about Nantucket’s housing market. Not only have home prices nearly doubled since 2020—the median price now tops $3.5 million—but buyers, who once hailed mostly from New England and New York, are coming from all over, including Florida, California, Texas, and Europe. (The Texas connection initially perplexes me—it seems an odd cultural match—until I’m reminded that Houston in August is the most miserable spot in the entire Western Hemisphere.)

The common link among these New Nantucketers is money. Lots of it. Look at the windows of local real estate offices and you’ll see no shortage of houses on the market for $10 million, $20 million, $30 million. And oftentimes that’s just the starting point. Meyer tells me about a client of hers who bought a home on the island for $14 million—and is now putting another $15 million into it.

Of course, when it comes to extreme wealth, this isn’t—pardon another Texas reference here—Nantucket’s first rodeo. Back in the 18th century, the island was the center of the lucrative whale-oil industry, which helped light and lube a growing nation. “It was really the Silicon Valley of its time,” says William Cohan, the New York–based author and journalist who’s written frequently about Nantucket in recent years. (More on Cohan in a moment.) But the dominance of Big Whale Oil didn’t last forever, and when it was disrupted by electricity, Nantucket slumped. Indeed, as one local tells me, the difference between Nantucket in 1900 and Nantucket in 1960 wasn’t really that big.

So how did that Nantucket become the high-priced one we’re now obsessed with? Well, lots happened, but there were a few significant moments of change. One was the 1970s, when local land conservation efforts kicked into high gear; today, more than 50 percent of Nantucket is off-limits to development, which has not only preserved the island’s back-to-nature vibe but also created scarcity in the real estate market. The ’70s were also the period when New Yorkers first started summering on Nantucket in significant numbers, drawn by a runway extension at the island airport that allowed jets to take off and land.

Speaking of New Yorkers: Even more came in the late ’90s and early 2000s, when paydays on Wall Street started getting really huge. Nantucket real estate agent Robert Young—whose family has owned a bike shop in the wharf area for generations—remembers that in the year or two after Goldman Sachs went public in 1999, no fewer than 10 partners built pricey homes on Nantucket. Also going all in on Nantucket during that era was Boston developer Steve Karp, who in 2005 spent $75 million on 50 island properties and pushed the island, hardly a shabby place, in an even more upscale direction.

The most recent period of disruption was COVID. Suddenly running their businesses via Zoom, CEOs and finance titans began to realize they could really live anywhere, and many of them hightailed it to places like Wyoming, Colorado, and especially Florida. “Florida is a great place to live 10 months out of the year, but where were they going to go for the other two months?” asks Meyer. For a growing number of America’s wealthy, the answer has been Nantucket.

The island’s natural beauty is one reason for that; its chill vibe is another. Nantucket may now have the net worth of a midsize European nation, but its old ways still hold: Ratty summer shorts and worn Top-Siders are perfectly fine attire.

Of course, maybe the biggest reason for the mass gathering of the rich on Nantucket is what we might call Newton’s Third Law of High-Net-Worth Individuals, which states that if you put two billionaires together in the same space, they will instantly attract two more billionaires. And then those four billionaires will instantly attract four more billionaires…and so on.

“It’s an enclave,” Boston real estate developer Bruce Percelay, also the publisher of N Magazine and the Nantucket Current, says of the island. “People can be themselves here because they’re surrounded by other wealthy people. There’s no apologizing for your success.” Nantucket is so clubby, Percelay continues, that well-known people don’t even bother to unlist their phone numbers. I’m a little skeptical about that claim—until I go to the Nantucket Atheneum, ask for a copy of the phone directory, and indeed find numbers for David Rubenstein and Wendy Schmidt (wife of Eric).

While Percelay emphasizes chumminess, others point to a different reason for the gaggle of billionaires: status. One of those people happens to be Percelay’s media competitor, David Worth, a retired business exec who a few years ago put together a group to buy the Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror, the island’s 200-plus-year-old newspaper. (Worth is a fitting owner: His family was among Nantucket’s first white settlers.) “There’s a portion of the population that has got a lot of money and wants the validation that comes from being with other people with a lot of money,” Worth tells me. “They want the reflected status of attaching themselves to other wealthy people.”

It goes too far to say the influx of the rich has had no impact on Nantucket. They’ve certainly driven up real estate prices, which has, in turn, created a crisis for the non-wealthy people of Nantucket—many of whom are being priced off the island. It’s a problem, and most islanders know it.

That said, the general consensus is that Nantucket’s spirit hasn’t really changed. Today’s mega-rich Nantucket is not really so different from the merely affluent Nantucket that preceded it, nor from the middle-class Nantucket that preceded that. “You don’t usually see people driving around in Bentleys,” Percelay says. “Last summer I think I saw one, but that person does not get Nantucket.” He pauses. “Nantucket is a language. There’s an underlying expectation of behavior.”

To emphasize his point, Percelay tells me a story. Recently, an impressed-with-himself diner at local restaurant Galley Beach kept snapping his fingers, trying to get his server’s attention. When the server came over to ask how she could help, Mr. Finger Snapper said he was in a big hurry and needed to close out his tab right away. “Mine’s the Amex Black Card,” he instructed.

The server came back a moment or two later and unfurled her shirt, at which point any number of Black Cards spilled out and landed on the table. “Which one’s yours?” she asked.

Percelay laughs. “Don’t try to be important here.”

Photo by Paul Marshall/Alamy

Nantucket was never an unknown place—the island is central to Melville’s classic Moby-Dick; its signature red pants feature prominently in the nearly-as-influential The Official Preppy Handbook from 1980—but there’s no question there’s been an increase in interest in the island over the past decade, an uptick in its status. In 2016, the Financial Times was one of the first publications to report on the influx of Really Big Money in a piece headlined “Why Homes on Nantucket, Massachusetts Are Reeling in the Rich.” Two years later, Forbes noted that real estate prices on Nantucket had actually exceeded those in the Hamptons. Two years after that, Vanity Fair reported that some of those pricey homes, alas, were in danger of falling into the ocean thanks to climate change.

The author of that Vanity Fair piece was William Cohan, a Wall Street–exec-turned-writer who’s made a career out of reporting on the rich and powerful—and who’s arguably become the foremost chronicler of Nantucket’s (occasionally misbehaving) money crowd. In addition to that Vanity Fair story, Cohan has written pieces about the island for Town & Country, Air Mail, and Puck—the last of those offering a tasty account of a battle involving billionaires Steve Karp (of real estate fame), Charles Johnson (of Franklin Templeton Investments fame), and Charles Schwab (of, um, Charles Schwab fame) over a planned clam shack on Nantucket’s wharf. The gist: Johnson, and initially Schwab (who later changed sides), were concerned that said clam shack was going to attract Very Loud People, which billionaires who live nearby do not appreciate. After a going-to-the-mattresses period involving lawyers and threats and Johnson taking his private jet to a select board hearing, the dispute was resolved (with help from—he’s everywhere!—Bruce Percelay).

The Straight Wharf Fish clam shack was at the epicenter of a billionaires’ legal battle. / Photo by Gabriel Frasca and Kevin Burleson

Cohan has had some sport with Nantucket in recent years, but when we talk, it’s clear he has deep affection for the place. His family vacationed on the island when he was a kid, and in 2009, he bought a summer home there (albeit one whose existence is threatened by the coastal erosion he wrote about in 2019). Cohan tells me he and his wife have made great friends on Nantucket through the years—people who are smart, interesting, and accomplished. “It does attract people who’ve been successful,” he says. “And it’s fun to just hang out with them in this incredibly beautiful setting.”

As for the bad behavior he’s chronicled among the Nantucket billionaire set, Cohan says it might tell us more about the media age we’re in than Nantucket’s fundamental character. “There’s actually still a Puritan streak on Nantucket,” Cohan says. “But now with social media, one little thing happens and—boom!—it blows up.”

I should note here that not all of the news from Nantucket is of the scandalous or eye-rolling variety. There’s now a whole vein of Nantucket-related content online that’s decidedly celebratory and aspirational, offering ways that you, too, can be a Prep and no longer care about the trend cycle. “These 18 Nantucket-Inspired Dresses Will Make You Look Old Money Rich,” Us Weekly’s website gushed last year, rounding up a dozen-and-a-half outfits that are “comfy, classy and all sorts of chic” and that “start at just $18!” (A good Prep loves a deal.) Influencers have also become attuned to Nantucket. On Instagram, a search for #Nantucket will net you 1.2 million posts, while inputting “Nantucket” on YouTube will give you an endless stream of videos, from “My Favorite Places in Nantucket” (courtesy Rich Person Bethenny Frankel) to “A Week in My Life on Nantucket” to “I Survived on America’s Richest Island with $0.” (To which I say: too far, friend. A good Prep is thrifty, not a mooch.)

When it comes to #NantucketLife, no one has been more of an evangelist than author and Nantucket resident Elin Hilderbrand. Over the past quarter century, Hilderbrand, who’s sold more than 20 million books, has written two dozen bestselling beach reads that essentially feature Nantucket as the main character. Her secret? Her ability to blend beautiful Nantucket with bad-behaving Nantucket.

That was the secret sauce of The Perfect Couple, Hilderbrand’s 2018 novel that became a six-part Netflix series in 2024. Filmed mostly in Chatham (with some exterior shots of Nantucket for authenticity), the series had it all—money, sex, drugs, great settings, good cheekbones, and a deliciously nasty Nicole Kidman as the main character. It did so well—the series was among Netflix’s most streamed programs of the year—that this year Peacock is rolling out a streaming version of Hilderbrand’s The Five-Star Weekend, which filmed on Nantucket last fall. Hilderbrand told N Magazine that the series’ stars—especially Jennifer Garner—fell in love with Nantucket. “She’s like, ‘Elin, I am in heaven,’” Hilderbrand shared.

Which, you know, was basically correct.

Photo courtesy of Nantucket Chamber/Emily Elisabeth

In many ways, the current cultural obsession with Nantucket is easy to understand. From Shakespeare to Succession, we’ve always been enthralled with the rich and powerful. On the one hand, we want to know what it’s like to live their lives; on the other hand, we can’t believe how good it feels when they behave like asses. It’s such a magical way to balance the scales—to chainsaw such people down to size. Okay, I might not be rich. But at least I’m not a douchebag trying to shut down somebody’s clam shack.

But I’d argue there’s an additional layer to our fascination with Nantucket. Most of the people I talked to for this story emphasized that, despite the number of billionaires on the island, it isn’t really like other ultra-wealthy places. There are lots of gorgeous homes, but most of them are not the old-money, ostentatious mansions you see in Palm Beach or Newport. There’s a social scene, but it’s not defined by the exhausting social climbing and name-dropping that typifies the Hamptons. And while of course there are wealthy boldfaced names on Nantucket, they’re not the kinds of “stars” you associate with Martha’s Vineyard (Oprah, Carly Simon, Larry David, the Obamas). Nantucket’s heavy hitters are people who—at least before COVID—got up and went to offices and sat in boring meetings and tapped things on computers, just like many of us do. They just happened to make a billion bucks doing it.

The point: For all its wealth, Nantucket is actually kind of…normal. Granted, it’s the most perfect version of “normal” you could imagine—the cute cottages! the unbelievable sunsets! the golden retrievers!—but “normal” nonetheless. Indeed, it’s the kind of place many of us imagined ourselves having access to if only we worked hard and got into good schools and played by the rules.

The problem? The world no longer seems to work that way—or maybe it only ever did for a few people. And so when it comes to Nantucket, the rest of us press our noses against the glass, fascinated, appalled, and occasionally envious, while fingering the fabric on an $18 frock.

It’s the kind of place many of us imagined having access to if only we worked hard and got into good schools and played by the rules.

How much longer will our Nantucket fascination last? Perhaps that question is connected to another: How much longer will Nantucket last?

I’m not referring to the shoreline erosion—though houses dropping into the ocean would at least have me checking my homeowner’s policy. I’m referring more to Nantucket as it currently exists.

Among a couple of people I spoke with, there was concern about the future, at least when it came to the have/have-not divide I mentioned earlier. “Here’s the misconception,” one person says. “The people who make their living on Nantucket are not wealthy. They struggle with the cost of living. They struggle for housing. The middle class is getting priced out.”

There’s a moral component to that complaint, but there’s also a practical one. The people we’re talking about are the ones who keep Nantucket running—cops and firefighters and teachers and nurses and town employees. A growing number have already abandoned ship, so to speak, and make their daily commute via ferry from the mainland.

To Nantucket’s credit, there are efforts afoot to deal with the issues. There are plans for more affordable housing, and Percelay has led the charge on ending hunger on Nantucket with an organization that pulls together all the different forms of support that are out there. All of that is to Nantucketers’ credit—it speaks to the sense of community people told me about—but the responses feel more like Band-Aids than actual cures.

Then again, if you have enough money, you can pretty much buy Band-Aids forever. And Nantucket has enough money.

The day I was leaving Nantucket, I took a walk. I’d seen a home listed for nearly $32 million, and I wanted to get a close-up look at it. The house was in the most affluent part of the island—Monomoy—and while that was a mile-and-a-half away from where I was staying, I decided to hoof it. The wind had kicked up, and so this was not the most enjoyable stroll I’d ever had. But after about 20 minutes I finally made it.

When I got there, I looked at the house, then got out my phone to double-check the address. This place?

It’s not that it wasn’t nice. It was really nice. It was on more than an acre of property, and the view was spectacular, and it had the cedar-shingled Nantucket look you see all over social media. Then again, it seemed like it could use a little work, and the house next door was kind of on top of it. $32 million?

I write that as if I were wrestling with whether I had an interest in this place, which, of course, I didn’t. Mostly because I don’t have $32 million.

But somebody does—probably someone who has a Black Card, maybe someone who speaks Nantucket. I hope they enjoy it. Then again, if I ever see that person in a video, caught up in a melee with a sweater tied around their neck, oh my God, I’m going to laugh so, so hard.

On Nantucket, interior designer Nina Liddle is spreading her wings with Birdie, a new boutique that brings her playful, design-savvy mix of home décor and fashion to the island.

Named after her childhood nickname, Birdie reflects Liddle’s penchant for curating the unexpected. The light-filled Washington Street shop brims with distinctive finds from Europe and Africa—pieces that surprise as much as they delight. “I wanted it to feel very curated,” Liddle says. “Things people aren’t seeing everywhere else.”

Liddle has long dreamed of opening a store, even before launching her successful design firm, Nina Liddle Design. But with her interiors business flourishing, retail was put on hold—until now.

Inside Birdie, her vision comes to life. Decorative Jean Roger ceramic frogs sourced in Paris sit alongside whimsical South African pottery by Cape Town artist Gemma Orkin. Handmade Fermoie lampshades, their patterned textiles glowing in the windows, signal Liddle’s signature style: chic yet lighthearted.

Fashion, too, finds its place here. Racks are filled with breezy womenswear from designers such as Paris’s Thierry Colson, New York’s Merlette, and India’s Hemant & Nandita. Accessories—from South African jewelry to handknit Mexican handbags—add an international flair.

Perhaps the most personal touch is a custom pillow program, which allows customers to select from an array of fabrics to create bespoke designs. It’s an idea straight from Liddle’s interiors practice, where textiles often transform a room.

For Liddle, Birdie is the fulfillment of a long-held vision: a boutique that blends her interior design sensibility with her instinct for discovery. More than just another shop, it’s a reflection of her eye, her travels, and her playful approach to living well.

Photo by Jane Beiles

Jean Roger ceramic frogs sourced in Paris at Birdie. / Photo by Jane Beiles

Photo by Jane Beiles