The drunken buffoons are gone, and Montauk is finally safe to visit again

After yet another jampacked summer, Long Island’s East End hamlet of Montauk has finally waved goodbye to the blitz of noisy weekend revelers and Griswold-like family vacationers.
By now, Main Street has returned to its regular post-season hush. Weekdays, street parking is easy, and the lines that snaked out the doors of popular eateries all summer long are gone. Some of the summer spots have already shut down until next year.

But the good weather hasn’t quit — temperatures still hover in the 80s — and surfers continue to catch waves at Ditch Plains. And many of the local business owners — such as Jesse Joeckel, who sells his hand-printed Whalebone Creative apparel in a former ice house next to Fort Pond Bay (65 Tuthill Road; no phone) — hope guests keep coming to enjoy what Montauk has to offer for weeks to come.
After Labor Day “it used to be like you could hear a pin drop in town,” Joeckel says. “Now people are really catching on [that] it’s not over.”

Lauren Katz, who sells organic grocery staples, breakfast and lunch year-round at her Naturally Good Foods & Cafe (779 Main St.; 631-668-9030), says this is her favorite time of year here: “The grass is still green, the sun is still shining, you can go to the beach and have your own personal space. You really get that small-town feel.”
In addition to the crowds disappearing, some restrictions on dog walking and driving on beaches, as well as vehicle entrance fees at Montauk Point State Park, are lifted.

“It would be nicer if it were spread out, and not just a two- to three-month onslaught of people going crazy,” adds Joeckel, referring to the ongoing controversy over Montauk’s intensely increasing summer popularity with out-of-town partiers. For him, the end of high season signals the time to again start seeing friends who have been busy working.
“Our off-season bar is the Shagwong,” says Joeckel, who this year launched Whalebone magazine, which focuses on the people and culture in the community. “There will be 2 feet of snow outside, and it’s not like, ‘I wonder if it’s open?’ No, it’s 100 percent open.”
The Shagwong (774 Main St.; 631-668-3050) was taken over by new owners in June, but according to general manager Mike Colombo, they’re intent on staying open all year. “We want to continue the tradition and have fun,” Colombo says. “There is business to be had.”
On the western edge of town, Gillian O’Connell, 33, from Bellmore, LI, is spending a girls’ weekend lounging around Gurney’s resort (290 Old Montauk Highway; 631-668-2345), whose indoor swimming pool is filled with 85-degree seawater filtered from the Atlantic Ocean.
“It’s a classic place in Montauk, and we wanted to spoil ourselves,” says O’Connell, who’s also been to Montauk in the off-season with her husband. “We love the scene here in October. It’s more romantic . . . plus, it’s cheaper.”

It is, says Gurney’s owner George Filopoulos. “In September, we have the same beach, the same weather, but the rates are 45 percent below August rates. And after Columbus Day, instead of starting at $900 a night, it’s $320 a night.”
Filopoulos, who gave the landmark resort a $5 million makeover last year, is intent on creating a thriving year-round attraction, and hopes to lure fall weekenders away from the apple orchards of upstate New York and to the beaches of the East End.
Scarpetta Beach (631-668-1771), the elegant outpost of the acclaimed Italian restaurant on 14th Street in Manhattan, has opened inside Gurney’s and will also stay open all year, to cater to those who couldn’t get in during the busy summer.
In November, Gurney’s will open a synthetic ice-skating rink on the 15,000-square-foot roof of their oceanfront spa, complete with fire pits and a bar area. According to Filopoulos, reservations for the fall season are already almost triple what they were three years ago.

Meanwhile, year-round motels near the heart of the town have also begun to drop rates, and some, like the Born Free Suites by the Sea (115 S. Emerson Ave.; 631-668-2896), will soon offer specials, such as three nights for the price of two. An exception: Controversial hot spot the Surf Lodge (183 Edgemere St.; 631-483-5037), a hotel and nightclub that attracts huge, rowdy crowds for loud music during the summer, will be shuttered for the season by the end of this month — to the relief of some locals. Owner Jayma Cardoso says she’ll be hanging out at the Dock (1 Montauk Harbor; 631-668-9778).
“That’s a Montauk institution,” she says. “It’s basically as if you’re still in the ’70s: The bar hasn’t changed, the food is super consistent, they have a fireplace for the winter. There’s just a great vibe.”
For Sylvester Schneider, owner of Zum Schneider (4 S. Elmwood Ave.; 631-238-5963), the off-season actually opens up business. This year he plans to stay open until the first week of December.

“We always do much better after Labor Day,” says Schneider, who opened the Montauk outpost of his original Alphabet City Bavarian beer hall in 2011. “Our food is more for the colder days” — the perfect weather for its housemade spaetzle fried with cheese and bacon, Bavarian soft pretzels, and cold draft beer.
Down the street, Tracey Gardell’s popular bar and restaurant, 668 the Gig Shack (782 Main St.; 631-668-2727), dropped beer prices by a dollar a pint for the off-season and will continue to offer what she calls “global surf cuisine” until Columbus Day weekend.
“[Right now,] it’s a really good time to come out and eat and drink,” says Gardell, who moved her family from the city out to Montauk after 9/11. “Harvest season is magnificent, so restaurants get very into farm-to-table. There’ll be a larger variety of local fish, much larger variety of local vegetables. We’re already swinging toward ratatouilles. You can’t do that in August — you just have to make sure the hamburgers are rolling out.”