FALMOUTH – On a Monday night in the heart of summer, for more than a decade, a group of chefs have gathered, first in Sandwich, and now in Falmouth for what they call “a Festivus For The Rest of Us,” named after the famous Seinfeld episode.
Monday night is the slowest night of the week for restaurants. So this group of friends, mostly graduates of Johnson & Wales, have scheduled their summer around this all-day party when, for once, they are not cooking for others.
“It started as a clam bake on East Sandwich Beach,” said Ben Gallant, who hosts the party. Gallant and his wife, Casey, along with Kevin Lay and his wife, Lis, are co-owners of the Pickle Jar in Falmouth (a Cape Cod Wave favorite!). “It got too big for the beach so a few years ago we moved it here to my house,” he said.
It has evolved quite a bit from the early days, said Gallant. On the beach in Sandwich, “the first year was sandy and gross. The second year, everything was undercooked,” he said.
“Oh, they were successful parties. It’s just that the food sucked,” recalled Craig Dufresne from Rhode Island, who comes to every Festivus. He is a server in Rhode Island, who met Gallant when they both worked at a restaurant, while Gallant was in college.
If the food was not especially great in the early years, these photos below will attest to the evolution of Festivus – which should really be re-branded as Feastivus.
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The Feastivus for the beast in us?