What's Actually Open On Narragansett Avenue This Summer, And What Jamestown Is Still Waiting On

Walk east from the Conanicut Marina on an August evening and the first block of Narragansett Avenue reads differently than it did two summers ago. Lights on at 14. Lights on at 23B. A canopy over the sidewalk where a bookstore used to be. For anyone who has lived on the island through the last decade of turnover on this street, the change is real, but it is not the sudden boom it sometimes gets described as elsewhere.

The village has always had a filter. Small storefronts, seasonal traffic, deed restrictions from earlier owners, a permitting process that rewards operators who understand year-round communities. What's happened in the past eighteen months is that a handful of concepts finally passed through that filter at the same time. The story of Narragansett Avenue in 2026 isn't growth. It's fit.

The 14 Narragansett Ave story is the whole story in miniature

The building that now houses Crudo Oyster Bar & Coastal Italian Kitchen sat between identities for close to seven years. Jamestown Fish closed at the end of 2018. A receivership auction in 2020 handed the site to MTM Jamestown Fish LLC, led by Paul Mihailides of the Preserve Sporting Club in Richmond, for $1.3 million. Ownership changed again in June 2021 when Seth Goldenberg and Elizabeth Newton bought it for $1.6 million and opened Curiosity & Co., a bookstore-wine bar that closed within the year. A planned Tuscan restaurant fell apart in spring 2025 after a neighbor enforced 2003 deed restrictions that cap service hours and prohibit amplified music. In October, the property sold again for $1.7 million to a Johnston-based LLC led by Michael A. Grieco Jr. of Grieco Automotive Group, according to the Jamestown Press.

Crudo opened on December 17, 2025. The operators, Tony Lanni, Jeff Merlino, and Anthony Quetta, already run Merlino's Pizzeria in Cranston and the original Crudo in Smithfield, which debuted in March 2024. What makes this tenancy stick where four others didn't is the format. Dinner service only, oyster-bar and coastal Italian menu, outdoor bar section that could be brought online first while the interior finished. Four owners tried to shoehorn a different concept into a building whose lot restrictions and neighbor relationships were already written down. The fifth read the constraints first.

What is actually open on the block right now

For residents who haven't circled through the village in a few weeks, the current lineup on and around Narragansett Avenue:

• 14 Narragansett Ave — Crudo Oyster Bar & Coastal Italian Kitchen. Dinner Monday through Saturday, closed Sunday. Reservations recommended in August.
• 23B Narragansett Ave — Angel's Kitchen. Back online since last fall after roughly eight months closed. Home-style American, seven days a week, noon to 11 p.m. It covers the daytime and early-evening window Crudo doesn't touch.
• 53 Narragansett Ave — Our Table. Chef Marc Alexander on savory, Marla Romash on pastry, seasonal menu that follows local produce. Two blocks up from Crudo and quieter about it. Two years in and it has built a steady following without leaning on summer traffic.
• 22 Narragansett Ave — the former J22 Tap & Table. Under contract for Mindy Galley, an Asian fusion concept from Mindy Zhang of Mindy's Restaurant and Sushi Bar in Portsmouth. Not open yet.

The one that is still pending

Zhang appeared before the Jamestown Zoning Board of Review in late April 2026 for liquor license approval. Her original target was a February opening, and permitting delays have pushed it. If Mindy Galley opens this summer, it will be the first dedicated Asian restaurant in the village since Peking Garden closed in 2016 during the Bomes Theatre renovation. A nine-year gap on an island of about 6,000 year-round residents isn't a supply story. It's a fit story, again. Restaurants that survive here need to work in February as well as July, and the operators who understand that from another Rhode Island storefront tend to be the ones who make it through the paperwork.

For residents tracking the timeline, the Jamestown Press is the place to watch for licensing updates. Once the state license clears, buildout usually runs another few weeks.

The rest of the summer isn't waiting on the restaurant openings

If you've been on the island since June, you already know the calendar. For anyone whose July got away from them, the pieces still ahead this season:

• Jamestown Arts Center Studio Tour, August 8 and 9, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. A two-day island-wide open studios event where participating artists host visitors in their working spaces. Details are on the JAC events page. The current gallery show, Next, runs alongside it.
• Climate Conversations at the Philomenian Library. A thirty-photograph exhibit documenting coastal change along Rhode Island's shoreline, organized by a North Kingstown group. Free, on view through the spring, and worth an hour if you haven't walked through it yet.
• Jamestown Rhode Race Half Marathon, Saturday, September 26. Start and finish at Fort Getty, out past Mackerel Cove, across the island, up the east shore, and back along the west. The 425-participant field is already full for 2026, so this one is a spectator event unless you're on the waiting list. If you live along the route, expect road closures on the morning.
• Watson Farm walking trails. Still open this season across all 265 acres despite the fire on April 23 that destroyed the 230-year-old working barn. The trails and the sheep operation continue. The barn's absence is visible from North Road, and it will be for a long time.

The Watson Farm loss deserves its own paragraph

The barn had been the farm's public face since Historic New England opened the property to visitors in 1979. It was the building in every photograph anyone has ever taken of the place. Its loss doesn't close the farm, but it changes what a visit feels like. If you have out-of-town friends coming through in August or September and Watson Farm is on your usual loop, it is worth telling them what they will and won't see before you drive out there. The site manager described the barn to the Jamestown Press as a significant piece of agricultural history for the state, and that reads accurately when you stand where it used to be.

The bridge work is the reason your reservation time matters

The Rhode Island Turnpike and Bridge Authority started replacing joints on the Jamestown-Verrazzano Bridge this spring, and westbound traffic has been reduced to a single lane through the work zone. For residents heading back to the island from South County or Route 4 on a weekend evening, that lane closure has been adding real minutes at peak hours. If you have a Crudo reservation at 7 p.m. on a Saturday and you're driving in from off-island, leaving at 6:15 the way you did last summer is no longer safe. The bridge project is the kind of small operational detail that reshapes how you plan a Friday night, and it's a reminder that summer traffic on Conanicut is a bounded system. Every new seat in the village is competing against the same two access points.

What the block tells you if you live here

The takeaway isn't that Jamestown has arrived at some new density of dining options. Twenty covers at Crudo, thirty-two indoor seats at Our Table if the earlier reporting held, a handful of stools at Angel's, and one pending concept at 22. That's still a village, not a scene. The takeaway is that the operators who now hold the leases understand the constraint set the town has always enforced. The 2003 deed restrictions didn't change. The seasonality didn't change. What changed is that the applicants finally match the block. For homeowners who have watched the corner turn over five times in a decade, that is the piece of news worth holding onto. This round of tenants looks built to stay.

If you're a homeowner on the island thinking about how these shifts affect what your property looks like to a summer buyer, or if you have friends asking about Jamestown as their next move after a season of visiting, Kira Greene knows the coastal market and the year-round realities behind it. Request a Complimentary Market Consultation to talk through what this summer's changes mean for your address specifically.