Featured Stories & Articles from Cape Cod Travel Magazine: Red Sox Nation ‘South': Cape Places to Watch the Game and Grab a Pint

Here in the shadows of Fenway Park, in the heart of Red Sox Nation, in the home of the Cape Cod Baseball League, our deep-rooted affection for the game is found everywhere; on bumper stickers and T-shirts and baseball diamonds, and at bars and restaurants.

 

A fan’s paradise, Cape Cod can satisfy any taste and budget with a cornucopia that stretches from the converted fish houses on the docks at Woods Hole to the upstairs porches over Provincetown Harbor, from the cobblestone streets of Mashpee Commons to the sea captains’ row that is Main Street, Brewster.

 

Many of the finest establishments on the Cape pre-date the genre. They are places where the bartender might ring a ship’s bell in honor of a big tipper or a walk-off home run – Ding! Ding! -- where they pour a proper pint with the same aplomb as a perfect martini, where the chicken fingers are prized by happy, grateful youngsters and where the waitress really does come right back to take your order.

 

At the top of the order in terms of the Cape’s line-up of fan-friendly restaurants, starting at the water’s edge in Sandwich – there’s Hemisphere – which serves up a sweeping view of the bay and a soul-replenishing lobster Caesar under exposed rafters in an airy dining room or outside on the boardwalk patio that spills toward the wild blue yonder like an eternity pool – beachside, always the perfect place to sip a cool summer beverage.

 

Any worthy sampling of Upper Cape fare would include Aqua Grille at the Sandwich Marina on the Cape Cod Canal, Amari Bar & Ristorante in East Sandwich, and the Siena Italian Grill & Bar in Mashpee Commons, where the ceiling and the cuisine both soar to lofty heights.

 

Also in Mashpee Commons is Bobby Byrne’s Restaurant & Pub, the original of a small chain with others in Hyannis and Sandwich. All evoke the feeling of a classic saloon, with their pressed-tin ceilings and their vast wood-and-mirror bars, ideal spots for soup and salad, daily specials and a ballgame.

 

Mashpee is also where you’ll find Dino’s Sports Bar. With high-backed stools at every table and 30 hi-def screens set to all sports, all the time, a classic menu of pizza and wings, plus stuffed quahogs for the local touch, it is the very model of the modern American sports bar.

 

For a taste of Boston, and because maybe you want to play some Keno and meet up with your friends to watch the game, there are several 99 Restaurant & Pubs on the Cape, including one on Ryan’s Way just off the Mashpee rotary.

 

In the mid-Cape area, the line-up of places to eat, drink and be merry is long, and features stand-outs such as the Roadhouse Café, a sanctuary for fine food and toe-tapping jazz on South Street in Hyannis, owned by David Colombo.

 

Also on Main Street in Hyannis is Tommy Doyle’s Irish Pub & Restaurant with roots in Boston and a convenient location here between the bus terminal and the ferry docks. Across from the airport is the Wianno Grille with its extensive wine list and award-winning kitchen and right around the corner, not far from the Cape Cod Mall, is Sam Diego’s Mexican Cookery & Bar, long a favorite among baseball lovers locally as well as “a refuge for out-of-towners,” as it says on their website, with live cacti and a festive Mexican décor to go with the zesty food and frozen margaritas.

 

Others in the mid-Cape include Captain Parker’s Pub, on Parker’s River in West Yarmouth, the embodiment of a family-friendly, Cape Cod place, known for its prize-winning chowder and Sunday brunch, and, further east on Upper County Road, Clancy’s of Dennisport, on the Swan River, “a county tavern for ladies and gents,” and a perennial favorite among Cape Codders in the know, baseball fans or not.

 

Like all the greats, Joe’s Beach Road Bar & Grille at the Barley Neck Inn, in East Orleans, has that cozy feeling of a place where the owners must never be far away, because everything is as it should be, just so, from the seasonal bouquet in the huge stone hearth to the antique putter that hangs above the bar. Rarely has fine food and comfortable bar atmosphere teamed so well as they do here at the fork in the road on the way to Nauset Beach.

 

The quintessential Cape Cod sports bar is a place you think of as an old friend, a clean, well-lighted establishment with consistently good food and reliably friendly service, original, unique, weathered like a favorite pair of jeans, its bar-rails smoothed by the rub of time…a place such as the Chatham Squire Restaurant.

 

Out in Provincetown, a must-do is upstairs at the Top of the Pot, tavern space above the venerable Lobster Pot Restaurant, with bar stools that overlook the horizon. Another family-friendly and fun place down this way is Fanizzi’s Restaurant By the Sea, also on the harbor-side of Commercial Street, with a menu that ranges from meatloaf and chili to double-dare-you hot-hot-hot BBQ mesquite and fresh salmon with a spicy Asian green tea reduction.

 

Cheers!