The Old Salt: A Family Affair with Flair

HAMPTON — Well, it is back to the beach for the locals and an old favorite. When the summer bunch is gone (and we really are glad they came), we can brave the beach for a great meal at fair prices, not to mention a little Irish sing-along. During the beach season, Old Salt Eating and Drinking Place on Ocean Boulevard, Hampton Beach, is jammed full of vacationers day and night, seven days a week, but now it is our turn.

When the summer ends, says Joe Higgins, one of the family of managers, “we are glad to see our off season customers return,” and return they do. You can recognize the regulars and there is even a short wait on Friday and Saturday evenings. There are always specials and the local diners flock in for Friday night lobster and all-you-can-eat fish fry. Customers consume several hundred pounds of fish on Fridays. Some customers claim that the moderately priced local lobster is the best they have eaten. For the non-seafood folks,(they couldn’t be New Englandahs!) there are several steaks offered and a tender cut of prime rib at a moderate price.

The restaurant is truly a family affair. Owner of The Old Salt and mother Nancy Higgins watches over the flock of son Joe Higgins, his wife Karen, daughter Kathy and daughter-in-law Lizbeth – all of whom take turns managing during the long seven day week. Son Mike Higgins takes care of the kitchen, and is the one responsible for the famous Lobster Seafood “chowda.” Almost all of the wait staff have been there for a long time and are often known by name to many of the customers.

Customers who return time and again never fail to be fascinated by the seacoast village model on the back wall of the restaurant. It is handmade, and put together with wooden dowels and the many small items that the family has collected over the years. The other fascination is the two 135 gallon fish tanks, one salt water and one fresh, full of exotic coral and beautiful fish. Much of the corral has been collected by Joe Higgins on diving expeditions in the islands.

In each of the nine years the family has owned the Old Salt, improvements have been made and rooms have been added and expanded. Last year the kitchen and the no smoking dining room underwent renovations, but constant painting and major cleaning goes on constantly. Each year, the business has improved and is ahead of the previous year.

This year The Old Salt won the ‘Best Seafood’ Award at the Sixth Annual Hampton Beach Seafood Festival, so if you haven’t been down to the beach since the season ended, it is time for an Old Salt evening! There’s plenty of parking.