EASTHAMPTON — The owners of Tavern on the Hill are closing in on a deal with a potential buyer of the city’s most scenic dining destination atop Mt. Tom.
Owners Amy and Lawrence “Larry” Guyette have owned Tavern on the Hill located at 100 Mountain Road since 2005. This past fall, the wife and husband listed the restaurant on the market at $975,000 and have now reached a contingent agreement with a buyer.
“We are working with a potential buyer, we’re in the due diligence period so nothing is set in stone at this point,” Amy Guyette said.
The listing broker, Joseph Bialek of Delap Real Estate, said if everything goes accordingly, the transaction could be solidified within a week. Guyette said they have not met the buyer but if the purchase is not sealed, the restaurant will remain open and cooking until another is found. The potential buyer could not be reached for comment.
The Guyettes recently took to Facebook to remind the public that the restaurant will still be cooking until the purchase is official, after seeing people wonder if the tavern had closed.
“So the word is out, yes after 21 years, Larry and Amy have made the difficult decision to place the Tavern on the market,” Amy Guyette wrote on the Tavern on the Hill Facebook page on Jan. 21. “This does not mean we are closed. We are still here, we are still open, and we will continue to be open until a new owner is found and a deal is made.”
Amy Guyette said that Tavern on the Hill is most popular in the summer and fall, attracting many people to sit on the back deck and enjoy a meal outside. While business has tapered off this winter — a common seasonal trend — she emphasized that the restaurant must remain profitable until the sale is finalized.
“It’s such a spectacular location and has such a history to the area, we want to see somebody else that could come in with the energy and someone who could keep it as Tavern on the Hill,” she said.
Amy Guyette explained that she and her husband have been running the business for a little more than a decade. They purchased the building along with another partner who left shortly after the purchase, and Amy’s father, who died in 2013.
Through the years, the Guyettes have learned it is not easy running a restaurant. Amy Guyette said the main motivation for the restaurant closing is that Larry, who is the head chef, has osteoporosis and has been experiencing severe pain.
“He certainly cannot cook on the line any longer,” she said. “He’s not able to cook like he could in the past.”
Amy Guyette explained that Larry had been working in the restaurant industry since his mid-teens cooking at many places in the area such as Nini’s and more recently Spoleto.
“The restaurant industry is not an old person’s job,” she said.
While they hope the location remains a restaurant, she said it is ultimately not up to them what the next owner decides to do with the business.
“Ideally that would be what we like,” Amy Guyette said. “But if somebody came along and gave us an offer, I’m not going to say ‘What are you gonna do?'”
Prior to the Guyettes changing the restaurant’s name to “Tavern on the Hill,” the building was known to the community as “Harvest Valley.” In the 1920s, the building was called The Green Candle Inn as a spot to the stay the night for those traveling on the dirt road that ran over Mt. Tom. The building then became a sandwich shop in the 1940s called The Old Mill that utilized the building’s wooden windmill to generate power.
Throughout the couple’s tenure, she and Larry have tried to keep the restaurant casual while providing quality food. She said the community has been very supportive, and the Guyettes have had people who started as customers become friends, and have seen couples become married.