Everything feels like another moment in time. Next week "The Bagaduce," as locals call it, will receive an America's Classics award from the James Beard Foundation. The Astburys are flattered but unfazed. "I had never heard of James Beard," says Judy. "But our daughter is graduating from high school the same day so we're not going. They sent some people up to make a video of us though." Mike pictures them playing the video at a fancy New York dinner and poking fun at how quaint they are.
That quality is what attracts locals and passersby. The line of drooling customers - tattooed Harley couples, pretty young moms, kayakers, and kids on bikes - stretches around the corner of the restaurant. This feels like old-time summer on the Maine coast, as you sit at a picnic table in the shade of the big maples, over clam baskets and iced tea.
Fifty years ago, Judy Astbury's grandparents, Sidney and Bernice Snow, opened Bagaduce Lunch around Memorial Day. They served crab rolls, ice cream, hot dogs, and coffee in real ceramic mugs all summer. Judy's parents, James and Vangie Peasley, ran the Bagaduce for 30 years and handed the business over to their daughter and son-in-law in 1996. They still keep the summer schedule.
Bagaduce Lunch serves all the clam-shack classics. The food feels lived in. "We do it just like we always have," says Judy. Summer people flock to Bagaduce, but the Astburys don't change what they do to suit big-city tastes. "Out-of-staters come here and money just don't mean anything to them," says Mike. "They get their food and they eat like seagulls. Fifteen minutes later they're gone."
Mike, 53, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, cracks jokes and throws all manner of fish and shellfish into a row of deep-fat fryers. Everything comes out golden and crispy. "We keep everything separate," he says. "No fish in the french fries." Even with all his fryers, he says, he can hardly keep up with the orders. "Judy's father had just one fryer. I don't know how he did it."
