When Bill Smith, a native son of Martha's Vineyard, returned to the island in 1960 after his stint in the armed forces, he started clambaking for friends and neighbors.  Soon he developed a reputation and started receiving requests from other residents and summer visitors to do clambake parties for them.  Thus began what would develop into a unique catering business.

The original clambakes were all "pit style" where a pit was dug in the sand of a beach, lined with rock and then filled with wood and fired.  Later the hot coals from the wood fire would be removed, seaweed laid over the rock to provide steam and the clambake foods placed in the pit and covered with a tarpaulin to hold in the steam.  After a few hours, the tarp was removed and the meal, consisting of lobster, clams, mussels and various vegetables such as potatoes and corn would be eaten.  If all went well, you had a delicious meal, but often conditions were not perfect and you ended up with either undercooked or overcooked food.  What made Bill so popular was his ability to judge conditions and consistently put out a good meal for everyone.

Malcolm (Mac) Cook started working with Bill
in the 1970s, became a partner in the
company in the 90s and, upon Bill's death in
2003, became full owner of the company. 

We understand that our reputation is only as good as the last party we catered.  That is why we continuously strive to provide our customers with the most delightful party experience it is within
                    our power to provide.  The continuing effort to 'be the best we can be' has resulted in our
                    being an annual "Best of the Vineyard" award winner every year since the prestigious
                    Martha's Vineyard Magazine began these reader survey awards in the mid-90s. 

                    WHY NOT TRY ONE OF OUR GREAT CLAMBAKES FOR YOUR NEXT PARTY?

From year to year, the demand for Bill's famous clambakes increased.  He started hiring young college students who came to the Vineyard for the summer and teaching them the art of the clambake.  Some had the 'touch' and some didn't, so Bill looked around for a way to provide consistently good quality clambake meals for all of his customers, especially when he had more than one party going at the same time and couldn't be in two places at once.

The need for consistent quality, together with tougher health and environmental rules promulgated in the 1980s and 90s eventually lead to the complete abandonment of the 'pit style' clambake in favor of the 'contained fire' propane burners mandated by local regulations forbidding fires on on or in the sands of any public beach on the Vineyard.  The use of propane fires allowed
us to control cooking time and temperature
and thereby put out consistently good
clambake meals.

The search for just the right equipment and cooking method took years.  One of our early cookers looked like a flying saucer sitting on the beach or in someone's back yard.  It was heavy and unwieldy, but did a great job of steaming the lobsters and shellfish.  Unfortunately, the equipment was so heavy that we were unable to employ most of the young women who applied to work on our staff because they simply could not handle these large, heavy and and awkward cookers.

Eventually, we discovered that large
      commercial cooking pots worked
      just as well as -- perhaps even
      better than -- the awkward 'flying
      saucers' and had the added benefit
      of letting us cook the vegetables in
      with the seafood, imparting a
      gentle hint of seafood to the other
      ingredients.