This Summer’s Hottest Table in the Hamptons Is an Affordable Diner

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(Bloomberg) — The most in-demand table in the Hamptons this summer won’t be poolside at a Montauk beach club or have a velvet rope. It’s inside a diner.

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At Babe’s in Sag Harbor, an all-day joint specializing in pancakes, burgers and milkshakes, the seats — there are only 20 — are already hard to come by at the no-reservation spot, with waits up to an hour in its first weeks. And it’s not even Memorial Day yet. 

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“I don’t know if it’s a shift as much as a correction,” says co-owner Julian Cavin, who opened the classic American diner in mid-May in a freestanding cedar-shingled cottage. Despite its reputation as a summer hangout for high-net-worth individuals, the Hamptons on New York’s Long Island have always been home to a year-round community hungry for reasonably priced restaurants you might eat at a few times a week. 

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Demand for them has expanded since Covid-19, when large numbers of out-of-towners relocated there full time. Now operators are responding with a spate of openings that speak more to real life than a Real Housewives scenario. And while relaxed American spots aren’t entirely new, this season they feel newly dominant. If last summer was highlighted by a $20 smoothie with a special line for VIPs, 2026 is the year you can get a bacon, egg and cheese on an everything seasoned roll at Babe’s for a restaurant-reasonable $12.

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Sure, the Hamptons will continue to welcome Manhattan imports: Chelsea Living Room is bringing its DJ-fueled lounge-y atmosphere, Pickletinis and caviar-laden lobster toast to the beachfront Dune Lounge at Gurney’s Montauk Resort , while SoHo’s maximalist contemporary French fixture Maison Close is taking over Capri Southampton with pastis-fueled tiger prawns flambéed tableside. But as someone who’s spent every summer Out East since childhood, I can’t remember a season so heavily tilted toward casual, comfort-driven restaurant.

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Cavin and his wife, Martine Langatta, an East End artist, teamed with record executive Jonny Shipes and chef Anthony Petty, a veteran of the local hangout Almond, to open Babe’s. Petty’s dishes, including seasonal fruit-topped buttermilk waffles ($15), a pastrami, egg and cheese sandwich ($14) and a Thai chicken salad ($16), feature produce from quality spots such as Amagansett’s Balsam Farms and Quail Hill Farm. The inside of the diner is retro cool with chrome, stainless steel and checkerboard floors in a narrow train-car-like layout, anchored by an 18-foot white-and-lipstick-red Formica counter with eight vinyl stools.

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Andrew Steinthal, co-founder of the restaurant recommendation platform The Infatuation and a Hamptons regular, says that he’s not surprised to see new restaurants leaning heavily in the direction of what he calls “everyday utility.” In the era of $29 supermarket guacamole dip, residents ultimately want straightforward summer food this year, he says, like chicken salad and tacos. These kind of places, Steinthal says, tend to outlast the glitzier, high-end spots that often only last for a season or two before closing.

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It’s a vibe shift that complements a more tame real estate market. Home sales were strong at the end of 2025, and competitively priced houses are getting snapped up ahead of Memorial Day weekend, says Sotheby’s agent Zack Dayton. Still, he notes, “buyers have been more cautious” than in years past. 

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“I know a lot of people starting to go back to the casual places,” says Tom Roche, a 50-plus-year East Hampton resident and a former deputy general counsel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He says that Hamptons restaurant prices have gotten “somewhat or totally out of control” because of economic conditions so “people are looking for a good restaurant that is open year-round and serves food at a fair price.”