Hampton Beach Tideside Social Club: New beachside restaurant opening with a fresh twist

HAMPTON — A new farm-to-table restaurant is coming to the south end of Hampton Beach in summer 2024 in a completely remodeled building with an open-air concept.

The storefront at 9 Ocean Blvd. was once home to the convenience store BZ Ocean Market. It has since been renovated to feature a large garage-style door that will open on summer days for guests at the new Tideside Social Club restaurant.

Work is still underway inside the restaurant, including plans for a new patio. When it is complete, Tideside owner Jo McCarran looks forward to an April opening for the year-round business. A farmer and plant scientist, McCarran will offer a menu filled with fresh ingredients from his Massachusetts farm.

The entrees on the menu will rotate depending on what is available at McCarran’s greenhouse. Having lived in California, McCarran said he wanted to introduce New Englanders to a similar experience of having fresh produce year round.

“We’re weird artists in our core,” McCarran said. “We found a new canvas, and we’d like to just paint something a little different.”

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McCarran grew up surfing, working at Hampton Beach

McCarran, 34, was raised in Derry and grew up visiting Hampton Beach.

As a teenager, McCarran worked at the Sea Ketch and remembers working Wednesday night shifts under the flash of weekly fireworks. He is also a surfer and spent many days on the waves at Seacoast beaches.

The building he recently took over for the Tideside brings back memories for McCarran. He said that the building at the southern tip of the main beach’s business block remains iconic as a landmark to visitors traveling north on Route 1A.

“The first wave of Hampton Beach,” McCarran said. “That’s how I remember it coming over the bridge.”

McCarran married his wife, Lo, and the two moved to California, where they lived for 10 years. McCarran worked there in branding in the music industry in Beverly Hills, then moved to Malibu. Living on the West Coast, he said they enjoyed fresh produce year round.

The California life ended when their home was destroyed in the Woolsey wildfire that devastated the Los Angeles area in 2018. The couple moved back home to New England for a new start.

Returning to New England made McCarran realize how lucky people on the West Coast are for having year-round access to fresh produce. He said he found himself struggling to pick the best-looking fruit from the grocery store when he first returned home.

“It just broke my brain,” McCarran said. “There’s got to be another way.”

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McCarran finds new career as plant scientist, restaurateur

McCarran said he used his branding experience to jump into the cannabis industry in Massachusetts, and it was there that he noticed the growing methods could be used for produce as well. Hydroponic growing does not require soil and can be done indoors year round.

McCarran said he had already grown up with a love of plants, his great grandparents having owned a farm in Canada. His mother also taught him to grow plants when he was a kid.

“It was always my thing,” McCarran said. “Sometimes I joke that the plants are a little more reasonable people, so they’re easier to hang around.”

In 2020, he decided to start his own farm project called Littlewild in Haverhill, Massachusetts, where he began growing produce on 2.5 acres of land in several greenhouses. He also added bees for honey as well as for pollination.

In 2022, McCarran took his first step into owning a restaurant by purchasing Romano’s Pizza in his hometown Derry. He and his wife turned it into the Ricochet, a pizzeria they named after their ricochet back east after losing their home in California.

McCarran said the fresh produce is an essential part of his restaurant model. The food is brought daily to the Ricochet from the farm, about 30 minutes away. He said the food dictates what kind of food is available each week, creating variety as well as a promise of fresh ingredients.

“It’s kind of the backbone,” McCarran said. “New age farm-to-table.”

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Tideside Social Club restaurant to remain open year round

While McCarran was working on his first farm and restaurant business, Hampton Beach developer Rick Smith was renovating 9 Ocean Blvd. Smith, who has more than one project at the beach, said he basically “rebuilt 100% of the building.”

Smith was looking for a tenant that might open a restaurant, and last year he had a deal in the works for a new Italian place to open. That agreement fell through, however.

Smith has known McCarran since the McCarrans left California and needed contractors to help them make their transition back to Derry. McCarran said he and his wife called numerous people to help in a pinch when their house burned, and Smith was the first to reply.

McCarran said Smith was aware they had opened the Ricochet and came to the restaurant to say hi and buy a pizza. That night, he emailed McCarran plans for the Hampton space to see what he would think about bringing a restaurant there.

"I was in love with it," McCarran said.

Smith said McCarran impressed him, and so they agreed on a deal to open the restaurant in 2024.

Smith said he is glad McCarran can bring a unique product to the beach inside his newly remodeled building.

“He’s trying to create a neighborhood vibe for residents down here,” Smith said.

The finishing touches on the space are still underway inside. Smith also still needs to get approval from the Planning Board for the patio he envisions for McCarran’s restaurant.

McCarran said returning to work at Hampton Beach as an owner after working at the Sea Ketch years ago is fitting. He said staying open year round will have challenges, but he is confident he can make it work given the other places open 12 months a year like Wally’s and the Goat.

“That gave us a little extra boost of confidence,” McCarran said. “We hope to be part of that year-round conversation.”

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Tideside Social Club restaurant opening at Hampton Beach NH