Dining in Misquamicut, RI: Paddy's Beach Club to The Andrea

Paddy's Beach Club and the Windjammer Surf Bar: Two Atlantic Avenue Anchors

Paddy's Beach Club, at 159 Atlantic Avenue, is one of Misquamicut's best-known names -- per this site's Misquamicut research, it occupies the site of the historic "Wigwam" hotel, which opened around 1903-1904 during the beach's earliest resort-building boom (back when the village was still called Pleasant View, before its 1928 renaming). Paddy's own site does not itself narrate that Wigwam-era history -- it is focused on its current 2026 season of live entertainment, Burger and Beer Nights, Taco Tuesdays, and Ladies Nights, opening at 11 a.m. daily in season -- so treat the Wigwam-site connection as local-history sourcing rather than the business's own marketing claim, though it is consistent with Paddy's location and Misquamicut's well-documented pattern of early hotels giving way to later restaurants and bars on the same footprints.

The Windjammer Surf Bar sits inside Atlantic Beach Park at 321 Atlantic Avenue, the 12-acre amusement park that has operated since 1921 (originally as the Atlantic Beach Casino) and remains owned and run by the Trefes family. Per the park's own site, the Windjammer is a 1,000-square-foot sports bar built around a 30-seat, pentagon-shaped bar with a surf-themed decor and six HD televisions, opening onto a 150-foot oceanfront patio with live entertainment. It runs seasonally -- noon to 6 p.m. in April, then daily from 11 a.m. May through October -- and shares its site with the Mariner Room, an indoor event space for weddings and private functions. Charles Trefes, tied to this same family business, also serves as the Misquamicut Business Association's 2026-2027 president, a real, sourced link between one restaurant family and the beach's collective business-advocacy group.

The Andrea: A 1912 Building, a 1946 Tea Room, and an Honestly-Dated "80 Years"

The Andrea, at 89 Atlantic Avenue, has the most layered and best-documented history of any Misquamicut restaurant found in this research, and it is worth untangling carefully rather than repeating a single round number. Per local reporting (seewesterly.com), the building itself dates to 1912, when it opened as a guest house with shared bathrooms down the hall. That is a different, earlier date than the restaurant's own founding: per the Misquamicut Business Association's own 2026 post, "what began as The Andrea Tea Room in 1946 has grown through generations of family" -- meaning the named restaurant business, as opposed to the building it occupies, dates to 1946, when Ralph Colucci bought the property and converted it into a hotel while expanding the restaurant and adding a bar. Ralph's son Leonard and daughter-in-law Judy took over in the early 1980s, and Leonard and Judy's daughters, Rebecca Colucci and Michelle Pinto, have run it as co-owners since the early 2000s -- four generations of one family, a genuinely well-sourced continuity.

The business's own 2026 marketing frames this as "80 years of The Andrea" (1946 plus 80 equals 2026), and that math checks out against the 1946 founding date in the same source -- so the "80 years" claim is the operator's own framing of a real, dated founding, not an invented number, though it measures from the 1946 tea room rather than the 1912 building. Separately, this site's own Misquamicut research notes a widely-reproduced historical photograph of cars buried in sand at "the Andrea Hotel" after 1954's Hurricane Carol; local reporting on the Andrea's own history discusses Hurricane Sandy's 2012 damage (which led the family to close the hotel portion while keeping the restaurant and bar running, now under an oceanfront tent) but this research did not find the Andrea's own retelling connecting the business directly to Carol -- treat the Carol-era photo as a real, dateable image of this stretch of beach rather than as the Andrea business's own historical claim.

A Real, Named Restaurant Roster Along Atlantic Avenue

Beyond Paddy's, the Windjammer, and the Andrea, the Misquamicut Business Association's own directory and independent listings confirm a genuinely dense run of named, addressed restaurants along and just off Atlantic Avenue, spot-checked in this research for current 2026 activity: Venice Restaurant (165 Shore Road, an Italian-American dining room with 2026 reviews on Yelp and OpenTable); The Kitchen at Pleasant View Inn (65 Atlantic Avenue, the oceanfront hotel's own named dining room, with a dedicated menu page on the inn's site and Yelp reviews current through July 2026); Gino's by the Beach (144 Atlantic Avenue, pizza and comfort food); Caswell's Seafood Haven (300 Atlantic Avenue, New England seafood and chowder, with its own site and Yelp activity current through March 2026); Maria's Seaside Café (132 Atlantic Avenue, a Mediterranean-leaning café with its own dedicated site); Sam's Beachside Café (301 Atlantic Avenue); Beach Bums Café & Creamery (142 Atlantic Avenue); Misquamicut Sandwich Company (57 Shore Road, with Yelp reviews current through July 2026); and Shoreliner (139 1/2 Atlantic Avenue, a gelato-and-café spot with its own site, theshorelinerri.com, and Yelp activity current through March 2026).

One name is worth a specific hedge: the Misquamicut Business Association's own directory lists a pizza business at 140 Atlantic Avenue as "Rhode Runner Pizza Company," but this research found current independent listings (Tripadvisor among them) for a pizza restaurant at that same address under the name "Rhode Island Pizza Co." instead -- the same location, a possibly different or renamed business. Confirm the current name directly before treating either as settled; this is exactly the kind of seasonal-beach-business change the underlying research flagged as likely.

Smaller Seasonal Concessions and Food Trucks

Misquamicut's food scene also includes several smaller, more seasonal operators named in the Misquamicut Business Association's own directory: Buttercup Coffee Cart (316 Atlantic Avenue), Mama Emily's Sweet Treats (311 Atlantic Avenue), and, toward the Weekapaug end of the strip, Carter's Concessions (665 Atlantic Avenue) and Dusty's Beach Bums (662 Atlantic Avenue). Salty's Clam Shack & Ice Cream (668 Atlantic Avenue) sits in the same stretch. These read as real, addressed, seasonal operations rather than invented placeholders, but this style of business -- coffee carts, concession stands, ice cream windows -- is exactly the category most likely to shift season to season, so treat names and addresses here as a starting point to confirm directly rather than a fixed roster.

What This Page Does Not Cover

This page does not attempt to name restaurants in downtown Westerly or in Watch Hill, the understated old-money village at the town's southwestern tip -- both already have their own dedicated dining coverage on this site's live Westerly market (Olympia Tea Room, St. Clair Annex, Coast at Ocean House, and a separate downtown roster). It also does not attempt to name Weekapaug's own restaurants in depth; Weekapaug is a separate, smaller, higher-end village immediately east of Misquamicut, and a couple of the concession-style businesses above happen to sit at addresses on its edge of Atlantic Avenue, but its own dining identity is out of scope here.

Current menus, prices, hours, ownership, and open-or-closed status for every restaurant named above were spot-checked but not independently re-verified restaurant by restaurant against each business's own current site. Restaurants close, change hands, and change names -- Rhode Runner Pizza Company's possible rebrand to Rhode Island Pizza Co. at 140 Atlantic Avenue is one example found in this research alone -- so confirm directly before planning a visit around any single name.

The Honest Summary

Two names carry real, dated history worth knowing before you go: Paddy's Beach Club, on the site of the early-1900s Wigwam hotel, and The Andrea, whose 1912 building became "The Andrea Tea Room" in 1946 under Ralph Colucci and has stayed in his family for four generations since -- a genuinely dated founding that makes 2026's "80 years" framing check out, even though it measures from the 1946 tea room rather than the 1912 building. The Windjammer Surf Bar's home, Atlantic Beach Park, has operated under the same Trefes family since 1921.

Beyond those three, Misquamicut's Atlantic Avenue carries a real, named, addressed cluster of restaurants and cafés -- Venice Restaurant, The Kitchen at Pleasant View Inn, Gino's by the Beach, Caswell's Seafood Haven, Maria's Seaside Café, Sam's Beachside Café, Beach Bums Café & Creamery, Misquamicut Sandwich Company, and Shoreliner among them -- plus a run of smaller, more seasonal concessions and food trucks. None of the names above should be read as an endorsement, and given how often seasonal beach businesses change hands, confirm current hours, ownership, and status directly before visiting.