Nantucket clam shack

SF Giants owner Charles Johnson is losing his all-out war on a Nantucket clam shack

Johnson, a 90-year-old Florida resident, is trying — and failing — to kill off a proposed clam shack next to one of his four Nantucket properties

Alex Shultz

On March 7, San Francisco Giants principal owner Charles B. Johnson penned an impassioned email to a select group of ultra-wealthy allies, signing off with, “Time is of the essence.”

He wasn’t scrambling to direct the Giants front office to sign a free agent, or rallying right-wingers to donate to a politician. He was drumming up support for his latest cause: Making sure a clam shack in Nantucket doesn’t open next to his $6.5 million cottage on Old North Wharf, which, according to public records, is one of at least four properties he owns on the Massachusetts island.

The clam shack, Johnson wrote, “will negatively affect my property and perhaps most of the Old North Wharf properties.”

How much time Johnson spends at that specific cottage is uncertain, but locals indicated to SFGATE that he’s rarely, if ever, around. (The cottage is a mere 1,200 square feet and he’s owned it since 2017. Johnson did not immediately respond to an email from SFGATE.) Despite the seemingly low stakes for the nonagenarian, he appears to have invested significant resources into thwarting the planned opening of Straight Wharf Fish Market, a joint venture by local restaurateurs Gabriel Frasca and Kevin Burleson.

In a March 9 follow-up email to his cottage comrades, Johnson touted the abilities of his lawyer, Danielle deBenedictis, whom he referred to as “experienced and very competent in this area.” Since then, deBenedictis and Johnson have repeatedly failed to sway local and state boards to accept their various complaints about the proposed clam shack, which they swear is more of a restaurant, a distinction that so far isn’t landing with the relevant parties. The lawyer, deBenedictis, also had to correct the record about whether fellow Nantucket billionaire Charles Schwab was her client, and whether Schwab was also against the clam shack. Schwab is not deBenedictis’ client, nor does he oppose the clam shack, his actual lawyer clarified in April.

As the Nantucket Current first reported, and has been diligently chronicling, this saga is somehow still going. Johnson backed away from his initial erroneous description of the clam shack, which he referred to in his March 7 email as a “nightclub,” but he’s otherwise trudging ahead. So, too, are a separate batch of cottage owners, who are part of a group called the Old North Wharf Cooperative.

But it is unambiguously the 90-year-old Johnson leading the way. He’s bringing his own litigation while offering to cover “all legal costs,” an email from Johnson to other cottage owners shows.

On May 12, deBenedictis, on behalf of Johnson, filed a lawsuit in Nantucket Superior Court, asking the court to overturn local and state approvals for Straight Wharf Fish Market’s alcohol license. DeBenedictis threw a veritable fisherman’s basket of legal arguments at the wall, claiming that there are already too many alcohol options on the wharf and that the shack would cause “traffic, noise, congestion, and parking problems.”

The suit is ongoing, but there are good reasons Johnson and deBenedictis haven’t gotten any traction so far and are losing in the court of public opinion. According to locals, the area in question is partially a party zone for the wealthy, with ferries regularly cycling through. And the new shack — if it ever manages to open — is only licensed for beer and wine, won’t have a bar, and will only be open until 9 p.m.

Every new restaurant faces hiccups on the road to opening, but a lawsuit from a fixated billionaire has made things complicated for Frasca and Burleson, who are hoping to open up in July.

“Nothing’s going to change in their world,” Frasca said. “They can afford to file a lot of lawsuits. We can’t afford to lose; the stakes are real here.”

When reached by SFGATE for this story, deBenedictis declined an interview request, citing ongoing litigation.

“Where in the world is Danielle deBenedictis?”

That was the opening sentence of a 2014 Palm Beach Post profile about Johnson’s high-powered lawyer, who owns a Nantucket resort called Summer House. She’s also Johnson’s Palm Beach neighbor; property records indicate she lives in a $15 million mansion that’s about a three-minute drive from Johnson’s home there.

On March 15, deBenedictis was in Nantucket, but only begrudgingly.

“We flew here from Florida, in spite of the storm, etc., to make our utmost opposition known to you on a personal level,” she told Nantucket’s Select Board. The Select Board responded by voting 3-1 in favor of granting the clam shack’s alcohol license. The Nantucket Current reported at the time that deBenedictis and Johnson almost certainly flew to the island and then immediately back to Palm Beach on a Gulfstream V plane, at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars.

Yes, it’s true: The famously reclusive Johnson, known in the Bay Area to only issue brief and occasional written apologies after particularly egregious political donations, was at the meeting, in the flesh. Frasca, one of the shack’s owners, was also in attendance. The 49-year-old chef tried to reason with his Old North Wharf foe. 

“I walked over and just told him no hard feelings, shoot your shot, I guess,” Frasca said to SFGATE. Frasca gave his business card to Johnson, in case he wanted to talk in a less litigious setting, and described Johnson as “gracious.” The billionaire did not take Frasca up on his offer, and hasn’t responded to his emails since.