Westport Restaurant Guide

The Building that houses the Black Duck Café was once a sea-going refrigeration and ice storage barge that was built around 1840, It also carried food and other supplies along the East and Gulf coasts and may have even made it up the Mississippi River as far as St. Louis. Barges such as this were loaded with ice, a valuable commodity in the 1800s, in Portland. Boston. Gloucester and other northern New England ports in the spring, Traveling up and down the Atlantic coast, they exchanged cargoes along the way. This particular barge was refurbished in the early 1900s and has been anchored in Westport since 1961. Its 90-foot hull rests atop a 100-foot barge that sank here many years ago when the Saugatuck River was much deeper. The small penthouse on the top deck, now the office for the restaurant was the barge master's living quarters. A patch in the roof covers the hole opened for the chimney of his pot-belly stove. During its 40 years in Westport. The barge has been home to many business: among the earliest were a bait shop and a dress store. Three other restaurants preceded the Black Duck on the site. Probably the most notable being Davy Jones Locker, which operated from 1973-77. Named after a legendary rum-running boat, the Black Duck Café was opened in 1978 and has been going strong ever since.