great. I don’t want it changed. I want them
all to get through this.”
CASWELL COOKE JR.’S BUSINESS,
Haven Express — a Misquamicut
mainstay for more than
two decades — was one of the first in the
area to succumb to the pandemic. The
seafood shack operates out of Dunes Park,
a mobile home lot with daily parking rates
for access to its private beach. In early
May, the Dunes announced it would not
open to the public this summer.
“Unfortunately, my restaurant is a
casualty of that,” says Cooke Jr., adding
that he intended to devote much of his
summer to his day job in real estate. But
Misquamicut had other plans.
“I guess I’ve become the director of a
drive-in,” he says of the outdoor movie
series set up in a parking lot by the beach.
“It has gone from a three-day a week
thing to probably seven days a week.”
In the era of COVID-19, movie nights
sell out almost instantly. The drive-in
also hosted Westerly High School’s graduation
ceremony and will present dance
recitals, live concert programming and
comedy shows, too. Guests tune in through
their car stereo, and they’re allowed to sit
outside if they can maintain six feet of
social distancing.
“It’s a strange positive that’s come out
of it,” he says. “People have been really,
really grateful to have something they
can go out and do.”
It’s just another example of the village’s
ability to bounce back, he says, even in
the face of invisible threats. Cooke Jr.
mentions one in particular that menaced
the region for years: reputation.
“My grandmother used to say, ‘Never
go to that Misquamicut place,’ ” says
Cooke Jr., who spent summers in the
tony neighboring enclave of Watch Hill.
He saw the dysfunction for himself when
he deejayed area nightclubs in the mid-
1990s. Misquamicut — a.k.a. “the
’Squam” — was a run-down honky-tonk
with drug problems and a busy police
presence, he says. But in 2000, the town
foreclosed on three problem properties.
That same year, the Misquamicut Business
Association (MBA) was resurrected
after a two-decade hiatus, and the tides
began to turn.
“We transformed it into something
pretty impressive and changed the reputation
of Misquamicut Beach back into a
RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l JULY 2020 91