Fager’s Island preparing for summer 2020

OCEAN CITY, Md. – Workers at Fagers Island restaurant got their hands dirty Monday while preparing for the summer of 2020. Staff helped to plant the first shipment of palm trees trucked up from Florida. “It’s a lot of manual labor and it’s all like done by people who work here and love Fager’s Island. They kind of volunteer to come in and help,” said owner John Fager.

Fager tells 47ABC that the arrival of palm trees means the beginning of the busy season, and requires all hands on deck. “We have a crew here, mostly of bartenders and bar backs and people who work here but aren’t really on the maintenance crew. So they come here and we have a big crane,” said Fager.

As Fager and his staff work on planting the palms and tropical flowers in the outdoor dining areas, the owner says he’s looking forward to reopening for summer 2020. “It’s the beginning of May and so we’re also hoping that the governor keeps his word, number one, and secondly in phase one that he’ll at least include in Ocean City, at least, outdoor dining,” said Fager.

Fager says that although business might be slower than it ever has been for the past 45 years, he hopes the hospitality industry that Ocean City depends on will bounce back. “It all has to work together you know, where we have the restaurants, we have the hotels, we have the beach, we have the nice sky and the purity that people love about Ocean City and come here for,” he said.

The owner says he’s hoping that Governor Larry Hogan will consider how much Ocean City depends on hospitality as he begins reopening the state. Until then, Fager says he’s spacing out tables to follow safety guidelines. Fager tells us he hopes to get back into the swing of things by July 4th, or possibly in August. Meanwhile, the restaurant is waiting for their second shipment of trees.