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JP Aceto can rattle off with ease the names of Patchogue hotspots where he and his Oogee Wawa bandmates have taken the stage.
“When Brickhouse Brewery was here, we used to play that every couple of months, we would play Stereo Garden,” said Aceto, a guitarist for the reggae/rock/hip-hop group that’s a Long Island fixture. “So we played Patchogue a lot, it was like one of our home bases.”
Now, he and Oogee Wawa frontman Jesse Lee are making their latest play for an audience in the village, with the opening of The Undertow, a neighborhood pub and grill on South Ocean Avenue.
An ownership collection of industry veterans— which includes Lee’s wife, Melissa, and Jean Pierre — is hoping to create a year-round dining and drinking destination whose “oceanic feel” extends beyond its outdoor patio and surfboard decor (Lee is also a surfer).
Among the highlights on the menu are fried chicken snack wraps, smashburgers, tacos and hand-rolled chicken fingers.
“We marinade them in buttermilk with seasoning,” Aceto said. “The next day, we take them out, roll them in a flour dredge that’s of our own seasoning and they come out phenomenal, they’re delicious.”
Foodie pics
A short distance from Patchogue Bay, The Undertow is designed to become a year-round dining and drinking destination with an “oceanic feel” that extends beyond its outdoor patio and surfboard decor (Lee is a surfer).
It’s replacing The Legacy Room, a short-lived, high-end restaurant that opened earlier this year, but didn’t catch on with diners.
So out with what was touted as “elevated cuisine” on a menu that included duck breast and cauliflower steak — and in with one topped by $15 double smashburger and shoestring fries combo.
“Every local that walks by, they walk into the place on their way home and they’re like ‘Finally!’” Aceto said. “They love the prices, that’s the first thing they always mention, and then they love that it’s a comfortable place to hang out before you go home.”
The Undertow’s neighborhood bar and grill feel is something Aceto and Lee hope can replicate what they experienced over the years while on the road with Oogee Wawa.
Inside look
Billed on the band’s website as “touraholics,” the group’s members criss-crossed the country since emerging on the local music scene more than 15 years ago, regularly playing 200 shows annually. Along the way, at stops from San Diego to near San Francisco, Aceto and Lee were picking up lessons about what they hope will work on Long Island.
“We hit beach communities all the time,” Aceto said. “We would tour and play shows on the beach, at bars that were on the beach, so we wanted that kind of vibe.”
“It’s also about the feeling of being comfortable,” he added. “That’s what we’re comfortable with, the beach feel and the water.”
The bar and grill comes along at a time that the band is in, as Aceto put it, “the sunset section” of its long run.
Aceto said touring is in the past for Oogee Wawa, though the band performed in July at Patchogue’s Great South Bay Music Festival, which was headlined by the ska punk band Sublime.
Mostly, he said, the group is now a “nostalgia side project” that limits itself to a few shows a year.
“We had our run and we’re very happy with our run, no regrets, that’s for sure,” he said. “But it’s that time where you just keep it on the side and do it as a side project.”
Among those other projects is The Bookstore, a “craft cocktail bar and literary hideaway” on East Main Street.
Aceto said he’s eager for The Undertow to develop its own following in a “very cozy” setting that features an eight-seat bar in addition to the outdoor area.
“All I need is foot traffic, where people just come in and check the place out,” he said. “I think I can hook them once get them in the door.”
Watch Oogee Wawa perform
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