Jay
McSharry ’90
“I really like the fast pace of it, and the idea that we’re putting on a bit of a show for the night. In a restaurant you’re taking care of people, trying to make their night special … meet their needs before they realize they have them; I love that.”
He’s continued loving it — McSharry, the Jay behind Portsmouth fave Jumpin’ Jay’s restaurant, is owner of 13 other eateries, three boutique hotels, an event space and a specialty food market, along with his wife, Amanda ’08G.
McSharry, who was a 2020 James Beard Award semifinalist, is widely credited as a driving force behind a rejuvenated Seacoast restaurant scene. He has served on the board of The Music Hall, The Chamber Collaborative of Greater Portsmouth, and the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation.
“I don’t intend to grow too much more, you know? I think it’s going to be about focusing more inwardly on the 14 restaurants and the three inns and build them up even better and pay our staff more and build our customer base more,” he says.
It’s a fair plan for someone who claims that retirement thoughts are on his mind even though “No one believes me that I’m going to retire someday.”
He and Amanda have two children, 5 and 7, so retirement plans include spending more time with them.
After graduating from UNH, McSharry, originally from Connecticut, worked for an advertising agency in New York City; while there he audited a class at The New School called Opening a Restaurant. That earlier love of the restaurant scene came flooding back. He left the ad world and worked for restaurants on Martha’s Vineyard and in Boston for a few years, all the while working on his business plan for what would end up being Jumpin’ Jay’s Fish Café.
As more opportunities came in Portsmouth, Exeter, Kittery, Maine and more recently, Concord and Biddeford, says McSharry, “The answer always seemed to be ‘Well, why wouldn’t we do it? This makes sense’” when it came to the next big idea or business venture.
That’s part of McSharry’s successful business model: collaboration.
“I have a lot of partners in the kitchen — so my best advice to someone starting out is to collaborate and share the success,” he says, giving a nod to colleagues like Kate McGrath ’05, who started as a hostess at Jumpin’ Jays, then became its GM, and later partnered with McSharry and others to open Rail Penny Tavern in Epping. Dave Vargas, award-winning chef at Vida Cantina is also an owner.
KEY INGREDIENTS
- While he doesn’t consider it an empire, foodies might disagree: the Seacoast collection of restaurants (14) and boutique hotels (3) that McSharry has curated has now branched out with locations in Biddeford, Maine, and Concord.
- He and wife Amanda ’08G opened Hotel Thaxter in the former Salvation Army church property adjacent to his first restaurant, Jumpin’ Jay’s in Portsmouth. It features Japanese restaurant Nichinan.
- A veteran of the Seacoast restaurant scene, he calls it “a strong community of people supporting each other.”
His closest partner is his wife, Amanda, as she was making a career shift into hospitality as he was realizing that inn keeping might be a natural match for restauranting. They started with The Sailmaker’s House in Portsmouth, Water Street Inn in Kittery, and most recently Hotel Thaxter in the former church property of the Salvation Army in downtown Portsmouth.
He says he’s learned as much from his misses — restaurants that failed to launch like Dover Sol and Little Louie’s Fish House, as from his successes.
Like other restaurateurs we talked to for this article, the pandemic was the most talked-about challenge, but McSharry says his eateries have weathered the storm — and that staffing has rebounded greatly, although not completely back to pre-pandemic level. “I would say it’s at 70 percent of where it was. For us, right now, we’re struggling to get dishwashers and line cooks” despite competitive wages.
McSharry has served as an advisor to students in the EcoGastronomy program and has spoken in the past to Paul College students. In 2009, he created the Jay McSharry ’90 Diversity Scholarship at UNH, to support students with financial need — especially individuals whose diversity of background, viewpoint and life experience will advance the university’s goal of enhancing the educational experience through enrollment of a diverse student body.
“Portsmouth and the Seacoast are such special places, but the one key ingredient that’s missing is diversity. It’s something I was thinking about when I was deciding where to open my first restaurant, where the ideal location would be,” he says. “I’ve got such big appreciation of my time at UNH, I wanted to combine those two things to help students attend UNH and truly see what a beautiful place it is and what the Seacoast and the state of New Hampshire have to offer.”