Stars on Hingham Harbor Celebrating 25 Years

For more than two decades, Stars on Hingham Harbor has served all three meals to residents of Hingham and the South Shore. Any age group can find something to enjoy on the menu that stretches from breakfast to dinner.

The modern and evolving fare is easily paired with the well-thought-out beer menu.

Recently, General Manager Wes Baltzer, who has worked at Stars for more than 19 years, discussed the menu, the beer and the restaurant's connection to the community.

How would you describe Stars to someone who's never been here?

We're something for everyone. It's set in a renovated, 50s-style dinner, which you can still see, but we do breakfast lunch and dinner. We're here for the working people and the retired people during the week for breakfast. We do a business crowd for lunch. There's families, there's couples, there's young kids. There's people who come in for the music at night. There's the beer drinkers. 

Who owns Stars?

It's a group called Eat Well Inc. They own Stars, Tosca, Caffe Tosca and a bakery in Malden. 

When did Stars open?

January 23, 1989. The restaurant will celebrate its 25th year on Thursday.

Has the place changed a lot over the years?

Oh yeah. When I first started (in 1994) it was your standard renovated diner without too many thrills other than a huge beer list, which we still currently have. We've added a golf tournament we do every year. We do beer dinners. We have live music two or three days a week. I think we've really modernized our menu in all three phases, breakfast, lunch and dinner, by staying with the times. It's comfort food kicked up a little bit.


You don't see a lot of places doing breakfast, lunch and dinner. How do you manage to do all three so well?

It's very hard work. I have no idea how we do it (said with a smile). No, it's dedication from those of us who have been here for a very long time. We're constantly researching new ideas. It can certainly be difficult to pull off because of all the meal periods we do, but some respects it's easy because we just open the door and get ready to work. There's no lag before service.

Do you have any specialties people have to try when they come in?

Well, certainly for lunch and dinner we have something we call buffalo chicken rangoons. You see crab rangoons in a Chinese restaurant. It's that similar shape where they're triangular and deep fried, but we put buffalo chicken and cheese in there and serve it with bleu cheese, celery and carrots. If you've never had it you shouldn't try it because you'll never stop eating them (laughs).

You mentioned the beer list, what do you offer?

Sixteen drafts always rotating. There's probably 10 of them that stay someone regularly and another six that we rotate every week or every few weeks. The corporate beverage director, Brian, is huge into new craft beers and staying local. And we have a huge bottled beer list, probably 80 or 90 bottled beers. We like to stay local with the new guys, but we also branch out into Europe and Japan and over to the west coast.

What's the connection Stars has with with the town of Hingham?

It's the town of Hingham and it's the whole South Shore community. I've seen people come in here as adults that I saw come in when they were kids. Now, they're coming in with their kids. We really are that "Cheers." We're the neighborhood bar and grill. It's a focal point in the community.