Nantucket Island Chamber of Commerce

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About the Nantucket Island Chamber of Commerce:

The Nantucket Chamber is the local Chamber of Commerce as well as the Regional Tourism Council for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts serving Nantucket Island. We are the central point of contact for national, local, and international press.

Nantucket Chamber members reap the benefits of a wide variety of programs and services specifically tailored to serve our unique community. As a local, regional, and international destination marketing hub, we attract visitors from across the globe and drive business for all of our members. In addition, the Nantucket Chamber provides legislative liaison, professional development programs, networking events, business consultations, year round visitor information and referrals, and top quality collateral, such as publications, a destination website, social media marketing, and more.

To visit the Chamber’s website, click here.

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Annual Awards
2024 Achievement of Merit – Nantucket Lifeguards

2024 Achievement of Merit – Nantucket Lifeguards

The island’s fire chief speaks about the lifeguards, and about the harbormaster who runs the program and handles everything from their housing to their training. He describes the summer’s rescues in heavy surf and tropical storm swell, lifeguards giving immediate care and handing patients to his crews, then returning the next day to do it again. He notes how young most of them are. He ends on the harbormaster arriving at every scene and going round afterwards to check on each lifeguard.

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2024 Legacy Business Award – Maria Mitchell Association

2024 Legacy Business Award – Maria Mitchell Association

The owner of an island public relations agency speaks about the Maria Mitchell Association. She describes bringing visiting arts writers to an Open Night at the observatory before she had any professional connection to the organization, and their writing about it anyway. She lists what it runs: an aquarium, two museums, a research center, the observatories and a paid internship program. She puts its annual reach above twenty thousand people and describes its practice of working with other island organizations rather than around them.

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2024 Small Business of the Year – Faregrounds Restaurant

2024 Small Business of the Year – Faregrounds Restaurant

A Rotary Club member whose club meets at the restaurant on Wednesdays speaks about the Faregrounds. He describes it as one of the last affordable family restaurants on the island, and says its owner has it up for sale but will not sell to a buyer who would change that. He notes the receptions held there after memorial services, the large outdoor deck added years ago and the smaller one built during the pandemic, and the Christmas lights. He says the owner has been there for local charities, and that some families were not charged the going rate.

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2024 Spirit of Nantucket Award – Nantucket S.T.A.R.

2024 Spirit of Nantucket Award – Nantucket S.T.A.R.

A parent whose daughter has been in the program for years speaks about Nantucket S.T.A.R. She describes the adaptive sports it runs and what they do for children who cannot do everything their peers can. She notes that siblings are brought in too, and that there is little else of the kind on the island.

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2024 Tourism Advocate of the Year – Nantucket W.A.V.E.

2024 Tourism Advocate of the Year – Nantucket W.A.V.E.

The town manager, Libby Gibson, presents the Nantucket Regional Transit Authority. She gives its history: created under state law in 1993, in service from 1995 with four buses on two seasonal routes, and running year-round since April 27, 2018. It now runs three year-round and six seasonal routes, reaching Madaket, Miacomet, the airport and Sconset. She reports that joining the state’s Try Transit pilot made peak-season rides free and lifted ridership by nearly eighty per cent, that the diesel fleet is being replaced with electric buses, and that the door-to-door Your Island Ride service for seniors and people with disabilities has run year-round since 2001. The W.A.V.E. carried 267,000 passengers from June through August.

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2024 Volunteer of the Year – Rocky Fox

2024 Volunteer of the Year – Rocky Fox

The town’s director of culture and tourism speaks about Rocky Fox. She tells how she first met him: assigned a high school journalism interview at seventeen, she was told she could have it only if she performed her Junior Miss talent in front of the room first, and then again. She describes him as the first call for island nonprofits looking for a donation, and says that a no from him arrives with a redirection to someone who can help instead.

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Business Programs & Panels
Nantucket Island Chamber of Commerce Leadership Panel 2023

Nantucket Island Chamber of Commerce Leadership Panel 2023

A sold-out panel on organizational culture, leadership and retention. Five island leaders take part: Cormac Collier of the Nantucket Conservation Foundation; the president of a construction company who also heads the Nantucket Builders Association; Wendy Hudson, co-founder of Cisco Brewers and owner of Nantucket Bookworks and Mitchell’s Book Corner; an owner of three island restaurants; and the executive director of the hospital thrift shop, which runs on about 150 volunteers and has given the hospital 6.9 million dollars to date. They are asked what leadership is, what makes a culture of integrity on an island this size, and how they keep staff. The answers turn on trust and honesty, on thanking someone for the specific thing they did rather than in general, and on the risk of asking staff for ideas and then acting on none of them. One describes taking restaurant staff to the brewery to learn how the products are made. Another describes negotiating terms with the town to get construction crews back to work during the pandemic. Hiring a more diverse staff, and taking books out into the community, come up near the end.

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Chamber Chats
Chamber Chats: Denice Kronau

Chamber Chats: Denice Kronau

A short interview ahead of a Chamber event on being happy at work. Denice Kronau, who serves on the town’s Finance Committee, describes walking away from the best job she ever had: chief executive of a hundred-million-dollar business she had been brought in to turn around, and did, a year early. She gives an example of the pace that burned her out, a round trip from New York to India for a single board meeting and back at her desk the next morning. She came to Nantucket for six months, worked out one thing that changed how she approached work, and took a job ten times bigger. She saves what that one thing is for the event.

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Chamber Chats: Emily Elizabeth Photography

Chamber Chats: Emily Elizabeth Photography

A photographer discusses a member-to-member offer she has arranged with the Chamber: a fifteen to thirty minute mini session for seventy-five dollars, yielding at least ten high-resolution images for social media, a website and the Chamber’s business directory. She points out that the off season is when island businesses finally have time to think about photographs. The interview ends with rapid-fire questions – Sconset as the most photogenic part of the island, Miacomet Beach for family sessions, Sankaty Lighthouse for newlyweds.

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Chamber Chats: Stephanie’s Nantucket

Chamber Chats: Stephanie’s Nantucket

The owner walks through the store in August, twenty-seven years after opening it. She describes how it grew out of home decor and gifts into clothing, jewelry, shoes and accessories. She then goes through two bags of merchandise: Nantucket-branded cooler bags, silicone cups, napkins, hand towels and party cups; a Paris perfume line sold at twenty-five dollars a bottle and meant to be layered two at a time; cowboy boots under two hundred dollars; two women’s clothing lines she carries in neutrals for the turn into fall; and the beaded bags and book bags she calls the season’s best sellers. She mentions the sale racks, the store’s giving to the Boys & Girls Club, and the Boston Pops weekend ahead.

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Chamber Chats: LexRx

Chamber Chats: LexRx

Two people from LexRx describe the business: a nurse practitioner owned and operated injectables and skin care practice with four locations, three in Boston and one open year-round on Nantucket. They suggest starting with a consultation, which is free, and list the treatments that are not injectables – chemical peels, dermaplaning, microneedling – along with a medical-grade skin care line. Booking is online or by phone at any hour.

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Chamber Chats: Nantucket Comedy Festival

Chamber Chats: Nantucket Comedy Festival

The festival’s founder previews the week ahead, in its seventeenth year. It opens with Ladies of Laughter, the night the festival grew out of; a classic comedy night follows, with Steven Wright among the performers; and Saturday is a Boston-versus-New York showdown, four comics a side. Eight comics perform that night, and it is being recorded for a PBS special. He describes Stand Up & Learn, the festival’s program teaching island children to build a short funny story about themselves, and the professional comics he brings out in February and March to work with the children by day and perform at night.

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Chamber Chats: The Chicken Box

Chamber Chats: The Chicken Box

Rocky Fox previews the summer at the Chicken Box, his twenty-fourth there with his partners. The club opened in 1957, when it did serve chicken. He describes a snack truck in the lot Wednesday through Friday, and a new merchandise shop open three or four nights a week, where tire covers have been the surprise seller. He explains a line-skipping app the Box is trying out on DJ nights: a limited number of passes announced on social media, and everyone still carded at the door. On the summer concert series he says Tuesdays and Wednesdays are ticketed, and that booking national acts for July and August starts in March – bands like playing the Box because they can take two nights rather than one. He gives the hours as noon to one, seven days a week.

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Chamber Chats: Lavender Farm Wellness

Chamber Chats: Lavender Farm Wellness

A practitioner describes Lavender Farm Wellness. Massage therapy is the core of it, alongside functional medicine and a range of other work – craniosacral therapy, reflexology, Thai massage, private yoga and gyrotonic. He explains that the business was built around a mobile app first, and that a standing weekly appointment is easier to get early in the summer than later. He also describes the retail side: supplements chosen under the functional medicine program and its medical director, along with gift cards, candles and incense.

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Chamber Chats: Fairwinds, Nantucket’s Counseling Center

Chamber Chats: Fairwinds, Nantucket’s Counseling Center

A staff member explains what Fairwinds, Nantucket’s counseling center, does, in its sixtieth year on the island. He describes three levels of care: a mental health crisis line answered around the clock, which will send someone to a home, a workplace or the hospital emergency department; free same-day urgent care; and ongoing counseling, couples and family therapy included. He says the center is insurance blind and serves people whatever their coverage or immigration status, and that someone worried about a friend, a relative or an employee can call on their behalf. He ends with a June fundraiser.

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Chamber Chats: Nantucket Film Festival

Chamber Chats: Nantucket Film Festival

A festival staff member previews the six days ahead, with films running morning, noon and night and three or four live events a day. She describes the signature programs: Morning Coffee, where filmmakers discuss their films over pastries; Late Night Storytelling, five-minute themed true stories hosted by Ophira Eisenberg; and the Saturday Screenwriters Tribute, honoring Nicole Holofcener, whose “You Hurt My Feelings” is also screening, along with Ken Burns and Lynn Novick for forty years of documentaries and the novelist Jenny Han. She lists conversations built around particular films: shark scientists after a documentary on sharks, a panel on Native American misrepresentation, a Joan Baez conversation, and a session with Michaela Watkins and Allison Williams on women in Hollywood. She explains where the box office is and how rush tickets work.

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Chamber Walks
Chamber Walk: Main Street, Part 1

Chamber Walk: Main Street, Part 1

A walking tour up Main Street, set to music with no narration. The camera visits fourteen storefronts between the foot of Main Street and number 62, among them Quidley & Company, The Black Dog, Stephanie’s Nantucket, Pageo Jewelers, Mitchell’s Book Corner and Murray’s Toggery Shop.

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Chamber Walk: Main Street, Part 2

Chamber Walk: Main Street, Part 2

The second half of the Main Street walk, back down the other side, again set to music with no narration. The camera visits twelve businesses between numbers 17 and 57, among them Peachtree Kids, Erica Wilson, The Hub of Nantucket, Lemon Press, Nantucket Looms and two real estate offices.

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Chamber Walk: Wharves and Lower Main Street

Chamber Walk: Wharves and Lower Main Street

A walking tour of the wharves and lower Main Street, set to music with no narration. The camera visits fourteen businesses along Straight Wharf, Harbor Square and Old South Wharf, among them Vineyard Vines, the Tavern and Gazebo, several galleries, and the operators at the slips, including a sailing excursion and a fishing charter.

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Chamber Year in Review
Chamber Year in Review – 2024

Chamber Year in Review – 2024

Island business owners answer a set of questions about the year. A charter operator describes repeat clients whose children moved up through the trips as they grew, from ice cream cruises to kids’ fishing to oyster and cocktail cruises. A gallery owner reports more year-round visitors, and describes the fundraiser the gallery has run with local artists for PASCON every Stroll weekend for twelve years. A restaurateur talks about value and pricing on the island. Others describe education work: free public programs, partnerships with the schools and camps, and teaching visitors about the island itself. The Community Foundation for Nantucket describes its role as a hub for island philanthropy.

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Daffodil Festival
One Million Daffodils

One Million Daffodils

A history of the Daffodil Festival, built around footage of the antique car parade. The narration traces it to the fall of 1974, when Jean MacAusland put the idea to the Nantucket Garden Club, and to the first show the following April – 260 daffodils at the Boys Club on a rainy Friday. The goal she set, a million daffodils planted across the island, took six years; the narration puts the count now above three million. The parade’s growth is traced too: nineteen cars in the first Garden Club Vintage Motor Car Outing, more than thirty-five by 1981, and eighty registered two years later with another forty turning up anyway. The owner of a 1927 American LaFrance fire engine, in the parade since the start, describes how much shorter the early route was. Participants are interviewed along the way, several of them on the festival returning after two years away. The parade ends in Sconset for the tailgate picnic.

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Nantucket Garden Club Proclamation and Ribbon Cutting, 2026

Nantucket Garden Club Proclamation and Ribbon Cutting, 2026

A citation from the Governor of Massachusetts is presented to the Nantucket Garden Club for the fiftieth anniversary of the Daffodil Festival. It is read aloud in full and dated April 25, 2026, over the names of Governor Maura Healey and Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll. The Garden Club’s festival chair accepts it. She recounts the festival’s origin in 1974 and why daffodils suited the island – the deer and the rabbits leave them alone, and they take to sandy soil. She names her co-chair for the year and introduces two nieces of the founder and her husband, who are in the room.

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Halloween Parade
Nantucket’s 2025 Halloween Parade

Nantucket’s 2025 Halloween Parade

Vitto Capizzo hosts NCTV’s annual coverage of the Nantucket Halloween parade. Watch to see the year’s best costumes and find out how much candy everyone got!

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International Women’s Day
International Women’s Day Breakfast 2026

International Women’s Day Breakfast 2026

The Chamber’s International Women’s Day breakfast, on the theme “Give to Gain.” Denice Kronau moderates, opening with Sir Isaac Newton on standing on the shoulders of giants and framing the morning as a celebration as much as a call to action. Four panelists introduce themselves: Megan Calabrese, who founded a real estate management company with a business partner and acquired an island property manager inside its first year; Sarah Bois, director of research and conservation at the Linda Loring Nature Foundation, who began her conservation career as an intern at the Maria Mitchell Association in the late 1990s; Liz Cordero, a bookkeeper of seventeen years and a business owner for seven; and Stephanie Serra, NCTV’s director of programming, who leads the room through a short grounding exercise and describes empowerment as a process running from the individual outward through small circles into the community. Cordero names her mother, who arrived in her mid-twenties with two small children and a sixth-grade education and bought her own house. Mentorship runs through the rest: being the only woman at the table early in a career, a mentor who asked only whether the people she worked for were good people, listening for what someone actually needs, and interns who go on to mentor the high school volunteers. There is an icebreaker round and a speed round. Kronau closes on Margaret Mead.

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Nantucket Stroll
Nantucket Life: The Magic of Nantucket Christmas Stroll

Nantucket Life: The Magic of Nantucket Christmas Stroll

Celebrating five decades of the Nantucket Christmas Stroll, this award-winning episode captures the magic, memories, and the incredible people who make this cherished island tradition possible. Sponsored in part by the Nantucket Island Chamber of Commerce.

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Pitch Competition
The Second Annual Chamber Pitch Competition

The Second Annual Chamber Pitch Competition

Four island teams pitch to three judges at the Dreamland in a format modeled on Shark Tank and run by N.I.C.E., the Chamber’s entrepreneurship center. The judges are Bruce Percelay, publisher of N Magazine; Elin Hilderbrand; and Jamie Siminoff, inventor of the Ring video doorbell. John Shea hosts. The pitches: Nantucket Crisps, a potato chip brand whose flavors are named for island beaches and whose bags would carry a code linking to a map of them; Nantucket Captains Camp, a paid summer program at Madaket Marine teaching navigation, engine work, aquaculture and bookkeeping to young women, argued from the claim that two percent of the world’s seafarers are women and from the marina’s own difficulty staffing its docks; Nantucket Faraway Chocolate, a bean-to-bar factory, cafe and chocolate bar sourcing cacao from small growers; and an online gallery for island artists, working title Faraway Island Gallery, which would frame and ship the work and then scale to comparable markets. The judges press on making the chips off island, on admissions and diversity, on price points, and on the cost of online advertising. A check-in covers the first competition’s winner, the bike-share Sandy Pedals. Nantucket Crisps takes the ten thousand dollar first prize, and the other three teams split the remaining prizes.
Content Provided by September Productions

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The Third Annual Chamber Pitch Competition

The Third Annual Chamber Pitch Competition

Four island entrepreneurs pitch to three judges for a share of twenty thousand dollars, in a format modeled on Shark Tank and run by N.I.C.E., the Chamber’s entrepreneurship center. The judges are Jamie Siminoff, inventor of the Ring video doorbell; Elin Hilderbrand; and Bruce Percelay, publisher of N Magazine. John Shea hosts. The pitches: Nantucket Ocean Brew, a ready-to-drink cocktail built on jun kombucha; Salvage Nantucket, which would catalog and grade historic material pulled out of island renovations and resell it rather than send it to the dump; Broke Da Mouth Salsa, made with produce and seconds from island farms and looking for a co-packer to scale; and Pamper, a platform pairing visitors with local couriers for on-demand errands. Each pitch draws questions from the judges on pricing, competitors and margins. Update videos cover two earlier winners, one of them a camp that has become a young women’s marine science academy. Broke Da Mouth Salsa takes the ten thousand dollar grand prize, and the other three teams split the remaining prizes.
Content Provided by September Productions

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Talk of the Town
Talk of the Town: Wendy Hudson

Talk of the Town: Wendy Hudson

A short profile recorded at Mitchell’s Book Corner during the week of the 15th Nantucket Book Festival. Wendy Hudson gives her own history in island business. She has sold books on Nantucket since 1995, bought Nantucket Book Works in 2000 and Mitchell’s in 2012, and founded Cisco Brewers with her husband. She is a returning Chamber board member and a past president. She makes the case that every island business should join: the Chamber advertises the island off-island, and the Daffodil Festival and Christmas Stroll are purely its work, which she credits with carrying the shoulder seasons. She is also vice chair of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, which she joined over sales tax equity when Amazon was not required to collect it. She names employee housing and the rising cost of health insurance as the hardest problems facing small businesses here. Her answer to both is that independent businesses gain leverage by banding together in trade associations. Asked what makes something last, she says it is how you treat your employees and your customers.

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