If you ask restauranteur Gary Ward why he opened Porter’s on Main when he already had two restaurants in Gloucester, he’ll tell you that he did it primarily for Main Street and the community.
Ward has lived on Main Street in Gloucester his entire life. His father was an educator in Mathews County, and Ward planned to become a teacher and coach. Yet just as he was beginning to question that choice, the restaurant business reached out to claim him.
One of his cousins owned Franco’s Italian Restaurant in Richmond and in 1997 he offered Ward a position as a manager. “I commuted into Richmond for six years,” he says. “That’s what got me into the business, but I was lucky to get to work at such a great restaurant. It was fine dining.”
Entrepreneurship was also in his blood. From the 1950s through the 1970s, Ward’s grandfather owned Ward’s Restaurant, a combination gas station that also offered groceries, meals and beer on Route 17 near Gloucester Point. “My grandfather worked every day for 30 years,” he says. “I grew up with a great example of entrepreneurship.”
Sera Petras Photography
Restaurateur Gary Ward is enjoying a glass of wine at his new venture, Porter’s on Main in Gloucester, Virginia.
His mother was the creative type and when Ward was in high school and college, he gravitated to video production, did an internship at a TV station and provided color commentary for college games. He sees the restaurant business as a lot like video production. “You take raw video, you edit it, create a video and present it to an audience and you hope they enjoy it,” he says. “Entrées are similar. You take raw ingredients, essentially edit them during the cooking process, create the final product on the plate and hope that the guests enjoy what you’ve produced. The two creative processes are very similar.”
After six years of driving to Richmond, Ward knew he had to make a choice: either move there or do something in Gloucester where he and his wife, Karen, were born, raised and lived. Fate stepped in when a friend of his parents mentioned a man who wanted to sell his restaurant and was willing to finance the purchase.
He dubbed his new eatery Olivia’s at the Point—the name a nod to his daughter—and soon added Olivia’s in the Village, running both for eight years. Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, Olivia’s had a large, wide-ranging menu that allowed even the pickiest eater to find a favorite.
By 2009, he’d concluded that Main Street was the better location—mainly because he could buy the property—and closed the original restaurant. “I fell into the business because I discovered how much I enjoy serving people,” he says. “I go to the grocery store and people stop me to say what a great meal they had. Obviously, our goal is to provide a great living for our family financially, but there’s a lot of value in comments like that.”
Sera Petras Photography
Fast forward to 2015 and again, a family friend mentioned a restaurant that was coming available. Even better, Ward didn’t have to commit immediately because he could lease it for a year before committing to purchase it. Now came the fun part: deciding on a concept for the restaurant.
As a fan of smoked meats, Ward decided that Scoot’s—this time the name was a tribute to the nickname of his wife’s grandfather—would be a barbecue joint. “We did specials at Olivia’s for six months testing out different recipes,” he says. “We must have made 10 different mac and cheese recipes and 15 different barbecue sauce recipes before locking in the best ones. We were fortunate to be able to test out everything and to be so well received.”
By 2025, Ward considered himself on the back end of his career. But then, what’s a restaurateur to do when a 1920s building that had housed an upscale restaurant becomes available? For someone like Ward, who’s long been involved with Gloucester’s Main Street Community, you listen to the people telling you that they still want to have a high-end restaurant to save driving to Richmond or Williamsburg for good cocktails and a nice dinner. “People living nearby can save time, money and gas,” he says.
Open four nights a week, Porter’s on Main—Porter is Olivia’s 1-year-old—has a distinctive, clubby vibe. Dark wood walls, hardwood floors and a pressed tin ceiling frame a dining room with an L-shaped bar, an inviting high-backed green and white banquette and two big windows overlooking Main Street.
Sera Petras Photography
Dark wood walls, hardwood floors and a pressed tin ceiling frame a dining room with an L-shaped bar, an inviting high-backed green and white banquette and two big windows overlooking Main Street.
Clerestory windows atop the walls let in sunshine while brass picture lights over landscape paintings add to a cozy feel at the tables, each of which holds a small vase of fresh flowers. For reminders of old Gloucester, look no further than the back hallway, which boasts black-and-white photos of the area, including views of Main Street from 1920, the late 1940s and the 1960s. Both the changes and lack of change are striking.
If you stop by Porter’s on Main on a Friday or Saturday night, you’ll likely find every seat taken in front of the well-stocked bar. Besides wine and beer, the drink menu offers signature cocktails, thoughtfully conceived mocktails, seasonal warmers and martinis.
Whiskey and bourbon lovers can indulge themselves with 27 choices, all of which are available as flights paired with water or rocks, 1.5- and 3-ounce pours or as an old fashioned. “I’m good at the overall concept but Karen and Olivia are better with the details that bring it to life,” Ward says. “My vision was for upscale dining with a bar that had a hip, cool atmosphere with Rat-Pack-era music playing in the background.”
Sera Petras Photography
Besides wine and beer, the drink menu offers signature cocktails, thoughtfully conceived mocktails, seasonal warmers and martinis.
His original intent had been to make Porter’s a steakhouse, but Ward backed off that idea. Even so, his three best-selling entrées are filet mignon, a 24-ounce ribeye and slow-braised beef short ribs, incidentally, his personal favorite.
But the menu, which changes every two to three months, also has weekly specials, a vegetarian option and something for fish, chicken and pork lovers. Starters, salads and soups round out the menu. “We serve generous portions here,” he says. “We don’t want any of our guests paying a premium and leaving hungry.”
While Olivia’s and Scoot’s had been solely Ward’s projects, when he decided to open Porter’s on Main, he was determined to make it a team effort. His first task was finding an outstanding chef to take the reins of the kitchen. Of the 10 strongest resumes Ward received, he found just what he was looking for in Executive Chef Josh Hutter, who’d worked at restaurants in D.C., Charlottesville and Williamsburg.
Interestingly enough, Hutter had family in Gloucester and had once worked for three months at Olivia’s when he was between jobs. “I look at Josh as more of a partner than an employee and gave him full control of the kitchen,” Ward says.
Sera Petras Photography
Close to three-quarters of Porters on Main’s clientele are local, with a healthy number of Richmonders on their way to the Northern Neck sprinkled in. “We’re set up well to give them the quality they’re used to in Richmond,” Ward says. “For people in Williamsburg and Yorktown who want to get out of the area, we can provide a special night out. It’s neat when people come in because they’ve heard great things about us.”
Ward feels the same way when local hotels and B&Bs send him business or when customers buy gift cards to give to friends and family. “It’s such a compliment,” he says. “It’s an effort by someone else to say, ‘hey, you really need to try this place.’ Our job is to send those customers home happy.”
And that’s exactly what’s happening any given Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday evening at Porter’s on Main. Ward admits that it’s a different animal than his other two restaurants, but like the others, he’s creating jobs in the community. “Olivia’s and Scoot’s are what support our family,” he says. “This was a different approach, where it’s just fun to serve our community.”
Sera Petras Photography
Sera Petras Photography
Thanks to Ward, Gloucester has Olivia’s, a family-oriented eatery open seven days a week with an extensive menu, plus beer and wine. Scoot’s barbecue has a casual vibe and serves up southern comfort food. And now Porter’s on Main closes the gap by offering upscale food and cocktails in a refined environment. Each bears Ward’s stamp and contributes to a more vibrant Gloucester. It would make sense then to presume that his restaurant saga is complete.
But Ward is the first to admit that restaurants are in his blood. So, what’s next for a man with three successful, very different restaurant concepts in one small town? “I’d like to help people like younger me by getting involved with consulting, advising and the financial side of starting a restaurant,” he says. “That would give me the rush of coming up with a concept, creating and opening a restaurant but I wouldn’t have to do the heavy lifting.”
But you sense that he would, if asked, because for Ward, it’s all about community.
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