The Hole in the Wall Waterfront Grill on Gwynn’s Island reopened over the weekend after having been closed last Wednesday morning by Mathews County building official Kevin Zoll.

The closure created an uproar among county residents, who took to social media to either condemn or defend the board of supervisors, and it even resulted in protests on Main Street by employees and customers of the restaurant.

Structural defects in the county-owned building were cited as the reason for the closure after Zoll received an engineering report from The Structures Group of Williamsburg shortly before the board of supervisors held its monthly meeting on Tuesday, May 24.

The six-page report, signed by engineer Michael A. Matthews, president and CEO of The Structures Group, and dated May 24, was completed after Matthews made his on-site inspection of the structure on May 11, accompanied by Zoll. In the report, he drew a number of conclusions and offered suggestions for solving the problems wit...