Hole in the Wall Waterfront Grill was granted an emergency injunction in circuit court on Friday, with Judge William H. Shaw III (ret.) ordering the Mathews County Board of Supervisors to immediately allow the Gwynn’s Island restaurant to reopen after it was evicted two weeks earlier for not paying its annual rent on time.
Shaw also set preliminary dates of Sept. 3 for an evidentiary trial on the preliminary injunction and Oct. 23 for a full evidentiary trial on the merits of the case.
Restaurant owner Mac Casale said he’s relieved that the court “saw it our way” and looks forward to “a full hearing on the damages.”
Casale’s employees gathered on the restaurant’s deck on Friday after the decision was handed down and accepted the delivery of food and supplies, placing bags of ice on boxes of frozen food until they could load the food into coolers and, eventually, into the building around 3 p.m.
With staff adopting an all-hands-on-deck approach, the restaurant was able to reopen for lunc...