Seven years after the Aquinnah Shop Restaurant first left Wampanoag hands, the property and business have gone up for sale once again with an asking price of $3.5 million.

According to a real estate listing posted Wednesday, May 31 on LINK, the new owner would be responsible for all new business permits for the historic waterfront restaurant. The real estate broker is Julianna Flanders of Flanders Up-Island Real Estate.

The seasonal restaurant known for its views of the Gay Head Cliffs, historically owned and run by the Vanderhoop and Madison families, was first founded by Napoleon Madison in 1948. In 2016, after a dispute between brothers Matt and David Vanderhoop, the 3.5-acre property went up for sale for the first time in almost 70 years with an asking price of $1.475 million. It sold to its current owner, a real estate trust, for $1.29 million later that year. The beneficial owners of real estate trusts are not public record in Massachusetts.

Matt Vanderhoop had continued to run the restaurant until this summer. It now sits closed, its cliffside patio empty, until a new owner takes over.

“This is the first time the restaurant has been closed in years,” Aquinnah shopkeeper and wampum artisan Berta Welch said.

Ms. Welch’s family has operated Stony Creek Gifts for more than 85 years. She said the restaurant’s closure has hurt other businesses on Aquinnah Circle, all of which depend on the foot traffic the seasonal eatery draws.

“For us shopkeepers it’s a real blow to not have a thriving restaurant in the area,” she said.

The Aquinnah Shop Restaurant is the only business at the cliffs not under a town lease. Its sale could make the restaurant, long considered the centerpiece of the Aquinnah business district, the only business in the area not operated by a member of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah).

“It’s a cultural issue,” Ms. Welch said. “It has been Wampanoag property since the beginning of the Island.”

When the property first went up for sale, members of the community had considered trying to buy the restaurant to no avail. Now, with its price tag more than double the 2016 asking price, Ms. Welch said that tribal members have an even slimmer chance of reclaiming the property.

“No local person would be able to purchase that as a seasonal restaurant,” she said.