day 1: rollout

The new Stone Church shines; the new Stone Church glows.

Early evening light falls through the tall windows and glimmers on the copper bar, it sparkles in the multicolored liquor bottles shelved against the glass, it dances out across the bright white plates and settles into the warm, worn wood.

That never happened in the old Church.

It's been a little over eight hours since the health inspector gave new owners Peter Hamelin, John Pasquale and Paul Nessel the thumbs up, and less time than that since they officially got their license to sell liquor. And it's been hardly any time at all since John drove back from Concord with enough colorful bottles to stock a whole bar.

And now there are 50 people having dinner at the Stone Church. They're having fried chicken and meatloaf and salmon, red bean cakes and salads and pork chops; they're drinking gin and beer and rum-and-cokes. Chris O'Neill is playing guitar onstage, and everybody seems happy. More than that, everything seems right.

It's Tuesday, Aug. 3, two days before the official opening, three days before their inaugural show. It's a soft opening, mainly to test the restaurant, which has only just lurched into life. We came ready to offer blunt criticism, to help the new proprietors work out the bugs; instead, the food is delicious and the atmosphere sublime.

The salmon glitters as though gem-encrusted, ridden up on a bed of crispy sweet potato grass as if resting after some happy journey. It's sweet and tender and salty, and the zucchini and pesto that adorn the plate complement flavor and color. The presentation is killer. Nearby, fat, buttery pork chop medallions float atop mashed potato clouds on a wide, elegant plate.

The Public Supper, which is the restaurant aspect of the new Church, is built on the idea of a New England church supper, polished up a little. As such, the dishes seem pretty straightforward-chicken pot pie, and chowder-but are unexpectedly fantastic, and all under $15.

When I corner John and tell him that the food is much more than I expected-as in, more better-he glances around, like someone slightly uncomfortable with their good luck, and concedes that it might be more than they expected, too.

Not that anyone ever doubted chef Derek Sarno, formerly of the 100 Club-it's just that, who'd expect that in the process of re-opening a music club, you'd end up with a destination restaurant to boot?

-Dave Karlotski

day 2: converted

My brother and I had planned to spend his last night in town hanging out over a few beers in the apartment we'd been sharing. If anyone had told me we'd wind up at the Stone Church, unofficially christening the club's new sound system, I would have laughed them straight out of the room. Between the regular parking nightmares the club caused and its long-held stigma as a hippie redoubt, my brother and I had a reflexive aversion toward the place. Even though it was just steps from our door, John and I could count on one hand the total number of times we'd been there.

It all started with a tip from our downstairs neighbor, who had gone over to take a peek inside and found that the bar was serving, a day before the official grand opening. The idea was amusing enough-John and I spending a few of those last hours in a place we'd been shunning for years-that we decided to head over for a drink. Besides, if all the talk of extensive renovations was true, the place might actually have redeemed itself.

Entering the club, literally agape at its transformation (there was glass in the windows!), we were greeted by the Stone Church's new impresario, booking agent Jon Nolan. Giving us a quick tour of the musician-friendly green room and the soon-to-be-renovated second floor, he mentioned that they were about to test the sound system and we ought to sit in for a while. There are probably only a handful of people who could get me to perform unrehearsed in a roomful of strangers, but Nolan, with his laid-back big-brotherliness, is one of them.

The next thing I knew, the four of us-me on bass, John on drums, Nolan on acoustic guitar, and another guitarist-were making our way through the Say ZuZu song "Pennsylvania," Nolan calling out chord changes to me between verses. When the song was over and people-many clearly familiar with the song-were clapping, I looked at my brother and thought to myself, holy shit, I'm actually having fun.

The fun morphed into something like horror, though, when Jon passed the guitar to me, asking me if I'd play some of my songs. Jon and I switched places. He took the bass, I grabbed a stool, and we hobbled through two or three of my tunes. I can't say they were as well received as the Say ZuZu songs, but the audience was polite and I was elated for just having played them.

We switched up a third time. I retired to the bar and former Say ZuZu bassist John Pistey joined the others. A nostalgic set of Say ZuZu songs followed before Pistey and the electric guitarist stepped down. I wound up back onstage, this time manning the bass, playing my brother's songs, with him on guitar and a psyched Nolan behind the kit.

Without question, though, the highlight of the night came toward the end, when Nolan roused Church co-owner Peter Hamelin from behind the bar and onto the stage. Sheepishly, in his bartender's apron, Hamelin just picked out some notes at first, but gained confidence with every measure, his awareness of an audience slowly disappearing until the climactic moment when he broke into a stadium-style bass solo. The audience burst into applause. My brother and Nolan, smiling and shrugging at each other, played on.

-Chris Greiner

day 3: crescendo

One beer, two beer. Three beer. Four.

The ex-president of the Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce is behind the bar slinging beers as fast as he can, but the crowd piles deeper and deeper around him.

This is the first official night of the new Church, food and drink and music all in place for a scheduled jam session. The doors are open.

The floor is packed, more than a hundred people plus drinks and music equipment scattered everywhere. Twenty people wait in line outside the door.

It's almost 10 when the first "band" takes the stage, a sweet mix of voice guitar and drums, a blend of Jon Nolan, former Say Zuzu bandmate Cliff Murphy, Drew Wyman of Thanks to Gravity, Jamie Perkins on drums and others.

If the first sleeper hit of The Stone Church is the food, the second is Nolan, the world's greatest emcee. He's as comfortable picking up a guitar to help out as he is telling pirate jokes.

Even for the Seacoast, the ratio of musicians to muggles here is high. The room is dotted with members of Starch, The Screen, The Whatnot, the Mill City Ramblers, Harvey Reid and Joyce Andersen, Dan Blakeslee and Bob Lord and Rick Habib. Chris O'Neill has been playing dinner music all week, but tonight, he's got a microphone and camera crew set up for his documentary of the Church.

At the back of the room is Kenny, a Church regular from the old days, and other Newmarket people, but the crowd is being pulled in from all over-there are a lot of familiar Portsmouth and Dover faces.

The music careens onward through the night, and the crowd revels. The night is a smashing success.

People start restaurants and bars all the time. Every one of them is someone's dream. This place, though, is even more than that.

Peter, John and Paul are all smart guys. They could make money some other way, if all they wanted was a successful business.

Instead, they've chosen to go into the business of building community, of jumpstarting tradition and pumping new music into the veins of the scene, of making the meeting house on the hill truly that.

If more people made choices like that, we would live in a different world.

It's 2:30 when Hamelin rounds the corner from the back room into the bar area. He pauses for the first time all night, and looks around. The bar's been closed for ages, but Truffle is still playing, and people are dancing. His friend Sky, he sees, is just busting out, just dancing his head off. Cool, he thinks to himself. This is why we did this.

- Karen Marzloff