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| c. Kings of Cape Cod |
One of the last true nightclubs that remained from Cape Cod’s Golden Age of the 1970s and 1980s, Pufferbellies’ story began in the waning years of the 19th century as part of the height of the railroad era in the United States.
The 12,000-square-foot brick building which would a century later house a legendary and sometimes infamous club, started its life in 1895 as a railroad roundhouse owned by the Penn Central company. The double-thick brick walls, which were installed to soften the sounds of the old-school railroad engines that would enter the roundhouse, would come in handy when the argument for turning the building into a nightclub came into play.
Penn Central filed for bankruptcy in 1970 with many of its properties on Cape Cod going into limbo. Much of the rail line east of Dennis would eventually become the route for the Cape Cod Rail Trail. The twelve acres of land located between Iyannough Road and Center Street was seen as a prime location for a revitalization of Downtown Hyannis. In the Summer of 1978 Leonard Healy, then-owner of the nearby Velvet Hammer nightclub, had attempted to purchase the land and had his offer rejected. The property went back on the auction block.
It was around this same time that a burgeoning Cape Cod legend was looking for a spot of his own. John Morgan had been supplying locals with countless hours of fun with his ‘John Morgan Happy Hours’ for over a decade by the time of Healy’s failed bid for the former Penn Central property.
Morgan had debuted on the Cape at the Chuck Wagon in Harwich in 1965 when just out of college. He moved on to the Improper Bostonian/Your Father’s Mustache in Dennis Port before leasing the Sandy Pond Club in 1971 for three years and calling it The Groggery at Sandy Pond. Morgan played to crowds dotted all across New England, and these people became devotees.
On Cape Cod, after leaving the Sandy Pond Club he settled in as a regular performer at Dick Doherty’s Crystal Palace in Hyannis where Morgan remained for seven years. Eventually, Morgan had visions of his own nightclub and even offered to buy the Crystal Palace, but Doherty was not ready to sell. So Morgan was on the lookout, which brought him to the former Penn Central property in downtown Hyannis.
In late 1980, Morgan purchased the former railroad roundhouse from the Eldredge and Bourne Moving Company for $100,000 ($385,520 in 2025). In early 1981, he made a pitch for a new nightclub, a place where the younger generation, locals and visitors alike, could congregate. His plan was a 700-seat restaurant and club to be named Pufferbellies, another name for a steam locomotive. The new nightclub was approved and from its opening on May 8, 1981, it became an immediate hit.
“We knew it would be a home run,” Morgan said, “but it turned out to be a Grand Slam.”
The 12,500-square-foot brick roundhouse could hold 1,500 people with a stage, three bars, and even an outdoor volleyball area. Although seen as mainly a nightclub and bar Morgan did receive an outside dining permit in 1983 so that if anybody did choose to eat they had the option of enjoying fresh air.
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| Pufferbellies in 2013(Wikimedia Commons) |
Of course Morgan continued to draw in the crowds to his Happy Hours, so popular were they that special drinks and specials like two-for-one were not necessary to bring in the masses. They came to see John Morgan, sing along with him, and be a part of the crowd. Musical acts from Boston-based The Freeze to nationally known ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic would come down to the Cape to take the stage at Pufferbellies early on. In later years bands like Blue Oyster Cult, Sevendust, and Powerman 5000 would grace the stage. The new nightclub was a hit.
One big reason for the routinely packed Pufferbellies was the advertising campaign. The brainchild of Morgan and local radio DJ Gary Titus. Morgan bought "a thousand ads" to play on popular Cape Cod radio stations 106 WCOD and Cape 104.7 WKPE. Titus put them together, and they hit the airways, making sure that twice an hour, people heard an ad for Pufferbellies. The campaign worked.
Morgan had a staff of one hundred employees at his club dressed in button-down Oxford shirts with his nightclub’s name embroidered on them. This was a stark contrast to some night spots at the time which simply dressed their employees in t-shirts. Morgan’s care and attention to detail paid off.
After five seasons of running Pufferbellies Morgan was getting burned out. For example, Morgan stocked his club with only Budweiser beer. To keep up with demand, Morgan bought an entire tractor trailer worth of beer at a time. That adds up to a staggering 2,300 cases of beer.
“It took a lot of work to have 1,500 people come in for the afternoon,” Morgan said, “and then have to get them out, clean up, and bring in another 1,500 for the night.”
All of this added up to Morgan selling his nightclub in 1986 to Peter and Jeanne White, who owned the Boston Fish House, for $3.1 million($9 million in 2025). He still performed his Happy Hours, but as far as he was concerned, his nightclub-owning days were over.
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| The iconic sign and entrance in 2014(Google Maps) |
Within a few years though, Morgan had bought back his nightclub, however, the place was not the same. Without Morgan at the helm, Pufferbellies had suffered. More than that the times were changing in the late 1980s into the early 1990s.
The liquor liability laws affected business. Harsher drunk-driving penalties made patrons think twice about heading out to clubs. These were a few of the things that led to Morgan shortening the club’s schedule. For the majority of the 1990s, Pufferbellies was only open two days a week, with Morgan saying in 2001 that business was only "a twentieth of what it was in the 1980s." He had wanted to use the brick roundhouse building for other purposes such as conventions, weddings, or other functions, but it never came to be. The changes eating away at the club continued until 2015 Morgan happily sold the property once and for all to the HyLine Ferry for $1.96 million.
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| Pufferbellies' website in 1999.(Archive.org) |
At its peak Pufferbellies was the place to go for fun and entertainment on Cape Cod. Morgan remembered how in the days before cell phones everybody had to make plans to meet out somewhere and there were fewer options, the drinking age was eighteen, plus the large Baby Boomer generation was in their prime.
Now there is an overload of options, the drinking laws are different with the age being twenty-one, and the Baby Boomers are becoming senior citizens. Times have changed but Morgan fondly remarked: “We had a lot of fun.”
Pufferbellies was the last of the giants of the Golden Age to fade away. However, John Morgan didn’t miss it once it was gone. He kept himself busy performing his Happy Hours and drawing in big crowds even as his health began to suffer. Right up until the end, John Morgan remained one of the Kings of Cape Cod.
John Morgan passed away on August 27, 2024, at the age of eighty. He was a major driving force behind what made the Golden Age of Cape Cod nightlife so special.
I’d like to share a few personal John Morgan memories to close out this blog.
When working on the book Cape Cod Nights in 2017 and 2018 I had a dream list of people to interview. At the top of the list was John Morgan. He was friends with my Uncle Bob but I tried not to use that as an in-road. I wanted my book to be reason enough for him to give me some of his time.
I was thrilled by how accommodating he was. Friendly, warm, and very forthcoming with any information I needed to make my Pufferbellies chapter of the book the best it could be. I referred to him either as ‘Sir’ or ‘Mr. Morgan,’ although I think he would have preferred I simply call him John. To me it was showing respect to a man of his stature.
All of the quotes attributed to John Morgan above are from my interview with him in 2018.
I was honored that he came out to the launch of my Cape Cod Nights book. I made sure to acknowledge him to the audience so that he could get the rousing cheers he deserved. This became a fun running gag as my Uncle Bob, seated next to him, would raise his hand several times during my event so that he could again announce that John Morgan was there.
It was through following the Kings of Cape Cod group on Facebook that I learned of John Morgan’s health issues in 2023. He hosted his final legendary Happy Hour on June 12, 2024, at Jake Rooney’s in Harwich. I could not attend, but little did I know that I’d get a special parting gift from the man himself.
I got a message on Facebook from John Morgan on June 8th. He told me that his daughter had played my podcast episode where I recounted the story of Pufferbellies. He told me it was great and thanked me for capturing those memories.
John Morgan thanked me. I responded how thrilled I was that he enjoyed it. I also thanked him again for being a part of my Cape Cod Nights book. I finished it off by thanking him for all of the good times he gave to so many Cape Codders. Yes, I also called him Mr. Morgan again.
His response was a simple ‘crying tears of joy’ emoji. John Morgan passed away only two months after that message. I am so honored that he took the time in his declining health to thank me, me, for capturing memories of the Golden Age. John Morgan created those memories, all I did was write them down.
Thank you, Mr. Morgan, for everything. Cape Cod was a better place for decades because of you.
For those interested a memorial bench has been created in the memory of John Morgan. It is being dedicated on April 26, 2025, at the Hyannis Transportation Center at 209 Iyannough Road in Hyannis. If you are reading this after that date, the bench is there for you to visit.
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| c. Kings of Cape Cod |
