DOX finds the vibe for Winnisquam diners

TILTON — It didn’t make sense for the Mariano Restaurant Group to expand into the Lakes Region, where the family behind the business came for vacation. They already had three storefronts, all centered around the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border. 

That was the counter-argument, and Jill Schrader, part of the Mariano family, wasn’t persuaded. She had a vision, and when the location at 927 Laconia Road became available, she was able to bring the rest of her family around to the idea.

Mariano Restaurant Group signed the lease on the property in January, spent six months renovating, and opened DOX on Winnisquam on July 12.

Schrader’s family was right to place faith in her vision, because the summer, she said, was, “Great, very busy right off the bat. It’s been a warm welcome from the community for sure.”

Mariano Restaurant Group started in 2009, when the family opened its first eatery in Townsend, Massachusetts. Schrader said her parents both worked in the real estate industry, and after the market crashed in 2008, they realized they needed to find a better way to support themselves. Since then, they have opened restaurants in Pepperell, Massachusetts, and in Brookline, New Hampshire.

Each of the restaurants provide a different experience — one’s a scratch-Italian kitchen, another a bar and grill, the third serves barbecue — and DOX continues the trend, serving what Schrader called creative American cuisine and cocktails, designed to suit the dockside vibe. And, yes, the Lake Winnisquam-side restaurant is accessible by boat.

Schrader said she did a lot of market research, and found much American food on offer in the Lakes Region, but that there was room for a restaurant that was “a little bit different.” She poached chef Leo Leblanc from the family’s barbecue joint, and the two of them put together a menu with “something for everyone.”

Their experience this summer has proven there’s an appetite for something out of the ordinary.

The top seller on the menu each day is the smash burger, made with a mix of beef cuts that includes brisket and short rib. Their steak and cheese rangoons, which are like crab rangoons but filled with shaved steak, peppers, onions and cheese, likely would be a top seller, but the kitchen can’t make them fast enough to keep up with demand.

There are a few sleeper items on the menu, Schrader said, dishes she thinks will be new favorites when she can talk diners into ordering them. Those include the short rib entree, with a rib that is seared before it is braised for two hours in a red-wine demiglace, and served with Craisins on top. Another is the cheeseburger nachos, which have ground beef, pickles and a house-made thousand island dressing.

The salmon dish that was on the summer menu shows what DOX is trying to do. It’s grilled piece fish, served over rice with a small salad. What makes it a bit different is a fresh salsa, made with strawberries and basil, served on top.

As strawberries are already getting harder to find, the item will be replaced by a blackened salmon with a blackberry sauce on the fall menu. Other items on the horizon for the coming season include a bruschetta flatbread; a harvest flatbread with squash, sage and green apples; blackened pork chop with apple chutney; and fall-friendly soups.

Lobster rolls will stay on the menu year-round, Schrader said.

The menu was created to accommodate gluten-free diners, she said. Most dishes are either gluten-free or can be made such, and they have two fryers so that there’s no concern about cross-contamination.

Before anything could be served, the space had to be given a significant renovation. All of the interior and exterior walls were left in place, but much work was done between those walls. There’s new floors, the ceiling was raised 4 feet, the bar was relocated so it could seat more people and provide a view of the water, and overhead doors were installed behind the bar to blur the line between inside and outside. More televisions are on order, with football in mind, and Schrader plans to make one of the dining rooms available for private functions.

Despite the renovations, DOX has kept a few links to the chain of history. There are a couple of aerial photos still on display, inherited from previous restaurants in the space. There’s even a cocktail, “Dox lLoves Peg,” which is named in honor of an iconic bit of graffiti on the underside of the Mosquito Bridge.

Perhaps because of these nods to local culture, Schrader said the local clientele embraced the newcomers.

“To go to a new area, have everyone be so supportive, it was really overwhelming,” Schrader said, adding DOX might be the first one of Mariano’s concepts to be replicated.

“My vision for DOX is this would be the one that we would repeat on different bodies of water,” she said. “Nothing in the plans right now, but I hope to expand DOX at some point.”