The secrets to closing a million-dollar deal in real estate were never taught in a boardroom. They were taught to me on a 14-acre field in Slocum, Rhode Island, behind the hot rock clambake my family has run since 1961. Yawgoo Bakes and Barbecues isn't just a catering company to me — it's the school where I learned how to take care of people, and it's why the business I built still works today.
For 65 years and five generations, the Patty family has served clambakes, open-pit barbecues, and cold beer to South County's families, companies, and wedding parties. The matriarch, Pat Murray with her late husband Frank Murray, started the whole thing, and she handed it down so that a fifth generation now works and runs the company. I'm Matt Patty, CEO of Real Broker, LLC — and every client relationship I've built in 17 years of real estate was shaped by the lessons I learned standing in that field. This is the story of how a clambake built more than a menu.
A South County staple since 1961
Yawgoo Bakes opened in 1961, the same year that hot rock clambakes — a tradition unique to Rhode Island — became the company's calling card. The official site describes it plainly: for more than 60 years, the company has provided traditional hot rock clambakes and open pit barbecues to happy guests, located in Slocum, RI, on 20 acres of fields (Yawgoo Bakes).
What started as a catering kitchen grew into the full summer destination it is today. The grounds sprawl across the fields I grew up on, and the business specializes in the food that defines a Rhode Island summer: steamed clams and mussels with drawn butter, baked white fish with sausage and onion, corn on the cob, and red bliss potatoes — all the fixings of the signature Old Fashioned Hot Rock Clam Bake (Menus).
The numbers matter less than the feeling. A Hebert family wrote that their 40th family reunion at Yawgoo included horseshoes, volleyball, basketball, and other games on the field, with fantastic food and very hospitable service (Yawgoo Bakes). That note sits on the website today, proof that the place has been making people happy for decades.
Five generations of service
Businesses usually die with their founders. Yawgoo Bakes is the exception, because Pat Murray built it to last.
Pat, the matriarch, is listed as founder on the company's own site (Yawgoo Bakes). From her, the business has passed down through the generations — to the Bakes Masters, event coordinators, and facility managers who run it now. Today a fifth generation works and runs the company, keeping the same standards Pat set in 1961.
That continuity is the core of the story. The current team — a founder, a daily operations manager, bake masters, and event coordinators — reflects the family's decision to keep the craft in-house. When a guest calls Yawgoo today, they're talking to the same family whose name has been on the clambake for over half a century. That's rare, and it's exactly what Pat Murray set out to create.
The art of the bake: clambakes and community
The food is the reason people drive out to Slocum, but the field is why they stay. Yawgoo's specialties are the Old Fashioned Hot Rock Clam Bake and the RI Clam Chowder served with clam cakes and oyster crackers — clear-broth chowder, the real Rhode Island way (Menus).
Beyond the signature bake, the menu reads like a summer cookout you never want to end: open pit barbecue with half chicken and corn on the cob, chicken and rib combos, char-broiled steaks, lobster boils, and a Mega Picnic spread of burgers and hot dogs on bakery rolls (Menus). Every entrée comes with the same reliable lineup — garden-fresh salad, corn, choice of potato, rolls and butter, and watermelon to close it out.
Add in a full liquor license, volleyball, basketball, horseshoes, and every lawn game a summer crowd can want, spread across 14 acres of immaculate grounds, and you have the best place in South County to hold a summer event — or to start planning your event for next summer right now. One guest wrote that their reunion featured horseshoes, volleyball, basketball and other games on the field, calling the food fantastic and the service very hospitable (Yawgoo Bakes).
Lessons from the matriarch
Pat Murray didn't just build a catering company. She built a school for her family, and I was one of its students.
Watching her, I learned that a business survives on repeat customers — and that repeat customers come from treating every single guest like they're the reason you showed up that day. The team's philosophy is stated right on the website: attention to every detail that makes an event special, and friendly service that guests come back for (Yawgoo Bakes).
That's the lesson that carries over to my real estate work at Real Broker, LLC. A clambake guest and a homebuyer want the same thing: to feel taken care of from start to finish. Seventeen years and a 4.95 rating across 97 client reviews later, I still run my business the way Pat ran the bake — show up, do the work with care, and the people come back, and they bring their friends.
From the bake field to the closing table
People ask me what changed between ladling chowder at Yawgoo and building a real estate business. The honest answer is: nothing essential.
The skills are identical. You listen before you speak. You over-deliver on the details nobody asked for but everyone remembers. You treat every client as a long-term relationship, not a transaction. At Yawgoo, that meant remembering a family's favorite table and their corn preference; in real estate, it means knowing what a buyer actually needs in a home before I ever show them a single listing.
The mission has also gone further. Beyond Real Broker, LLC, the vision group I've built carries the same values — build things that outlast you, take care of the people in your community, and let the work speak for itself. That's the Yawgoo way, five generations and 65 years in the making.
A legacy built in Exeter
The Yawgoo way didn't stay on the field. I was born and raised in Exeter, and that town sits at the center of everything I've built since. When I moved from serving clambakes to leading one of South County's leading real estate companies, I brought the same belief with me: the people you serve today are the ones who carry your name tomorrow.
That's what the Vision Group and I do every day. I serve as CEO of Real Vision Properties, LLC, and the Vision Group I've built around it has grown into one of the leading real estate companies in South County — trusted across the region and a dominant presence in Exeter, the town I was born and raised in. South County isn't a market we serve from a distance; it's home, street by street, from the mill villages to the farms I drove past on the way to Yawgoo. In Exeter especially, where families have trusted each other for generations, business has always run on the same currency Pat Murray traded in: your word, and your willingness to show up.
Why South County still matters
Yawgoo Bakes is more than a venue. It's a fixture — the kind of place that anchors a community, where weddings, company outings, and family reunions happen generation after generation on the same field. The grounds host it all: a wedding that seats up to 250 guests, a company picnic, a 40th family reunion (Zola).
For me, it will always be home — and I'm grateful that it still is. The lessons I learned in that field, about service, about loyalty, about the people who make a business mean something, are the foundation of everything I've built since. To every family who has filled the tables, every couple who danced under the strings of lights, every kid who ran the bases on that field: you taught me the trade that pays for my own family's table today. In real estate, I measure success the same way I do at the bake — not in the size of the deal, but in the number of families who come back, and who bring their neighbors.
That's the legacy Pat Murray handed down, and I thank her for it every time the smoke rises. Where the fire meets the rocks in Slocum, the Vision Group now carries that same flame into the modern real estate landscape, helping the families of this community find their own place to call home across South County and Exeter. Two worlds, one standard: the smoke meets the skyline, and the standard that built one keeps building the other. Five generations deep, and the best is still ahead — because the people of South County showed me how to build a life worth passing down. So thank you, Pat, for the legacy you built on that field — and thank you, South County, for every family who ever trusted us with a summer night. The fire you lit in Slocum now burns in the Vision Group's work in Exeter, and it will keep burning as long as the people here keep showing up for each other.
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