The realization that development has hit the last possible tract of land at the end of an island is like finishing an eight ball at 4am and coming to grips with the fact that there's no more left, no hope of getting any more, nowhere to go, and the sun’s coming up. Montauk, or The End, might just be earning its nickname at last.

One of the most buzzed-about Hamptons openings this summer is actually a re-opening of sorts. A group led by Andrew Chapman, who owns August in the West Village (the group's also rumored to include Jon Bon Jovi, Ronald Perelman and Renee Zellweger -- but you may as well throw in Jimmy Hoffa, the Montauk Monster, and Jackson Pollack) is resurrecting The Blue Parrot in East Hampton. The opening's been set back a few weeks (as just about every restaurant opening since the birth of the Candy Kitchen has been), but when it arrives, the Parrot promises to bring back the "Killer Mexican" still touted on the wooded sign out front, even though the place has been empty since 2006.

It can’t all be sipping Bellinis at Nello with skeletal social X-rays who look like a sprig of frisee will send them straight to the vomitorium. There are some enticing options for red-meat eaters out East, too. Everyone has ideas about what makes a good burger. Here are ours.

The bistro burger at Almond is so good, it should be eliminated from competition. The special sauce cooked into the all-beef patty is likely Bordeaux. Maybe Burgundy. They won’t say.

Maybe you think most of Long Island along the L.I.E. is just a wasteland of Bennigans, Applebees, TGIFridays, Wendys and McDonalds. But how wrong you’d be. Sort of. Every desert has its oases -- also its scantily clad chicken-wing hawkers. So you can pull over for a bite, or floor it until you hit the Starbucks in Manorville the way you usually do. Here are a few places worth a stopover on the drive out east up 495.

What, you’re stopping already? On the ass-(aka LIC-)end of the Queensborough Bridge, Sage American serves up organic eats and sandwiches, and it's just a three-block detour on the way to 495. Try it. When else would you find yourself in Queens?

To paraphrase (okay misappropriate) food critic and author Raymond Sokolov, the Hamptons' East End is a narrow island off the coast of Manhattan devoted to the pursuit of brunch. In New York, the ladies, they lunch; when in the Hamptons, they brunch. Nosh with the best of them at the following BlackBook-approved locales. And check out our full Hamptons listings in restaurants, nightlife, and hotels.

Having inherited the morning-nosh mantle from the diner that occupied this Sag space before it, perennial brunch pick New Paradise Café (despite Durkin and Co.’s protestations that it is no longer a breakfast joint) serves a mean Bloody Mary to wash down the house specialty L.E.O.

While not exactly known as a hotbed of patriotism, the East End has its fair share of Fourth of July fireworks -- except, you know, not exactly on the Fourth. Why pack everything into one weekend when you can stretch the fun until October? Mother nature shows Hamptonites who’s boss by throwing rain, tiny endangered birds, and Andre Balazs at them. Check out our full Hamptons listings in restaurants, nightlife, and hotels, plus vote in Guest of Guest's Hamptons fireworks poll; meanwhile, here's a rundown of Independence Day fireworks displays in the area (in chronological order).