Not many longtime neighborhood haunts are lucky sufficient to come back again as shiny, up to date variations of themselves with their hearts nonetheless intact. However Sullivan’s Seafood Restaurant, a 32-year-old family-owned eatery on Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina, lucked out when it landed within the arms of Kate and Ben Towill of Charleston design and hospitality group Fundamental Initiatives after the unique homeowners retired. “We all the time admired its community-minded outlook and unimaginable workers,” Kate says. “Sullivan’s Seafood made everybody—from locals to guests—really feel like regulars, which is unquestionably one thing we try for.” The Towills took over the area in 2020. However the pandemic, provide chain points, and building delays postponed the opening of Sullivan’s Fish Camp till Might of this 12 months. Luckily, all these further months gave them the chance to fine-tune the design and discover the right ending touches.Â
Getting in Shipshape
Kate, who labored as lead designer, renovated and rethemed the family-style seafood restaurant to resemble a Nineteen Seventies sailboat. Since Sullivan’s Fish Camp is close to the seashore, she wished the area to really feel nautical with out going overboard. “Additionally, we wish to have slightly enjoyable,” she mentioned. “We wished individuals to really feel immediately relaxed, joyful, and slightly nostalgic after they walked in!”
Daylight now fills the previously darkish restaurant due to newly put in home windows alongside the sales space wall. Nautical maps of Charleston Harbor beautify the lampshades. Charleston’s RHM Woodworking constructed a retro-inspired pine wooden bar, repeating the wooden paneling within the bogs to provide the impression they’re under deck in a sailboat. And since flooding is a daily incidence on the island, a extra sturdy and period-appropriate checkerboard linoleum flooring changed the unique wooden floors.
All Arms on Deck
Tchotchkes and paintings fill the area and canopy the partitions, all deliberately chosen to focus on Sullivan’s lived-in historical past. Every bit additional reinforces the crusing theme and celebrates the area’s maritime roots whereas selling a way of neighborhood.
Native artisans had been tapped to create customized items. Artist Mickey Williams painted the restaurant’s outdated English pub signal, and Charlestowne Stained Glass Studio crafted the stained-glass billiard lamps. Duane Raver Jr., a legendary illustrator of the unique South Carolina Division of Pure Sources fishing charts, even loaned his illustrations to be copied for the placemats. (He handed away a couple of months earlier than the restaurant’s opening on the age of 94.) “Charleston is filled with inventive individuals from tremendous proficient makers to unimaginable artists,” Kate mentioned. “So we actually leaned on the local people to assist us create customized items within the area.”
Even the earlier homeowners, the Rhodes household, who gave the renovation their full assist, contributed to the restaurant’s ornament. They introduced within the outdated frames for brand spanking new paintings that now cowl the wall and offered an unique Sullivan’s Seafood Restaurant menu signed by all their staff.
Chow Time
As its title suggests, fish camp dishes of fried fish, peel-and-eat shrimp, and oysters dominate the menu alongside high-end bites akin to truffle parmesan fried shrimp and duck fats fried hen. For the bar program, Sullivan’s Fish Camp’s beverage director Jordan Moton wished to enrich the restaurant’s nostalgic vibe. Drawing inspiration from the recognition of tropical blended drinks within the ’70s, Moton created a easy drink menu damaged up into classes of “Rum,” “Not Rum,” and “Frozen.” Frozen choices embrace a Piña Colada, a Paloma, and large-format “Large Gulp” made with rum, pineapple, ardour fruit, and falernum and served in a glass-blown fish bottle.
Anchors Aweigh
Those that’ve fallen in love with Sullivan’s Fish Camp can have the choice to nab souvenirs on the restaurant’s Merch Shack. With a cedar shingle roof, the shack additionally doubles because the host stand and takeout/soft-serve ice cream pick-up window. “It options all of our customized merch, which we felt was vital for a seashore restaurant, particularly with the title Sullivan’s,” mentioned Kate.
However even when one forgoes the memento propeller hats and bottle openers, the brand new homeowners need everybody to go away with fond recollections. “I hope that when individuals come into Sullivan’s, they really feel like they’ve stepped again in time to a cool little fish camp that’s been round for many years,” mentioned Kate. “The best compliments we’ve acquired to date are from locals who cherished the unique restaurant and say that it has the identical groovy feeling.”
