Junk Removal in Bluffton, SC

BLUFFTON — When General Sherman’s troops burned down the Beaufort County Courthouse, from the ashes arose ghosts. Among them are roughly 1.3 miles of roads with no clear owner.

Today, those passages are known around town as “ghost roads.” Ansley Hester Manuel does not like the term. She feels a more accurate name would be orphan roads, due to the fact that families like hers’ have been fostering these throughfares, some for a century or more.

Because she considers the two title-less roads that butt up against her property an important buffer, Manuel has refused to sign a quitclaim the town sent back in 2019.

But town officials say they need to legally acquire the roads in order to complete a sewer extension project, which is vital to protecting the health of the May River.

Hilton Head

Including Manual, approximately 20 residents have refused to surrender any claims they believe they may have over the roads. Officials are going to send them each one final notice. If they still refuse, town council has voted 4-1 in favor of filing legal paperwork claiming ownership of the roads.

If residents challenge the claim, it will go to trial. If a judge rules in favor of the homeowners, the town will pursue eminent domain.

Heyward Cove

Manuel lives on Heyward Cove. The property, which her grandparents purchased back in the 1960s, touches two ghost roads — Pritchard Street and Cove Road.

Pritchard is a dirt road right across from town hall, sparsely lined with old homes. Like Manuel, most of the people who live down this part of Pritchard arrived in Bluffton long before the population boom.

From 1999 to 2005, the town ballooned from a single square mile to over 50 square miles, due to large parcels of soon-to-be developed land annexing in. Since then, the population has grown from 3,300 people to more than 32,000.

Although Pritchard Street is not heavily trafficked, Manuel regularly sees people driving or walking by. Some go to St. John’s Baptist Church, a weathered white building significantly smaller than most of the homes on the street. It has a tiled baptismal pool in back, large enough to submerge a grown man.

Others take the road down to Pritchard Park, which has three benches overlooking the May River. Within the last year, the town laid down pavers, creating a path leading visitors to the pocket park.

Manuel and her neighbors have nicknamed it Pot Park because outsiders regularly come to take in the view while getting stoned.

When Manuel was a kid, she could stand on the spot where the park now is, look out over the river and see trees.

Today, when she looks across the river, she sees Palmetto Bluff, one of the first and largest planned unit developments to annex into Bluffton. The development is often used as an event venue. It’s where Justin and Hailey Bieber tied the knot, back in 2019.

When the breeze is blowing in the right direction, the sound of music and celebratory voices are carried across the river. But the real noise pollution, Manuel explained, comes from the once-quiet town. She and her neighbors feel like Old Town Bluffton has been reduced to an entertainment venue.

The small strip of land that runs alongside Manuel’s property, Cove Road, is much different than Pritchard Street. It dead ends into a patch of vegetation, including fully matured trees, before leading into the cove.

The first portion of Cove Road is free of vegetation due to the fact that Manuel and her family have been parking their cars there since the 1960s. Manuel also mulches the road with pine straw and yard debris to keep the growth down.

Hilton Head

Although the road falls outside her property line and she has never paid taxes on it, she has never seen anyone, apart from her family, use it.

She sees the ghost roads as buffers, shielding her and her neighbors from what she refers to as the Disneying-up of Bluffton.

“You can’t regulate eccentric. When you try and regulate and overmarket that, it loses its eccentricity,” she explained.

Although town officials assured her they only want the roads for utility access, she fears that if she signs over her rights, there is no telling what future town councils might do. They could pave the roads, encouraging visitors to come to her yard, or they could build another pocket park.

The other side of the cove

Catherine Harrison lives on the other side of Heyward Cove.

Her family has owned property in Bluffton for nearly a century. Her father was childhood friends with Thomas G. Heyward, for whom the bridge spanning the cove was named. Both families used Bluffton as a summer retreat, drawn to the cool breezes coming off the May.

The river has been a constant presence in Harrison’s life. She said, if she is holding up sewer conversion, she would gladly sign a utility easement. But she is not willing to sign over her rights to the ghost road that touches her property. Like Manuel, she is afraid of what future town councils might do to change the road.

The ghost road in question is Water Street, which touches the properties of both Harrison and Joanie Heyward, Thomas G. Heyward’s widow. Part of Water belongs to the town and is paved. But there is a small unpaved section at the entrance to Harrison’s home, which has no clear right of way. It dead ends into Harrison’s property and, beyond that, the cove.

“The road is a source of peace and quiet for me. And for Catherine, it’s a source of entry into her home,” said Joanie Heyward.

People often drive down Water and, when they see it’s a dead end, turn around. In the process, some have crashed into Harrison’s brick fence, which she has had to repair several times.

She has put up “no trespassing” and “dead end” signs.

She has also filled potholes. While the town has advised her on the proper materials to use, the government did not share in the cost.

Harrison looks back fondly on Bluffton before the development boom. She remembers a town in which fences were left waist high, so neighbors could admire each other’s gardens, or stop to chat.

Hilton Head

As the town grew, one of her neighbors had to raise the fence, which borders Wright Family Park. Harrison said, during the day, there was the constant sound of screaming children and, at night, the park was overtaken by people who used it as a drinking spot. They would get rowdy and throw trash into her neighbor’s yard.

“What you’re seeing now, and have been over the last decade, is a big disconnect between the town and the residents, and what they want,” Harrison said.

By residents, she means the people who called Bluffton home long before all the growth began.

Protecting the town’s most treasured resources

But the members of town council are also longtime Blufftonians. Council member Bridgette Frazier can trace her family’s roots in Bluffton back to the slave trade.

She feels strongly that extending sewer will help in the fight to save the May. In 2009, the Department of Health and Environmental Control shut down a portion of the river to shellfish harvesting due to potentially harmful levels of fecal coliform bacteria.

In order to help pinpoint the source of the contaminate, town staff regularly conduct squish and sniff tests. They go out after heavy rainfall, squish the ground and sniff for human waste, which they suspect is leaching out of septic systems and being washed into the river by stormwater runoff.

“It’s not fun work. Everything you think it is, it’s that gross and more,” said Kimberly Washok-Jones, director of projects and watershed resilience.

Based in part on data from Washok-Jones’ team, the May River Watershed Action Plan Advisory Committee has recommended that all septic systems throughout the watershed be eliminated. In 2017, the town adopted the Sewer Connection and Extension Policy.

The policy prioritized a 500-foot buffer along the May River and its coves. The top priority was to get every home inside the buffer onto sanitary sewer as soon as possible. The project is funded by both stormwater management fees and federal grants.

The town is not charging residents anything to connect to sewer.

The project was broken up into six phases. Work has already been completed on phase one. Phases two and three are under contract and construction is set to begin later this year.

But phases four through six are stalled due to the dispute over the ghost roads.

To move ahead, Frazier voted in favor of laying claim to the ghost roads. As a member of the Gullah Geechee community, she pointed out that a lot of Gullah fisherman, shrimpers and oyster pickers depend on the river for their livelihood.

If the resource were lost, she said, it would be devastating for the local Gullah Geechee population.

Hilton Head

Council member Fred Hamilton is also a lifelong Blufftonian. He was the one dissenting vote.

“I’m not in agreement with taking something that’s not mine,” he said.

In Bluttton’s Old Town Masterplan, which was drafted in 2006 with input from residents, it was recommended that the town acquire these roads, to avoid problems down the line.

The masterplan also singled out the eccentric, friendly nature of the community and the health of the May River as the town’s most treasured resources.

Today, those two resources appear to be at odds, as longtime residents fight to protect what they see as the last remaining pocket where old town charm still reigns, while town officials argue those residents are putting the health of the May River in jeopardy.

As the south end of Hilton Head Island gets more crowded, one local restaurateur is looking for some elbow room.

Kenny B’s French Quarter Cafe will be moving across the bridge to Bluffton at the beginning of next year.

Chef Ken Ballard, owner of Kenny B’s, said renovations are already under way at a location in Bridge Center, across U.S. 278 from Moss Creek. The building was the former home of Thai Smile Cuisine, which recently made the opposite move to Hilton Head.

Kenny B’s has served locals and tourists Cajun and Creole dishes at its current location, 70 Pope Ave. Suite A, for about 26 years.

“It was a great location,” Ballard said. “I have no regrets down here.”

Still though, the building has its limits.

“We are lined out the door now,” Ballard explained.

“I’ve lived in Bluffon about 15 years, and I wanted a bigger spot and a newer spot.”

The new restaurant won’t have outside seating, but it will have more room for tables indoors.

The Bluffton location also will make it possible to add delivery through services like Uber Eats and Door Dash and will make picking up takeout orders easier for customers.

Nothing on the menu will change in the move, and Ballard said the island restaurant will still offer its traditional Thanksgiving takeout service this year.

The new restaurant will be set up in a similar way to the old one, with customers placing orders at a counter.

What will change is some of the decor. The Hilton Head location has high ceilings and a large mural of a New Orleans scene.

“We are known for our big mural,” Ballard said. “That’s what I’ll miss. I’ll miss the tall ceilings.”

Still, in the new restaurant, Ballard is re-creating a bulldog-themed section to cater to its loyal University of Georgia fans, and there will be a New Orleans Saints-themed section as well.

The Hilton Head location will be open until the end of the year, and the Bluffton location will open as soon as possible after that.

Said Ballard: “We’ll definitely be open by Mardi Gras.”

What: Kenny B’s French Quarter Cafe

Where: 70 Pope Ave. Suite A, Hilton Head

Hours: Breakfast 8:30-11 a.m., lunch 12:30-3 p.m. and dinner 4:30-8 p.m.

Phone: 843-785-3315

Website: eatatkennybs.com

This story was originally published May 25, 2023, 11:52 AM.

BLUFFTON, S.C. (WTOC) - The Lowcountry is home to many flavors of cuisine, from local Gullah Geechee cooking to modern fusion restaurants.

Those flavors continue to expand as the area grows.

Many of those who have tried Chef Bernards’s food say it will take you on a cultural journey. He started in a food truck to now owning a full-blown restaurant.

“The whole journey started through the pandemic, I thought I had got my dream job in Chicago but the whole world shut down, it had me really contemplate what to do next.”

And the decision led him to South Carolina to be with family.

“So you know I made up my mind to come down to Bluffton, then I knew that this was a project that I definitely gonna do.”

During that time, he says he felt the need to expand people’s taste buds, so he started a food truck.

“I’m using my vision of the origin of our foods in my opinion from West Africa through the Caribbean to America.”

But he soon realized he wanted to bring something bigger than a truck to the community.

“Nobody is doing this flavor palette; I want to be bold I want to tell a story I want to showcase the love I have for cuisine. We are very passionate about what we are doing in bringing in a level of complexity and love to what we do. I think that there needs to be more places like that in Bluffton.”

And that is why a new restaurant he co-owns and cooks for is open for business in downtown Bluffton.

“Okan means heart in soul in the language of Yoruba. Yoruba is the first language of West Africa so I thought while I am trying to represent our roots and pathways of the forced migration, we should use a language that was spoken then.”

But he says he hopes the food talks for itself once people get a taste.

”Jollof rice you can’t have west African representation without Jollof rice and many other things cashew curry. Cashew curry has been one of our biggest hits.”

”Everything is done through food, so I am definitely trying to teach people a little bit of a history lesson. Rice was the cash crop rice if it hadn’t been for forced migration maybe rice wouldn’t be in this country. Different things like that. Just showcasing those little nuggets is my goal. Now, if you learn fantastic, if you don’t you had a fantastic meal so it works either way.”

Chef Bernard says that the restaurant will be open Wednesday through Sunday.

For more information visit their website here.

Copyright 2023 WTOC. All rights reserved.

If you think the Bluffton bakery Cupcakes 2 Cakes looks charming enough to be in a Lifetime movie, you wouldn’t be alone. It seems a Lifetime film crew agrees.

The bakery, located in Berkeley Place near Cinemark Theater off Buckwalter Parkway, was used as a filming location earlier this year for an upcoming television romance titled “The Royal Bake Off.”

Here’s the plot synopsis from IMDB.com: “The rivalries of bakers Allie and Marily intensify when the royal prince of Samavia rolls into town looking for a royal baker. When Allie and the prince hit it off, it seems he might be in the market for more than just a terrific cake.”

While the release date for the movie hasn’t been announced, the owners of the Bluffton bakery are launching some romantic ideas of their own in the meantime, shifting the focus of their business from primarily a custom-order bakery to a dessert bar.

“Custom orders were great, but I wanted to increase the foot traffic coming into the building,” explained Erica Ashby of Okatie, who operates the business with her mother, Linda Ashby, and daughter, Kaiya Medrano.

“We’ve expanded our lines. We’ve expanded our hours,” Erica said.

Cupcakes 2 Cakes started as a home-based business then moved into a Berkeley Place storefront in late 2021. The bakery shut its doors temporarily in July before reopening Aug. 1 with a refreshed purpose.

“We made the decision to shut down and rebrand,” Erica said, “partly because I wanted to change the aesthetic and the feel of the business, and I wanted to change kind of the direction in which we were going.”

Now, Cupcakes 2 Cakes offers at least 13 flavors of cupcakes on any given day. Customers also can choose from 10 or so different pastries or order cake slices and even Jack Frost ice cream.

“Of course, we still have our decorated sugar cookies and then our gourmet cookies,” Erica said.

Everything is done in small batches, she explained.

“We don’t use a lot of dyes. We don’t use extracts and emulsions. We use natural flavorings for our cupcakes. ... We put out our pastries, and when we are sold out, we are sold out for the day,” she said. “We don’t keep anything in the freezer.”

The trio of bakers hasn’t stopped creating extravagant celebration cakes for birthdays, anniversaries and weddings, and they use an edible ink printer to create logo cookies for corporate events.

New to the menu, though, is an expanded lineup of drinks.

“We do more coffee, more tea, more funky drinks like our cotton candy lemonade, our Shirley Temple floats, our bourbon coffee.” The bourbon coffee is non-alcoholic; it uses coffee beans aged in whiskey barrels from The Grind Roasters.

Cupcakes 2 Cakes has started opening in the evenings on Fridays and Saturdays and soon will add a menu of special dessert and drink pairings available during that time.

“After the movies, couples, singles, family members, if they’re looking for something to do after dinner, after the movies, they can come in and grab a mocktail that we will set up to pair with a specific dessert so that it’ll be a type of an experience.”

Customers can expect the evening hours will feature the same creativity evident in the current cupcake menu.

“We try to do out-of-the-box flavors,” Erica said, listing habenero peach, elote street corn, or chicken and waffles among some recent offerings.

“We tend to do kind of a crazy flavor each week, and people love us for our creativity,” she said. Holidays are particularly fun because the bakers like to take a theme and run with it.

Right now, they are learning all they can about beverage pairings.

“We’ve been hiring mixologists and baristas, and we’ve been attending classes just to get a better understanding of the chemistry and everything that’s involved with actually making drinks,” Erica said. “We want to do something that’s the show, fancy cocktails, smoked cocktails ... creative stuff.”

What: Cupcakes 2 Cakes

Where: 108 Buckwalter Parkway, Suite 2C, Bluffton

Hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday; 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; closed Sunday and Monday.

Phone: 843-415-5678

Website: cupcakes2cakes.com

This story was originally published August 17, 2023, 4:00 AM.

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One of Hilton Head Island’s better Italian restaurants is expanding to Bluffton. But before you run out to try to make a reservation for your next event, this new spot isn’t what you think.

After a decade plus of making the island crowd happy, Pomodori Italian Eatery, widely regarded as one of the Hilton Head’s best and most consistent restaurants, is opening a smaller outlet in Old Town Bluffton. We feel like outlet is the proper term to use here. The reason why is because the new Pomodori will be largely take out and to go meals.

“We will probably have a few tables outside. On the porch or in the courtyard so people could eat there, but the whole point is to offer our food to take home.” is how Amanda Cifaldi, Pomodori’s owner put it.

“Our interior space is very small.” she adds. “After we are done re-working the kitchen it might be even smaller.”

The space she is referring to is at 1253 May River Road in Old Town. The cottage has been a couple of different things over the last few years. Most recently it was home to Underground Burritos.

“There are so many homes in the area. So many moms who run their kids around after school. We just want to be able to offer them some of our food to take home and enjoy.” she says

What it ultimately look like is anyone’s guess right now. The day we caught up with Amanda, she was sitting in her space taking notes.

“I’m just sitting here in Bluffton thinking of cool ideas.” she said at the time.

If you know anything about Amanda and how she runs a restaurant, then you know a few things. This new space will be convenient, it will be fun and yes, it will be delicious.

The work in progress includes the menu. The guess here is staples like their house made gnocchi, piccatas and marsalas are going to transition nicely. I’m sure there will be more than that. What exactly? We’ll have to wait and see.

As we publish this in mid-June the target open date is mid-August. Just in time for the back to school crowd. We will keep you posted.

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