About Town: Chef David to open his own restaurant on island

When David Young grew up on Hilton Head Island, the Marshland Road area was home to fields of corn, watermelon and other crops.

It's now home to a host of housing developments.

Soon, it also will be home to a restaurant in which Young plans to serve the Lowcountry dishes of his youth with a modern, health-conscious touch.

Young, 38, is leaving the Sea Shack, a Hilton Head Island institution, to strike out on his own. He plans to open Chef David's Roastfish and Cornbread at 70 Marshland Road on Thanksgiving Day.

The menu will include organic meat, roasted and grilled fish, all the fixin's and desserts such as sweet potato cheesecake.

Young said his grandfather taught him to raise chickens and grow sweet potatoes, watermelon, squash, tomatoes, cucumbers, corn and cantaloupes. His great-grandmother, whom he characterized as an "old Gullah lady," taught him to cook.

"This really kind of sprung from my family's heritage," he said. "I took the old ways and put a new twist on them."

He started working on a barge from Broad Creek Marina to Daufuskie Island as a teen before higher pay lured him to restaurants' kitchens. Young has learned a variety of cooking styles during a career that took him to Wisconsin for 13 years.

He knew he wanted his own place when he graduated from culinary school in 1999, but he thought it might take 15 to 20 years to save the money.

He beat that estimate with some diligent saving and the guidance of a Sea Shack customer who offered to help him.

He knew he had found the right spot in June when he saw the former Azteca Mexican restaurant situated on a large lot beneath towering oak trees.

He plans to serve beer and wine and also envisions festivals, cooking classes, internships, a garden and outdoor seating, and stoves for exhibition-style cooking.

He said his forebears would be proud.

"I've found my own niche," he said.

OTHER BUSINESSES

Other recent business openings, closings and changes in the area:

• Ryan and Leah McCarthy, who bought Monster Pizza in Bluffton earlier this year, plan to open an Okatie location.

The new location will serve pasta, as well as their signature, 30-inch pizzas, an expanded menu of desserts and beer and wine. It will also expand the McCarthys' delivery territory from Moss Creek to the area near the University of South Carolina Beaufort's South Campus, Leah said.

The McCarthys are renovating an 80-seat restaurant with an outdoor patio at Suite 105 of 30 William Pope Drive, behind the Hampton Inn & Suites and near the back gate to Sun City Hilton Head.

They plan to open the new location Thanksgiving week, Leah said.

WHAT IS ABOUT TOWN?

As you drive around southern Beaufort County, you notice a sign for a new shop, new construction or road work. Or you realize that an old store you once frequented has gone out of business. About Town answers the question, "What's going on here?"

If you have information about something that has changed the local landscape or if you wonder about one of those changes and would like us to tell you more about it, contact reporter Josh McCann at jmccann@islandpacket.com or 843-706-8145.