By whatever name you knew it, a longtime Beaufort food fixture is no more

The excavator that devoured the most unassuming of Beaufort landmarks stood taller than the building Monday.

A variety of restaurants have satisfied the customers who walked off of West Street throughout the 60 years since the building was erected downtown. People came for grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches, burgers, chili dogs, shrimp baskets and cold beer.

Most recently, patrons played cornhole tournaments and listened to live music at Nippy’s Fish. But the longtime, downtown fixture had not served food in years when it was torn down Monday.

“To this day, I can’t go in a grocery store without people asking ‘Why aren’t you opening another Nippy’s?’” owner Diana Deaner said Monday.

A construction crew demolished the building, piling the guts in a Mack truck to be hauled away. Developer Dick Stewart, whose company owns the property a couple blocks off Bay Street, said the site is being evaluated for future use.

For now, the most likely option is hotel rooms with multiple levels of parking for guests, other cottages of the nearby Beaufort Inn and associated businesses, he said. That would be a change from earlier plans for a nearly 500-space parking garage.

The building wasn’t considered integral to the city’s historic district, with hollow concrete blocks covered with stucco forming its walls. The city’s historic review panel voted unanimously to allow its demolition in 2016, with one resident speaking up for the building “because it was a good gathering place when it was a restaurant,” meeting minutes said.

Since 1956, the site has served up numerous quick food options, including Pappy’s Hamburger Stand, Bay Towne Grill and, most recently, Nippy’s Fish, which operated five years before closing at the end of 2013.

The building has since been used as a storage and maintenance facility, Stewart said.

The inside was only large enough to prepare food and for a few stools. Covered outdoor seating with fans, live music and cornhole drew passers-by from the sidewalk to spill out into the parking lot tossing bags until well after dark.

Few in the county knew what cornhole was before Nippy’s Thursday night contests drew dozens, Deaner said Monday. She had Pappy’s chili and burger recipes, and longtime Beaufort residents would reminisce about what they once ate there.

Deaner chose local seafood to craft a menu that included shrimp dogs and flounder sandwiches. A sign invited customers to drink cold beer in the parking lot.

“It became our go-to place,” said Dick Rooney, who moved to Beaufort from Annapolis, Maryland, almost nine years ago and ate regularly at Nippy’s for lunch. “It was a nice little meeting place; it was fun; and there was great people there.”

Rooney remembers hearing people walking Bay Street asking where to go for lunch and turning to say “Follow me.” He said he was sad when he first drove by and learned Nippy’s had closed.

Deaner still works in the restaurant business on Fripp Island, but doesn’t run the show. She said she considered other landing spots for Nippy’s, but that the seafood stand under the shadow of an oak tree in downtown Beaufort couldn’t be beat.

“You can have the food and people will come, but it’s not going to be the same without the ambiance of the area,” she said. “...We were unique and different.”

This story was originally published August 6, 2018 at 4:20 PM.