This new gourmet market in Bluffton brings the flavors of New England to the Lowcountry

An outlet mall may seem like a strange place for a grocery store, but the owner of the new Nantucket’s Meat and Fish Market is counting on the location’s proximity to U.S. 278 to attract a steady stream of tourists on the way to Hilton Head.

And, he hopes the gourmet market’s traditional New England offerings will appeal to local transplants as well.

Nantucket’s opened at 1414 Fording Island Road in Tanger Outlets 2 in June. The space previously housed a Nike outlet store.

“We’re an easy place to get to for people on Hilton Head who want to shop and have an experience that is focused more on quality and customer service than what corporate says,” said owner Sean Ready.

The market specializes in high-quality cuts of meat and fresh seafood — it doesn’t get any fresher than the tank of live lobster — but there is also a sizable produce section, a dairy case, frozen and refrigerated items, and aisles of staples and gourmet ingredients.

Nantucket’s sells steaks graded only choice, prime and up. All the meat is hormone- and antibiotic-free. Fish comes from local fishermen or is sent overnight from New England six days a week.

“Everything we carry is really a step above,” Ready said. “It’s not really apples to apples” in comparison with big-box grocery stores.

Convenience is another focus.

“We marinate the chicken for you, or marinate the steak or marinate the seafood, so you can take it home and throw it right on the grill or take it home and throw it right in the oven,” Ready said.

Market specialties

Delicious marinated steak is what brought Kathryn Falco of Bluffton back to Nantucket’s for a second day in a row recently.

The meat was so tender and tasty that she and her husband Neil stopped by the next morning to try one of the made-from-scratch bagels.

“It’s hard to find a bagel that suits a New Yorker,” Neil Falco said. This one passed muster, though, and after their breakfast, the couple planned to pick up ingredients to prepare for company that night.

Ready’s northeastern stores are known for some items that can’t be easily found in the South, such as the marinated steak tips the Falcos enjoyed.

“If you’re in New England or the Northeast or even the Midwest, it’s a popular cut of meat, but down here it’s just not something that anyone sells. So we’re really excited about bringing that product into this community,” Ready said.

Among the other regional specialties are steamer clams, clam chowder made in-house, and New England lobster rolls. Nantucket’s other popular offerings include homemade salmon cakes, crab cakes and shrimp skewers.

Because the market sells only center-cut steaks, the rest of the meat is turned into hamburger.

“When we get a piece of meat in from a meat packer, about a third to a half of it ends up going to hamburger, which makes our hamburger unbelievable because we’ve got these 30-, 40-, 50-dollar steaks going in our hamburger,” Ready said.

The market features a case of prepared foods like side salads and pasta salads. Customers can choose from grab-and-go lunch items or order breakfast and lunch sandwiches or sushi. There’s a small group of tables near the front of the store for those who want to dine in.

The Bluffton market is the business’ third location and the largest of the three at about 13,000 square feet. The others both are in Massachusetts — in Edgartown and on Nantucket. The Bluffton store has about 30 employees.

How did a gourmet shop better known on Martha’s Vineyard end up in the Lowcountry in the first place? Several years ago, Ready said, he and wife Erin came to Hilton Head for a golf vacation and fell in love with the area, so they did what thousands of others have done before them.

Ready explained: “We got a Realtor and started looking for a location.”

If you go

What: Nantucket’s Meat and Fish Market

Where: 1414 Fording Island Road in Tanger Outlets 2 (former Nike store)

Hours: 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily

Website: https://nantucketsmarket.com

Phone: 843-706-2500

Facebook: www.facebook.com/hhimeatandfish

This story was originally published July 2, 2021 at 10:40 AM.

Lisa Wilson

The Island Packet

843-560-9027

Lisa Wilson is senior reporter for The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette covering restaurant and retail business openings and closings along with occasional breaking news. The newsroom veteran has worked for papers in Louisiana and Mississippi and is happy to call the Lowcountry home.