Well-known gas station looks to future — from underneath new flyover

Between the droning whirl of the giant soda dispenser and the construction on the Bluffton Parkway flyover outside, the Kangaroo Express on Fording Island Road in Bluffton is never quiet, despite the decrease in customers over the past year.

During the morning rush hour on a recent Tuesday, lead cashier Bieatha Fripp mops the linoleum entryway. After she tends to the floors, she’ll brew another pot of coffee, add fresh hot dogs to the rollers and refill the nacho machine. Stephanie Navarrette, a trainee who has been working there for two weeks, fills out paperwork behind the counter.

When a customer walks into the tidy convenience store, Fripp is all smiles.

“Good morning, hon,” she says.

“Good morning, sugar,” Dan Monroe says.

Monroe settles on a pack of Tastykake Pecan Swirls for breakfast. He’s become a regular at the store because it’s close to his Hilton Head Island office, and he’s a Kangaroo Express member. Though, those aren’t his only reasons.

“I come here to see her,” he says and nods to Fripp. “She runs a good store.”

Outside, a green dump truck adds to the growing pile of dirt next to a vacant Tiki hut that sits on the same strip of land between U.S. 278 and Fording Island Road Extension. It used to be known as a welcome center up until 2015, when the Bluffton Parkway flyover project started to take shape above and around the property, and it was a prime spot for a farm stand that, for years, sold jumbo shrimp and produce to tourists in the last few minutes of their drive to Hilton Head.

Now, this lot has become obscured by trees, brush and a bulldozer. And the farm stand is no longer there.

Eastbound drivers on U.S. 278 speed past the convenience store. A large, orange barricade obstructs the sign marking the price for regular gas at the BP pumps outside the store. Only the number two can be seen poking out from behind it.

The $45 million Bluffton Parkway flyover project has been criticized by some as a waste of taxpayer money and an eyesore. Many have voiced doubt that it will relieve traffic on busy 278. Some worry the extension, which will funnel Bluffton Parkway drivers onto and off the bridges to Hilton Head, has the potential to cause more vehicle crashes.

For the small but prominently visible convenience store and gas station, along with the vendors who for years have relied on this spot for tourist business, the project has meant a loss of customers but the hope that they will regain what they had once the project is finished.

“We lost a lot of customers,” Fripp says of the past few months she’s returned to work after her maternity leave. “But it’s not as much construction (now) as when they first started.”

A LONGTIME TRADITION

Wesley Campbell’s family has lived on Hilton Head for some 250 years.

His produce stand means everything to him, and, he said, to the residents and tourists who depended on picking up fresh vegetables and seafood right before their arrival on the island and the beginning of their vacations.

“Well, it’s important to me because, actually, I’m a father of 11 kids and 10 grandkids,” he says. “I’ve been there for 62 years myself. I want to keep this like a tradition and keep it going.”

About a year ago, Campbell moved his stand from the Kangaroo Express lot, where it stood for some eight odd years until the construction became too much for him and his customers.

Though they tried to hang on for as long as possible at that spot — even resorting to selling their produce behind the Kangaroo Express when construction began to encroach on their space — Josh Parlagreco, an employee of Campbell’s, says the move to Spanish Wells was inevitable.

“You couldn’t see us or anything,” he says. “So we probably lost like half our business and probably should have closed then, but we stayed open for the whole year like that.”

Parlagreco now mans the stand at its new location near Spanish Wells Road on the island, less than a mile from their old location but far different in accessibility.

Potatoes, garlic, tomatoes, lemons, limes, jars of honey and coolers of fish sit under awnings to protect the produce from the midday sun. Small white signs with red lettering read “fresh local shrimp.” Another says “South Carolina peaches.”

The traffic on William Hilton Parkway rushes by; few customers stop.

“They won’t even allow you to put signs out over there,” Parlagreco says. “This is the town of Hilton Head, and they’re a lot stricter.”

Parlagreco says most drivers don’t use the closest right hand lane on U.S. 278 because they’re trying to reach the toll road, which is farther left.

“Visibility was better over there (in Bluffton),” he says. “And this spot’s OK, but we just got all these bushes.”

Working through the chaos

At the Kangaroo Express, the entrance from U.S. 278 is abrupt. Drivers going 35 mph must already be aware that the store is there behind all the moving equipment and construction activity, or else they will miss the right-angle turn needed to enter the store’s property.

Regulars to the store, though, know to exit 278 by bearing right at Fording Island Road Extension, where they enter the parking lot from the opposite side.

Bluffton resident Baldo Jauregui pours himself a cup of coffee as his son makes his way to the back of the store to find a cool drink. He says he’s been visiting the Kangaroo Express for about a year and believes the location is great because it’s close to the highway, but he understands why people might go a little farther to reach the Parker’s convenience store across the bridge.

“(Construction has) definitely reduced the people who used to come here,” he says.

Exhaust from the construction equipment fills the air with the smell of gas rather than the infrequently used gas pumps. One worker who enters the store mentions that more than a hundred trucks will be in and out of the parking lot before the day’s over.

“I like working here,” Fripp says. “Hopefully ... a lot of people will come back.”

‘Get out of our way’

At the farm stand, the only notice to make a sharp right turn into the parking lot is a Tiki bar umbrella. A woman pulls her car into the parking lot, hops out and scans the pile of watermelons sitting close to the road.

A man hands Parlagreco a basket of fruit to purchase as his wife scans the contents of one of the fish coolers. Parlagreco says most of the customers that come to this new location are locals who knew the history of the stand but that tourists provided half the sales at the spot in front of the Kangaroo Express.

“Over there, you kind of just saw us,” he said of the old location. “It’s one of the first things you see right before you come on the island.”

Campbell and Parlagreco say they plan to return to the Kangaroo Express property in Bluffton once the flyover is complete.

Even with the flyover creating the potential for customers to bypass 278 altogether, Parlagreco says he’s confident business will return to the old spot because most tourists will still take the main road to the island.

“We’re going to get back over there once they get out (of) our way,” he says.

This story was originally published June 25, 2016 at 11:00 AM with the headline "Well-known gas station looks to future — from underneath new flyover."