‘One of the good guys:’ Pedestrian killed in crash identified as Hilton Head businessman
A pedestrian who was killed Sunday night in a crash on Hilton Head Island was identified as a local businessman, according to the Beaufort County Coroner’s Office.
Andrew Farbman, 62, of Hilton Head, was identified Monday by Coroner David Ott as the man who was fatally struck. The crash took place just after 7 p.m. on Spanish Wells Road near Bryant Road, according to S.C. Highway Patrol Trooper Nick Pye.
The car, a 2016 Chevrolet Sedan, was heading north on Spanish Wells Road while the pedestrian, Farbman, was walking east. Neither the driver nor the passenger in the sedan were injured, Pye said. Why Farbman was out walking was not immediately available.
Farbman started Amigos Café y Cantina on Hilton Head and in Bluffton. He was a zealous small business owner who ran the locations like a “one-man show,” according to friend and owner of Okatie Alehouse, John O’Gorman Jr. Farbman gave him weekly advice on how to keep a business afloat during the recession in 2008, O’Gorman said, and was a “brilliant small businessman.”
O’Gorman had been with Farbman about two hours before the crash, he said. When he heard the news, he could hardly believe it was true.
“I had just been hanging out with Andrew ... at Heritage yesterday,” O’Gorman said. “We were hanging out, having a beer and his wife was trying to get everyone to shush for the golfers and we were laughing at her.”
In their two decades of friendship, the two bonded over work, Nascar, how “bad the New York Giants were” and sharing the same birthday.
“If you bellied up at the bar for the best fish tacos in town, he would just enthrall you in conversation until you were ready to leave,” O’Gorman said. “He was a great conversationalist and could talk about anything.”
.jpg "Copy of Unnamed Design (27).jpg")
‘One of the good guys’
The two connected through mutual friend Rodney Woodward, who at one time worked with both of them at their restaurants, O’Gorman said. Woodward worked closely with Farbman for eight years starting in 2001 and said the inspiration behind Farbman’s Amigos restaurant came from the time he spent living in Santa Barbara, California.
“That’s where he honed his culinary skills and came back here with his brother and a partner and they opened up the first Amigos,” Woodward said. “[He was] extremely passionate. You could tell by the food ... the way he talked about it.”
For Woodward, nothing stands out more than Farbman’s “bubbly” personality and genuine kindness. He was “one of the good guys” and was like a “mentor” to him, Woodward said.
“Andrew never met a stranger, ever,” he said. “You don’t meet a lot of people like Andrew. Hilton Head and Bluffton and the world definitely lost a good guy, for sure.”
The S.C Highway Patrol were continuing to investigate, according to Pye.
An autopsy has been scheduled for Farbman for Wednesday morning at the Medical University of South Carolina, coroner Ott said.
A service for Farbman will be held at 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Spanish Wells Club at 2 p.m., his daughter, Alexis Farbman announced on Facebook.
This story was originally published April 18, 2022 at 8:41 AM.
