So long, Steamer: Beaufort shooting star gives way to the bright lights of progress
Who cares?
A weathered restaurant that pried its way into the South Carolina Lowcountry’s heart is about to be torn down — to make way for a Wendy’s.
Does it always have to be this way?
The Steamer Oyster and Steakhouse restaurant on Lady’s Island closed last October as a ghost of itself from the roaring 1980s and 1990s, when Hollywood movie stars, the Wall Street Journal and National Geographic Traveler “discovered” it.
On Saturday, the Steamer was being picked apart by bidders seeking a keepsake, or maybe a good deal on the chairs that people used to wait an hour or more to be seated in when life was good.
Emmy Sullivan said that when she bought the place that hugs U.S. 21 from Vernon Bowers, part of it was a feed-and-seed store and part of it was a washed-up bar called the Who Cares?
Before that, it was a cutting-edge Red and White supermarket, a place in the middle of nowhere that they say offered refuge during Hurricane Gracie in 1959.
But when the Steamer sign went up, and Emmy Sullivan’s late husband, Gary Donald “Sully” Sullivan, worked the front door, a star was born.
“He could seriously lighten a man’s pocket at the Steamer cash register and at the same time say something that would make him and his whole family feel great,” Sully’s friend Beek Webb said. “He really knew how to brighten your day whenever you saw him and was universally loved by everyone who knew him.”
To Sully, everybody was family, especially the staff.
Emmy Sullivan said locals latched onto the Steamer as soon as it opened. That was in October 1982 after a Lowcountry original, the late Ralph Wynn, spent the summer rebuilding the interior with beautiful tongue and groove pine and buckets for oyster shells cut into every table.
Maybe those long made it work, with strangers making friends and the restaurant becoming more than a place to eat. A number of people met their spouses at the Steamer, and sometimes their kids later came to work there.
Brass plates etched with the names of the kitchen staff and the wait staff for 20 years were still tacked to poles when the auction started Saturday morning. Regular customers had their names at the tables.
“It was a huge family,” said Angel Vaigneur. She was literally family, like a number of other staff members, when she started hanging out there as a 7-year-old.
Sully’s dad, called LG, ran a barbecue joint for a while in part of the building. He called it Steamy’s. At another time, that section was the Steamer Pub, where you could wash away the cares of the week to the live twang of Shark Rodeo.
Tom Hanks
Kathy Benton worked at the Steamer for 30 years, and has several stories for each one of them.
There was the night actress Demi Moore held a kickoff party at the Steamer for the “GI Jane” filming on Harbor Island and Hunting Island.
“She was something else,” Benton said.
Demi Moore dropped to the floor and started whipping off one-armed push-ups that had the macho men running for cover.
Actor Robert Duvall celebrated a birthday there one Jan. 5, when they were filming “Something to Talk About” in Beaufort.
His party booked the whole back room, where they gave him a special birthday gift: a beautiful Western saddle.
“They asked me to wrap it,” Benton said.
She managed to do it, with Christmas wrapping paper.
Tom Hanks came in with his son when he was in town to film “Forrest Gump.”
“He had the Marine haircut,” Benton said, “and no one knew who he was, until we heard him laughing.”
Hanks came in often, around 4:30 p.m.
“He was a won-der-ful man,” Benton said.
‘The Prince of Tides’
Barbra Streisand kept to herself when she visited while filming “The Prince of Tides.” But Nick Nolte and Sully hit it off really well, and the actor made an appearance in the Steamer kitchen.
Sully was a big Gamecock fan, so he loved it when former University of South Carolina football coach Lou Holtz held a private party for about 40 people at the Steamer.
People loved the Frogmore Stew, and the large steaks and burgers.
They added onto the place twice, but it was never large.
The Sullivans sold it in 2001 to a group of members of the Secession Golf Club, a nearby private, national club.
Co-owner Adam Rosica said last week that they’d turned down a number of offers for the land over the years.
“We were happy with the (Wendy’s) offer, and everybody was happy to finally let go of the thing,” he told our newspaper.
Emmy Sullivan said she wanted the last word to be a thank-you to the staff, especially the early ones like Angel’s mom, Linda Vaigneur, and Richardean “Dene” Aiken.
Beaufort has lost a number of restaurants over the years that became part of the social fabric: The Yankee, John Cross Tavern, Harry’s, LT’s, the Gold Eagle.
“I know things have to change,” Angel Vaigneur said.
Still, the people who made the Steamer a shooting star are left to wonder what truly is progress in the South Carolina Lowcountry?
