Order a drink at the bar inside Home Team BBQ on Middle Street and you're leaning on wood that Bert Wurthmann built with his own hands. Wurthmann ran Bert's Pharmacy out of 2209 Middle Street, then converted half the building into Bert's Bar in the 1970s, and the bar eventually took over the whole address until it closed for good in December 2007. Home Team BBQ opened there in May 2009, and instead of gutting the space, the new owners kept his bar standing and hung his black-and-white photographs near the front door. Seventeen years later, Home Team is still pouring drinks over the same wood Wurthmann installed.
That's not one lucky coincidence at one lucky address. It's how Middle Street works.
On Sullivan's Island, a restaurant closing rarely leaves an empty storefront for long. The building waits, sometimes a year, sometimes closer to two, for the next name to move into the same four walls. Eat your way down the strip over the past few years and you'll notice how often you've been sitting inside a building with a longer résumé than the restaurant serving you dinner.
The Space That Used to Be Sullivan's Seafood
Sullivan's Seafood Restaurant ran at 2019 Middle Street for 32 years, from 1988 until it closed on September 6, 2020. When Ben and Kate Towill took over the lease, they didn't erase that run. They spent two years turning the space into Sullivan's Fish Camp, which opened in 2022 as a 1970s-inspired seafood spot that keeps deliberate ties to what came before it. A framed flag and an original menu from Sullivan's Seafood hang inside, and the plants separating the patio from the road are native to the island rather than trucked in for the look of the thing, according to reporting from The Post and Courier on the renovation. Locals who still own decades-old Sullivan's Seafood t-shirts can now find that same logo reborn on merchandise at the register.
Put the two addresses side by side and the pattern is hard to miss:
| Address | Previous tenant | Current tenant |
|---|---|---|
| 2209 Middle Street | Bert's Pharmacy and Bert's Bar (closed December 2007) | Home Team BBQ (opened 2009, 17 years running) |
| 2019 Middle Street | Sullivan's Seafood Restaurant (1988–2020) | Sullivan's Fish Camp (opened 2022) |
Two different concepts, two different decades, one shared instinct: keep the bones, change the name on the door.
What's Actually New
Not every current tenant inherited a building with three decades of history attached, but even the newer arrivals have folded into an already tight stretch of Middle Street rather than expanding it. The Longboard opened on Sullivan's Island in 2021, its second location after the original in Cruz Bay, St. John, inside a storefront at 2213-B Middle Street, bringing a raw bar and a Caribbean-leaning menu that runs from drunken prawns to a whole roasted fish with mole rojo. A few doors down, Café Medley became the island's go-to for espresso, wine, and gourmet ice cream. The Obstinate Daughter, The Co-Op, and Mex 1 Coastal Cantina have each built followings that now reach well past Sullivan's Island, but they arrived by filling gaps in the existing commercial footprint, not by adding new footprint to fill.
That's worth sitting with if you're trying to read the food scene here correctly. The turnover on Middle Street isn't a sign that nothing sticks. It's what continuity looks like on a strip that almost never grows.
The Ones That Never Left
Two spots on Middle Street didn't need reinvention because they never stopped working. Bill and Patti Dunleavy opened Dunleavy's Pub in April 1992, which puts the family-run bar in its 34th year. Poe's Tavern, named for the young enlisted soldier who spent part of his Army service on the island, has been serving burgers since 2003, making it 23 years old this year. High Thyme Cuisine has held its spot as a quieter dinner favorite through all the turnover happening around it. Ask someone who has lived here a while which restaurants count as fixtures, and these three names come up before any of the newer ones do.
One Date Worth Putting on the Calendar
Restaurants aren't the only thing that shapes daily life on the island this time of year. On October 3, the Isle of Palms Connector Run marks its 35th year, with the race and its road closure running from roughly 8 to 11 a.m. For anyone living on Sullivan's Island, that means routing through the Ben Sawyer Bridge if you need to reach the Isle of Palms while the Connector is shut down for runners and walkers. The race has given back more than $1.3 million to local child abuse prevention and healing programs over its history, including a record $200,000 in 2025, and organizers expect thousands to run, walk, or simply gather at the Connector's edge to watch the sun come up over the marsh.
It's a small disruption on the calendar, but it's the kind of thing that only matters once you actually live here long enough to plan around it.
The Island Remembers Its Buildings
Put it all together and the throughline isn't really about food. It's about how little new construction Middle Street has to work with, and how that scarcity has turned every reopening into a small act of preservation, whether the new owners meant it that way or not. Home Team didn't have to keep Bert's bar. Sullivan's Fish Camp didn't have to frame the old menu. They did it because the building asked for it, and because the people eating there would have noticed if they hadn't.
That kind of detail is easy to miss if you're only ever passing through. It's the sort of thing you pick up by paying attention to a place over years, not visits, which is exactly the lens Crown Coast brings to every corner of this island, from the restaurants on Middle Street to the houses just behind them. If you're curious what else about Sullivan's Island rewards that kind of attention, we're always glad to talk.