When people talk about Hilton Head Island as a hometown, they’re talking about the places that have never changed. They’re talking about the places they remember going to as a kid, the nucleus around which they built some of their happiest memories. Yes, we as an island serve our share of visitors. But we are also the place that thousands of people call home – some for decades.
For those people, the Palmetto Dunes General Store is part of the conversation when they talk about their hometown. It’s that long-standing tradition, the place we’ve been stopping by as long as we can remember. Sure, it’s not necessarily something “just for us” – it’s not like the visitors haven’t discovered it. But then, the general store is the kind of place that means something to them, too.
“No matter where they’re staying, people come by the general store,” said Brad Marra, COO for Palmetto Dunes.
Greta and Marigold, two tiny visitors from Pittsburgh, enjoy ice cream cones at the General Store while their mom shops for vacation supplies.
“And they come back year after year,” added Karen Kozemchak, the resort’s director of marketing. “We’ve interviewed so many families who come here for breakfast and come back for ice cream at night. It’s like a ritual with a lot of families.”
As the latest addition to the portfolio of amenities Palmetto Dunes offers to visitors, the General Store was what Marra calls “the missing piece of the puzzle.” Run by Frank Gaston and his family for 30 years, the store has long been a mainstay of the community. It’s not only that place that visitors come back to year after year, it has also been a place for residents to meet up with friends and enjoy breakfast or lunch on the porch.
Palmetto Dunes took over operation of the General Store in 2021, and immediately set about changing absolutely nothing.
David White takes chicken and ribs out of the smoker right before lunch service starts at 11 a.m.
“Our biggest goal was to duplicate the great job that the Gastons had done for so long,” Marra said. “We didn’t want to change anything because of how popular it is. I actually come here every night to get ice cream with my kids.”
Maintaining that balance of familiar and new, while catering to both locals and tourists, was a high-wire act. But it’s one that General Manager Lauren Wade took on with relish when she came aboard two-and-a-half years ago.
“I think the vibe here was ‘it’s always been this way’ and that’s something that makes this place special. But we also want to keep up with the times,” she said. “Taking over as GM, I’ve really focused on merchandise and apparel. I felt like there was such an opportunity with the floor space we have here.”
Fried chicken, green beans and macaroni and cheese.
Wade has slowly but surely augmented the store’s goods during her time there. The famous T-shirt wall, which previously offered just 24 styles of T-shirts across 144 cubbies, was flushed out with more designs. Along with staples from frozen pizza and bacon to snacks and wine, the shelves now bear a wealth of local products, from private label Palmetto Dunes General Store jams, vegetables, and salsas to books by local authors and Palmetto Padre oyster shell art.
They’ve also bumped up the number of more tourist-oriented merchandise. Along the way, they sold so much Sun Bum product that they became one of the company’s flagship stores. Here, you can get Sun Bum’s haircare line, beach toys, and other items you won’t find at the big box stores.
“We’re a good test store to see if products move in our area,” Wade said. “So, we get all the really cool souvenir items.”
General Store Manager Lauren Wade stands in front of a wall of Hilton Head Island shirts available for purchase.
This shift has seen sales boom, solidifying the General Store’s status as the non-negotiable stop on every vacationer’s itinerary. No one needs to tell young Gretta and Marigold Marchione, who come from Pittsburgh every year and never miss a chance to stop by.
“My husband’s family has been coming down for 15 years every summer, and they’ve all been here today already,” said their mother, Brady, watching her girls enjoy ice cream from the store’s wide front porch. “We’re just stopping in for some breakfast ice cream and our daily toy from the General Store. That’s how we start the day.”
A hot breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, hashbrowns and a biscuit is served with fresh coffee at the General Store Grab & Go.
If you want to see how popular the General Store is with the locals, you need only be there at 11 a.m. when the old-school changeable letter board on the kitchen’s menu changes from breakfast to lunch. Even before the staff can finish swapping out the eggs, bacon, hash browns, and donuts in the wide glass case, there will be a line of workers ready to eat.
It’s hard to blame them for wanting to get a jump on lunch. Under the care of local David White, who grew up in Palmetto Dunes and has worked local food and beverage at about every establishment you can name, the General Store’s lunch counter has quietly become the island’s best-kept secret for some great BBQ and traditional Southern food.
Assorted candies can be mixed and matched. The sour pink piglets are a must try!
Stop by the small cinder block shed around back at 5:30 in the morning, and you’ll find White already hard at work loading ribs, chicken breasts, and pulled pork into the smoker, seasoning each with his secret dry rub. But if you want to be there when he whips up the tantalizing sides, like green beans and squash, mac and cheese, bacon cabbage, zucchini casserole and corn pudding, don’t get there too late.
“When it’s this hot, I do all of that over at Alexander’s,” he said one morning while pulling out ribs for the lunch rush. “It’s already 85 in here. In an hour it’ll be 90. That’s why I get here at dark.”
If you forgot it, they’ve probably got it. From grocery staples to toys, wine and other sundries .
The hours are early and the heat unbearable, but White does it for the chance to stretch his culinary imagination. And the line of hungry customers waiting for that case to fill up with lunch fare is a testament to his talent.
A lot has changed over the past few years at the Palmetto Dunes General Store. But a lot more hasn’t. And that’s exactly the way that locals and visitors have liked it, for generations.
“People tell me they’ve been coming here for years, and now they’re bringing their kids here and it still has the same feel. It almost feels like coming home,” Wade said. “But this time they’re bringing their kids. That familiarity is truly what makes this job so fulfilling, for me and my team.”