Old Fort Pub and Hilton Head History

Hilton Head Island History
Okra Gumbo: The Old Fort Pub Revisited

What is now one of Hilton Head Island's favorite "fine dining" restaurants, serving steak, seafood and Lowcountry favorites, started out in a humbler fashion.

It was April 3, 1973, one year before the oil embargo. Most of the troops were home from Southeast Asia, President Nixon was still making tapes, and Pioneer 11 started its journey to Jupiter. About 6,000 people lived year-round on Hilton Head Island and, according to Islander Magazine, Gene Martin, proprietor of the Red & White grocery store in Coligny Plaza, was "Islander of the Month." April 3, 1973 was also the day the island's newest restaurant, the Old Fort Pub, opened for business.

"We had one requirement that most restaurants on the island didn't have," said Islander Andy Twisdale, the restaurant's first manager. "The staff had to know how to drive tractors." It seems that in inclement weather, the parking lot turned into a bog and patrons' cars had to be towed out to the road.

Named with its next door neighbor in mind, Fort Mitchel, the Old Fort Pub was designed by Islander, Ralph "Bal" Ballantine. Ballantine, an artist and sculptor who moved to the island in 1970 from the world of Chicago advertising. He also designed CQ's restaurant, once his studio, and, at the request of Charles Fraser, founder of Sea Pines, designed the shop fronts in Harbour Town, among many other projects.

The “Union” honorguard fire a salute at the flag-raising ceremony at Ft. Mitchel. Photo courtesy of Bill Littell.

"In his typical manner, Charles came up to me and, just sort of in passing, said ‘Bal, I want you to design a restaurant out in Hilton Head Plantation. It'll be next to the old fort. I want a historical looking building. This isn't any big deal, just go out and take a look. And don't talk to anybody about it.'" Ballantine said. "I think that was on a Friday. So I went out there. It was a jungle. I came back to my studio and got immersed in that period. I showed my sketch to him on Monday. He looked at it and, again, said, ‘Just do it. But keep this off the books,'" Ballantine recalled. What Fraser meant, Ballantine said, was to keep the project away from the burgeoning bureaucracy of the quickly expanding company. "He wanted to keep it simple. Of course, in the end, all sorts of people were involved. But it got built," Ballantine said. "Back then, you were pretty much on your own."

From the very beginning, the restaurant had a certain panache. The idea, to make a "historical building," was quite successful. First-time visitors still ask if the building is somehow associated with the fort. To create strong ties to its neighbor, Ballatine had Islander Tim Doughtie design a miniature museum, featuring a collection Charles Fraser's photos of the period and newly discovered photos of Union troops on Hilton Head. The display still delights visitors.

Fort Mitchel, actually a shore battery, was "re-discovered" when the restaurant site was being determined. “Everybody knew it was there,” remembered Howard Farmer, a long-time island resident, “but no one paid it much attention. It was completely covered with vines and weeds.”

Hilton Head Mayor Martha Baumberger, elected in 1987, dedicates the installation of the American flag at the entrance to Ft. Mitchel.
Photo courtesy of Bill Littell.

John Fort, project manager for the restaurant, was also given the task of identifying and protecting the remains of the earthen works. He had help. Todd Ballantine, Ralph Ballantine's son, was working for Sea Pines and was assigned to John Fort and Fort Mitchel.

"When I started on the project, John already had put in the trails and boardwalks to protect the earthen works. I wrote and illustrated an interpretive, self-guided walk. The idea was that, if you were waiting to eat, you could take a tour, or if your were taking the tour and got hungry, you go eat at the Pub. Back then, that's how Charles did things. You did the best you could with a project, make it a very interesting attraction, not just a restaurant," Todd Ballantine explained. He also thought it was "wonderful" to be able to work next to his father.

On opening day, Andy Twisdale's mother, Janice, and Miss Annie Mae Holmes were in the kitchen, cooking okra gumbo and cornbread. "We always tried to have authentic, Lowcountry food on the menu, Twisdale recalled. The authenticity definitely came from Miss Annie Mae, as she preferred to be called, who dated her ancestry on Hilton Head to the War Between the States. She also had other preferences, Twisdale said. For one thing, no one could ever swear in her kitchen. For another, she did not work on Sundays. "She was a real character," Twisdale said, "and one beautiful person."

Up until the late 1960s, tomatoes were an important crop on the island. Pictured above are growers on the edge of a tomato field on Hilton Head’s north end. Photo courtesy Coastal Discovery Museum

In 1973, the land near the restaurant was farmland. Up until the late 1960s, there were truck farms and fields of tomatoes. Native islanders worked small farms nearby. In an article about Fort Mitchel, published the same month the Old Fort Pub opened, Island Packet writer Mary Jane Field, described the scene as she drove up to the restaurant. "I paused for a few moments. The flat land, so different from the palmetto-studded terrain of the southern part of the island, the gentle farm sounds, and the sprawling roadside bushes seemed a stage setting for a re-enactment of plantation life on Hilton Head Island in the middle 1800s." In the same article, Field mentioned she had "a delicious bowl of homemade gumbo at the Pub" before she visited the fort.

Later in the year, at the restaurant's grand opening, there actually was a re-enactment, of sorts. A contingent of cadets from The Citadel came down from Charleston to "re-enact" a battle at Fort Mitchel. Built in 1862 by Union forces after their successful invasion of the island with 13,000 troops, Fort Mitchel never actually saw any action. That fact did little to diminish the enthusiasm of the cadets, all dressed in period costumes. Rebel yells and Yankee shouts filled the air, along with black powder charges exploding in "the battle."

"They really got into it," Twisdale remembered. They also got into some of the adult beverage that was being served to the restaurant's guests. "All of a sudden, the powder charges got bigger and more explosive. The young men's faces were covered in black powder and they used our catchup for blood. The guy in charge of the cadets went through the roof," Twisdale said.

Twisdale said because of its location, well away from more popular tourist destinations on Hilton Head, and its stunning sunset views across Skull Creek, the Old Fort Pub became a favorite of "locals," a kind of secret place to escape. Big oyster roasts and fish boils held outside were very popular.

" We had all sorts of crazy ‘events.' to attract customers. Once we had a ‘snowball fight.' We used marshmallows. But we only did that once. We discovered when the marshmallows got mixed in the cocktails, they made a very gooey mess on the floor," Twisdale said. "It was all great fun."

The Old Fort Pub remained a "local" restaurant for years. That was one of the reasons The Lowrey Group decided to buy it in 1993. After a few months of refurbishing, the Old Fort Pub again opened its doors to islanders on, most appropriately, July 4th. And the rest, as they say, is history.