SFA | Oral History | Bowen's Island Restaurant

“My mother, May Bowen, had a boarding house for a while in Charleston. And how they got started [with their first restaurant] on Folly Beach, I don’t know. But she’s always liked to cook and serve food.”

– Bob Barber

“We used to come here on Bowen’s Island in a boat because it was no road here. And we would come from around at Folly Beach and come around through these rivers. And the only thing on the island was stills that people made liquor, and there were wild goats on the island and wild pigs. But it was a beautiful, beautiful little island.”

– Cile Barber

Bob Barber was born in Charleston in 1925. His parents divorced before he was two years old. His mother, May, married her second husband, Jimmy Bowen, in Savannah in 1938. Eventually, the family moved back to Charleston. When Bob finished school, he traveled the country with the Navy, eventually heading overseas. In 1947 he married his wife Cile, and they both went to work at his parents’ restaurant on Folly Beach, Bob’s Restaurant, which his parents had named in Bob’s honor. In 1949, Bob and Cile’s first child, Robert Barber, was born. When Bob’s Restaurant closed, Bob and Cile moved to Columbia, South Carolina; May and Jimmy Bowen moved to a fourteen-acre island they purchased and began operating Bowen’s Island Restaurant. The Barbers visited the island regularly. And now, even though May and Jimmy are gone, Bowen’s Island thrives. Robert lives on the island, as do some of his siblings, and operates the restaurant. Bob and Cile say they’ll move to the island to join their family one of these days. For now, though, they’re content to gather there for family oyster roasts as often as they can.

Listen to this 1-minute audio clip of Bob Barber describing the personality of his mother, May Bowen. [Go here to download the player for free.]

Listen to this 1-minute audio clip of Cile Barber talking about the soft-shell crabs that her mother-in-law, May Bowen, used to cultivate and prepare.

---

NOTE: What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.

Edited Transcript

Subjects: Bob & Cile Barber
Date: January 19, 2007
Location: Robert Barber’s home – Bowen’s Island, SC
Interviewer: Amy Evans

-----

Amy Evans: This is Amy Evans on Friday, January 19, 2007, and I’m on Bowen’s Island at the home of Robert Barber with his parents [Cile and Bob Barber]. And I wonder if each of you could please state your name and your birth dates for the record?

Cile Barber: My name is Cile Kelly Barber, and I was born the 11th of May 1931.

Bob Barber: My name is Bob Barber, and I was born April 11, 1925.

Mr. Barber, I wonder if we could start with you and you could talk a little bit about your mother [May Bowen] and your step-grandfather [Jimmy Bowen] and growing up in this area? Were you born here in Charleston?

BB: I was born in Charleston, yeah. And my mother and father divorced when I was—I guess I was about a year old—two years old. And my stepfather and mother were married [Laughs] gosh, I guess when I was about thirteen years old. And we lived in Savannah at that time, and a little later on we moved back to Charleston. We lived in several places in Charleston. I went to a grammar school at St. Andrew’s School in Charleston and then later on to Mitchell School on Rutledge Avenue in Charleston. I went to Charleston High School. I left Charleston High School about a year before I graduated to go work at the Navy Yard in Charleston. Of course that was back during wartime [World War II]. And then my mother and aunt worked on me a little bit about not finishing high school, so I moved to Ludowici, Georgia, for a while and went to high school there and graduated from there and went directly from there into the service in 1943. And I went to Boot Camp in San Diego, California, and from there to the Navy Pier in Chicago for Diesel School and from there to New London, Connecticut, for Submarine School and from there back to San Francisco and then overseas. And then I spent oh, about three-and-a-half years in the Navy, got out and came back to Charleston. Actually my mother and stepfather had bought a restaurant or bought a building on Folly Beach and opened a restaurant, which they later turned over to me. And they in the meantime had bought this Bowen’s—Bowen’s Island.

Now can I ask you about this first restaurant that they opened? I wonder—because your son [Robert Barber] was telling me that your step-grandfather was a printer and that your mother was a hairdresser, so how is it that they had the wild hair to get into the restaurant business?

BB: I don’t know. I think she was always into little businesses on the side, you know, and like when she had—she did some beauty parlor work but she also had a—what was it—what do you call it when you serve meals—?

CB: Oh, a boarding house.

BB: Boarding house, yeah. She had a boarding house for a while in Charleston. And how they got started on Folly Beach, I don’t know. But there wasn’t that much money [Laughs] but anyhow, they did start this serving—she’s always liked to cook and serve food. And when I got out of the service, I started running the restaurant and I was trying to—I guess I ran that restaurant for about four years…I finally decided to go back to school, and I went to the Citadel and spent four years going back—of course I was a veteran student, so I didn’t stay at the Citadel. I lived on Folly Beach and ran the restaurant in the summertime and a good bit of the winter also.

Can you describe the restaurant? They named it after you, did they not?

BB: Uh-hmm. It was Bob’s Restaurant and it was—I guess we could seat about 25 people—30 people, something like that.

CB: It would seat at least 75 people…because we’ve had as many as 125 there before, you know, a long time ago and it was a family restaurant. We served vegetables and fried chicken and seafood and roasts and things like that, and we were the only restaurant on the beach that served vegetables, so we stayed pretty busy.

And when you say we, y’all must have already been married by this time?

CB: Yes, we were. Uh-hmm.

What year did you get married?

CB: We got married in 1947, and Robert was born in 1949. It was a fun time but it was the thing that you knew you didn’t want to have to be in it the rest of your life, if you’re going to raise a family. And we had several of my sisters that lived with us that helped us, and we had our own children. And we have five natural born children and one adopted son. But when Bobby finished the Citadel in June, he went to the bank to C&S—old C&S Bank right away and that’s where he stayed until he retired. He loved that. And we loved it. We lived on the beach for twelve years and then they transferred us to Columbia, which we loved living there, too, and we were there almost 28 years. And then we found this house in Newberry [South Carolina] that we both sort of fell in love with [where we live now].
But we used to come here on Bowen’s Island in a boat because it was no road here—before we got married. And we would come from around at Folly Beach and come around through these rivers and come around here. And the only thing on the island—and I don’t know if Robert told you abut this or not—but was stills that people made liquor and there were wild goats on the island and wild pigs. But it was a beautiful—beautiful little island. It really was pretty. And we lived here for—yeah, it still is pretty but we lived here for several years and loved it. And we probably will come back here one of these times. Yeah. Uh-hmm. When we get old, we’ll come back.

So the restaurant on Folly Beach, how long would you say all told that that was opened?

CB: I would say probably about six years because your mother ran it [speaking to her husband, Bob]. He was at sea in the submarine service so he didn’t—he couldn’t spend his money, so he sent it home and she invested it in that [restaurant]. And she ran it for several years before he got back. And then you had it one summer and then we got married the late—in late December of that same year and—excuse me, not late December, early December. And Robert had his first few years there, and our second son, Mike, was born when we lived there. And then, of course, after that we closed it, and we were delighted to be able to do things on the weekends and everything when we didn’t have to work on Sundays anymore.

So even when y’all say you had the restaurant and were running it, basically, was Mrs. Bowen still cooking?

CB: Only part of the time. She actually didn’t do the cooking anyway then. Our family friend John [Sanka] did the cooking. And my husband and his mother, Bobby’s mother and I—and friends and all like that—that would come in and help us did—serving the tables and we had people in the kitchen that, you know, washed the dishes and things like that. But she didn’t really do any cooking. She baked pie, and on the days that she baked pies, especially the winters that we stayed open, people would come to the restaurant and sit and wait for the pies to come out of the oven. She baked apple, cherry, chocolate pie, and lemon meringue. And everybody from Folly Beach would come. Because back in those days, you see, beaches were not open in the same manner they are today. Today they’re year-round; they may be busier in the summer but they don’t close up hard—much. But we—we did after the first year because he was in school and things like that, and he just couldn’t study. He worked extra.

And then by that time, Ma May [May Bowen] had started over here [on Bowen’s Island]. They built her house and then they built the restaurant in 1949, and it was just a little cinderblock building right on the ground, which you can't do today, as you well know, and she—it was just an accidental way. She really didn’t intend to go into the restaurant business. She was going to just come over here and live and people would—she built her dock and people would come and want to fish, so she said all right. She’d let them fish, and she started charging for them to fish. And then they’d come in with their boats and all, and they would say, “Mrs. Bowen, would you fry these fish for me?” That’s really the way that restaurant got started. So one thing led to another and then, of course, she had all the medical students. She had the Citadel Cadets coming out here. And my husband roasted oysters when he was going to the Citadel and at night he would work here and then go to school in the daytime. But it certainly wasn’t meant to be that when they started out at all.

Do you think when people would fish from the dock and then come back and ask her to cook, were those folks familiar with the restaurant and Folly Beach, and so they knew that Mrs. Bowen was a cook?

CB: No, I don’t think so do you? [To her husband] I really don’t. I don’t know—you know, I don’t know that that’s the way it was. But she thought that the son rose and set on this spot, and once she got here she did not want to leave. And that was just the way it was. And we tried to get her to go on vacations with us, and she would say, “Why do I want to go anywhere else? I got the best place in the world right here.” Until she died, that’s the way she—and when she died it was right down there on the porch by her restaurant is where it was. She worked right up until the day before she died. She was working.

-----

So how is it then that they were able to purchase this land and how? Any idea how that came about?

BB: Well I don’t know exactly how they—I know who they bought it from. They bought it from Mike McCarthy. And I think they paid about $3,500 for the island, and it cost just about that much to build a road over [from the mainland]. And she got somebody to dig the dirt off the next island up there and sort of a canal like from the water and put the dirt in the marsh and kept, you know, and kept on putting it in until they got over here. And it’s just—of course is the same road is still in existence, and I think the County maintains it now, but for a good while she did, which wasn’t much maintenance but [Laughs]—.

How long did they live here when the island was still only accessible by boat?

CB: She actually built the road before they moved onto the island. But you know, one—I think—funny story about her was she never left this island during a hurricane except Hugo [in 1989]. I don’t know if Robert told you that or not. That’s the only time she ever left. She would say right here and never really had any problem.

-----

So when they first moved here on the island, you were talking about the wild goats and the still and everything. How long were those things around and what happened to them, and what has been kind of the evolution of the island here?

CB: Well I don’t think that lasted long at all, once people got here. Then, of course, she walked this island all the time looking for things, you know. And her house was the only house on the island at first. And then they built one that would have been right next door that’s no longer—this is not it, and that one over there is not the one that was here before either. But Bobby helped his mother and dad and those—build those houses and then she built the restaurant and then gradually these others—. Of course, our daughter lives on that first house on the left as you come in. And a niece lives across the way, and a nephew lives over here, so the only people on the island except for two little spots are all family members and everybody in the family—grandchildren—.

BB: There’s no ownership of the island outside of the family. It’s all family.

And can you name all your children for me? Robert is the oldest, is he not?

CB: Robert is the oldest and then Mike and then Steve and then Karen and Pat. And Jimmy, our adopted, son is the same age as Robert.

-----

So I wonder, Mr. Barber, if you could kind of tell me about the person that your mother was and her personality?

BB: [Laughs] Well she was kind of feisty but very kind, and I think almost everybody liked her. But she would be, you know, when somebody came in the restaurant and they might say this, “Are you open?” And she’d say, “Well you got in, didn’t you?” And she had a menu up on the wall and that said shrimp so much and seafood platter this much and they might say, “Do you have a menu?” She said, “Can't you see?” But she was thrifty, and I think she did very well for her education and so forth. And she was a hard worker and she liked her—liked her daughter-in-law [Cile Barber], and they got along real well, and she would do just about anything for us. And we loved her and almost everybody else did, too.

Do you, Mrs. Barber, have some memories to share about Mrs. Bowen?

CB: Oh, she was great. We—I honestly don’t know of any two people, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, that got along much better than we did. We did lots of things together, until we moved away from here. And of course she didn’t like to leave Charleston, and we’d come in the summers. And she had a beach house, and she let us have it, and we would come with all the children and their friends and—. But she just was a good, good person. And I knew that I could have gone to her for anything. Now we didn’t do that because, you know, you wouldn’t want to take advantage of somebody, but she just was so good, and she did so many kind things that a lot of people didn’t know because she wasn’t one to talk about what she did. She just very quietly you know—was a little gruff sometimes but you—you just knew she was good.

-----

Well when the restaurant really started taking off and people wanted their fish fried and whatnot, were oysters always part of the menu and what was served here, or when did that become a thing?

BB: Yeah, it was. You know I really can't remember when we started oysters and not fish. I think it might have been maybe six months or a year of her fooling around with cooking for somebody who caught some fish and then actually kind of going into business with it. And after we built that cinderblock building, which was the original restaurant, we started serving oysters. But we cooked the oysters outside at that time and this—the part that—well the part that we—he cooked oysters in just before the fire was built on a little later. I think the original building was about 20 by 40 [feet]—something like that. And we actually—I said we built it, but we did. We had a gentleman that knew something about laying cinderblocks and John [Sanka] and I would mix the cement and hand him the blocks and things like that. We weren’t actually builders but we helped him work.

-----

Can y’all tell me a little bit about John [Sanka], your family friend that was part of the restaurant for so long?

BB: Well John was also in the Navy and he was from Pennsylvania. And Mama and Daddy used to, during the War, invite some servicemen from the Navy Yard and places like—I guess just the Navy Yard because that was the only one close to them. But they’d have some of them for Sunday dinner and things like that and John just sort of—I don’t think he had much of a family—at least he never talked about too many of them. But he just sort of took up with our family.

CB: And he came for dinner and never went home, you know?...He loved it here.

BB: And when he got out of the service, he just sort of moved into the restaurant with them and he was the cook. But he’s more like family because they played Bridge and things like that and ate together and—. So he was just one of the family.

-----

And then the oyster pickers, in the early days, was Ben Richardson one of the first?

CB: Uh-hmm.

How did they become attached to the restaurant and to your family to be the oyster pickers for the restaurant?

BB: I don’t think they actually, as far as the ones that picked oysters, I think they just got word. I mean it’s already over at Sol Legare [an island just across the inlet from Bowen’s Island], which—and they got word that my mother might be buying oysters, so they did that. Of course they were businessmen themselves; they’d go out and pick oysters and sell them to us and—.

CB: Well, you know, I don’t know whether Robert told you this but something else they did, she had these things out in the water and—she had floats and she shed crabs for soft-shell crabs—and the little boys, they would go out there and find them in the water. The little boys from over there at Sol Legare. And they would bring them to her, and she paid them so much for the paper shell; and if they had any soft-shells, she’d pay them more for those. And then she had those floats and they’d put them in, and you’d have to watch them and get them out so the other crabs don’t eat them. But, of course, you don’t get that anymore; they send all that kind of thing away. It’s not that many left but she used to fix soft-shell crab sandwiches for us all the time and—just like you eat a hamburger, you know, and we would have soft-shell crab sandwiches. We didn’t know what a great thing that was. [Laughs]

Was she still making her famous pies?

CB: No, she never did make any pies over here. They just did the seafood, and she’d make clam chowder and—.

BB: She would cook [fried] chicken sometimes…That’s the only choice you had; you had seafood or chicken.

CB: She was a very good cook, and she still could bake. She baked a cake once in a while but she didn’t make any desserts or anything to sell anymore.

-----

Can you talk about the physical space [of the restaurant] and what things of hers were in there and where they came from and things like that?

BB: Well I think Robert kept it much like it was when Mother had it. And she did have that old curling machine, a permanent machine, whatever it was, yeah. And they also had a jukebox, which was dated back to the early jukeboxes. And I think when they’d get a television set, if the television set broke, they didn’t throw it away; they just got another television set and put it on top of that one, you know. And they had a bunch of television sets at one end of the room. And we told Robert, if he opens the restaurant again that we had a couple of TVs we were saving for him.

-----

Well can we talk now about your son Robert’s attachment to the place and his relationship with his grandmother because LaNelle [Robert’s wife] was saying the other day that she [May Bowen] was particularly fond of Robert.

CB: Uh-hmm, she was. See we lived here when he was—started first grade, we lived here for about two or three years but even before that, when he was born, we were running the restaurant and she was over here. And it would be so busy, so she’d sometimes bring him over here and then she’d keep him a day or two and take him back and he would be asleep, and she’d bring him in and we would put him down. And she had a Jeep, and when she started the Jeep he would hear it and he’d wake up and start hollering—crying—and she’d come back in and get him and take him back. But then when we lived here, I mean he roamed this island as a little tiny boy and would go down to the store. Because in the afternoon, see, they opened it in the morning. They didn’t—they didn’t wait ‘til 5 o’clock; they opened it early in the morning. And he’d go down there, and they’d sit down and play cards together for hours on end. And so he always loved it. And while the other children loved to come, they didn’t have the same feeling for it that he did. And then when he [Robert] came back after he finished Law School and was with a very good law firm in Charleston, she wanted him to come out here and help her. So he got his little [law] office in the back, and I’m sure he told you all that. But he has just loved this. And he would sit there and eat oysters with the best of them and could eat as many as a grown man. But he’s the one that was the most interested in it, keeping it running and not changing it and things like that.

Would you talk about his law practice being in the restaurant for a little while because he—it was mentioned but we didn’t really go into it, and I wonder what that meant to folks to come to visit their lawyer out here on Bowen’s Island.

CB: Well I don’t think it bothered them too much. For one thing, a lot of his clients were from his church and people that knew him anyway. And they knew about Bowen’s Island because if you grew up in this area—because since 1949 it was the oldest running restaurant in Charleston. And so I don’t—it didn’t seem to be bothering anybody too much to come out here to visit him, but then it got more and more with the business, you know. And then when he was in the State House and all of that, he would have to be gone some and he just decided that he has kept his license but he just decided that he was going to do that instead.

So when Mrs. Bowen passed, what was that the time when Robert became really involved, how did the feel of the restaurant change when she was no longer at the helm?

CB: I don’t really think it changed too much because he was there for a period of time long enough to where people knew him. I think if he had not been there and then had come and taken it over it would have been much more difficult, but it wasn’t because he had kind of gradually worked in it for a while and people knew him and people from Columbia would come and all like that.

What do you think Mrs. Bowen would think about Robert’s tenure with the restaurant?

CB: We’ve laughed about that. I think she would not believe what he has done, and I think she would be so thrilled. And we’ve talked about it when we’ve come out here how it’s built up, you know, coming this way, and now they’re getting ready to build on that little island before you come on the causeway. I just don’t think she would be able to believe it, do you? [To her husband] She would be so happy.

BB: No, she wouldn’t believe the drive from here to Charleston, the way things have grown, you know.

-----

Well do y’all have some favorite stories or memories from being at the restaurant over the years that you’d like to share?

CB: Well, of course it’s been wonderful for us. We have a family oyster roast down here. And last year was the first year we haven’t had it and, of course, then it burned. But Robert was busy with the election [Robert Barber ran for Lt. Governor of South Carolina in 2006] and really, it was my responsibility, and it was a lot of other things going on, and I didn’t get to do it. So we are going to have something Sunday out here. And our whole family gets together and brings all the goodies and we have oysters and fish stew and things like that and—but it just—it’s always been a special place for us and our children love it here, and I think, eventually, every child will be here [living on Bowen’s Island]…And when we get old, we’re going to come here too.

Well I know that Robert is committed to rebuilding and that’s going on right now. What do you imagine or hope for the future for Bowen’s Island Restaurant?

CB: Well I hope that he can put it back, you know, like he wants to because he really loves this place. And it was devastating to get that call [about the fire] because, you know, just before the election and the flames were up in the air down there, and it was a frightening thing…But I mean I want him, for his sake, I want him to have it back.

-----

How would you describe Bowen’s Island as it was to someone who hasn’t been there before?

CB: It’s exactly what he’s got on his cards: it’s a state of mind. You either love it, or you don’t like it at all.

-----

To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.

home | events | about the SFA | join us | contact/member services