SFA | Oral History | Bowen's Island Restaurant

“It always tickles me to go over there and see Robert Barber back in the kitchen. And here’s a man with a law degree, you know. He’s an ordained minister and registered lobbyist back there in the kitchen, breading shrimp and frying them up. Of course, I think cooking is the most loving thing you can do for someone. And so that was part of it, too: the hominess.”

– Paula Byers

Paula settled near Charleston to be close to the ocean. Her political support of Robert Barber was her first connection to Bowen’s Island Restaurant. After they became friends, Paula started visiting Robert’s family’s restaurant often. But she didn’t go for the food; she went for the experience. Over the years her experiences at Bowen’s Island have included helping to repair the deck, late-night swims in the marsh, and hosting the rehearsal dinner for her daughter’s wedding in the dock house; Robert Barber, an ordained minister, performed the ceremony. Years earlier, Robert’s grandmother, May Bowen, was the witness to Paula’s will. Robert drew up the document for her in his tiny law office in the back of the restaurant. It’s these memories that have endeared Paula to the place and the people of Bowen’s Island.

Listen to this 1-minute audio clip of Paula Byers describing Bowen’s Island Restaurant. [Go here to download the player for free.]

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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

Subject: Paula Byers
Date: January 18, 2007
Location: Ms. Byers’s Home – James Island, SC
Interviewer: Amy Evans

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Amy Evans: This is Amy Evans on Thursday, January 18, 2007 and I’m just outside Charleston, South Carolina, with Paula Byers at her home. And Paula, would you please say your name and your birth date for the record, if you don’t mind?

Paula Byers: Yes, Paula Byers, and I was born October 11, 1944.

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And we’re here to talk about Bowen’s Island Restaurant because as I heard from Robert Barber, you’re a long time loyal good customer. But if we could first get some of your personal background, and you were telling me you were from Tennessee and when you came here and all that.

I was born in Franklin, Tennessee, in a very small like eight-room hospital. And when I was in the second grade, I moved with my mother and stepfather to Daytona Beach, Florida. And I graduated from the University of Florida, and when I graduated, my husband and I had a choice of Charleston or Tallahassee, and we chose Charleston because it was on the ocean and that was very important to us.

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Okay. And so you’ve been here a handful of decades. And Bowen’s Island has been here since the ‘40s. Can you remember your first—first hearing about Bowen’s Island and then also your first visit to Bowen’s Island?

Actually, I can't remember either one of those; it’s just like Bowen’s Island was always there. But I think I didn’t really have much contact with Bowen’s Island until Robert Barber moved to Charleston, and he wanted to get in political office, and he knew that I’m a very loyal Democrat, which Charleston doesn’t have a tremendous number of, although they’re growing. And he called me, we had lunch, and we became friends. At that point I started going out to Bowen’s Island. I will tell you that Bowen’s Island is not, for me, a food designation so much as it is an experience designation. But I think I can remember the first time I ate at Bowen’s Island. I went out there with a group of friends and I—Mrs. Bowen, his grandmamma, was still alive at that time; as a matter of fact. Mrs. Bowen was the witness to my will. By the way, Robert’s law firm was attached—that little block building [in the back of the restaurant], and he wrote my will and then he called his grandmamma over from the kitchen, and she witnessed that will. That’s one reason I’ve never rewritten my will because I hate to do away with that. It seems like a piece of history. But a group went out to dinner, and I’m not much of a steamed oyster person. The restaurant was divided into the oyster room, where John or Steve—I think at that point it was Steve because the cooks out there become part of the family, too. I think Steve was doing the oysters then. And I wanted the shrimp. So when I ordered I said, “I’ll have the fried shrimp.” And Mrs. Bowen slammed my soda—those little short Cokes—Coke on the table and said, “Then you go in the other room,” which meant that I had to choose between staying and not eating or going in the other room, so I just stayed and not ate. But she was very, very, very specific about where you ate what food.

And then later Robert started running for political office, and I helped him do a number of fundraisers, one here at my house, and two on Bowen’s Island. At that point in time there was not—I’m sure there must have been a deck out there at one point in time because shrimp boats used to dock there. But I’m assuming that over time they had collapsed or gone away, so it was just the—the block building. And then they started to build the deck out there. So for one of his fundraisers, I went out. They were going to do it on the deck and they were way—there is not a sense of urgency on Bowen’s Island. It’s—things will get done as they get done. Things get thrown out on the ground sort of, and they’ll get picked up eventually. And I don’t mean to say it’s trashy. It’s just that it’s kind of eclectic in that way. So we had to get that deck done, so I went out there with a carpenter, Richard, and started helping to nail down decks—nail down boards. We didn’t have a compressor gun; we were just nailing them. So the ones with the bent nails are probably mine. But eventually, we did get it finished, and we had the big fundraiser. And I think he was running for US Congress that particular election. Robert should have been elected every time he ran, but for some reason in this state we just weren’t ready for someone who, while being a very traditionalist at heart, still has a huge heart and compassion for acceptance of people who are different. And I think, as I told you the other day, when I think of Bowen’s Island—.
Well, here is another example. I got promoted to a Regional Manager with my company and—but there was a month’s time in there where I didn’t have to work. So I went out to Bowen’s Island every day. I knew Steve, the oyster cooker and knew some of the ne’er do wells out—that were living out there because it was a lot—lots of old trailers. Most of that is gone now. I jokingly say, eventually they’re going to gate it but—let’s hope not—but people just coming running out there to you. And Steve was still living out there and the dock was finished, and I’d go out and climb up on the pilings. I couldn’t do this now; this has been probably fifteen years ago. And we would dive off those tall pilings at the end of the—the dock and swim across the river. That was the only way you could be in the club, and it was kind of like Wendy and the Lost Boys. So we’d go out, and I’d have lunch or we’d cook lunch out there or something. So for about a month I swam off that dock almost everyday.

But there’s just this real sense of, you know, a US Congressman, a Federal Court Judge would be treated no better, no worse than an alcoholic living in a trailer out there. The whole island seems to have this acceptance of—and maybe it’s Robert—of people who are down on their luck; they’re just as worthy as everybody else. I guess that makes sense.
So when my daughter got married, we were looking for a place to have the rehearsal dinner. And Bowen’s Island is not only funky, it’s absolutely gorgeous. I mean it’s got the most incredible view. And so we decided to have the dock out there. And there are two docks. One is a fishing dock, which is the honor system, I believe, that if you want to fish off that dock, there’s a can you can put a dollar in or something. And then there’s the big dock with the roof and all. So we had her wedding party there, and people came from all over the country to the wedding, and they were just enthralled with this place and the graffiti all over the walls. And there’s still signatures from my daughter’s wedding out there and—and we shot fireworks off from the other dark at the—at the end of the rehearsal dinner. We did have it catered. We didn’t—[Laughs] Bowen’s Island didn’t provide the food.

But—I’m trying to think of what else about Bowen’s Island. We talked the other day on the phone about just not memories but feelings, because I think sometimes there’s a difference between a specific memory and how you feel about something. And I think—and I remember when I found out about the fire, I felt like I had lost a family—I get choked up talking about it because—and I know they’re going to rebuild, but this was a place people went to—like I say, they went there for the experience, not necessarily the food. And there was a continuity about names on the walls and the stuff, and people could come back after being out of town 30 years and it was the same. And they could go find the signature they had written on the wall as a Citadel Cadet, like a lot of Cadets go out there. So I think that—that feeling of it provided a home, when maybe your own home was no longer there, because people are very transient now, and the home we grow up in is now somebody else’s house they’re living in. So I have this really warm acceptance feeling about Bowen’s Island. So yeah, the fire really hurt. And I went out there and—to a—Robert called a press conference the next day and all his friends went out there and—and everybody at first was saying this was kind of like a wake and Robert said, “No, we’re going to make it as joyous an occasion—we’re going to rebuild this restaurant. It’s—it’s not going to be different. We’re going to salvage what we can.” And I haven’t seen the restaurant since the fire; so—.

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You mentioned the other day that Robert married your daughter, and I want to hear about that and then also your daughter’s experience at Bowen’s Island and how old she was when she first started going out there.

Well Robert was the Minister at my daughter’s wedding, and that’s another story, too. I told someone that Robert married my daughter and they say, “Oh my God, what happened to LaNelle?” [Robert’s wife] I said, “No, he didn’t marry my daughter [Laughs]. He was the—he was the Minister of my daughter’s wedding.” We chose Robert because we’re not very traditional churchgoers, so we didn’t have a regular Minister, but I wanted someone who wasn’t religious but spiritual. Now Robert is probably both, but I see him as a very spiritual person, and I see him as a very grounded person, so we asked Robert if he would be the Minister at Sandy’s wedding. And he did. And halfway through the service he started talking about the seven-year itch, which kind of like everybody is stunned but—but the truth is, it really was well spoken because he talked about how marriage is a real commitment and how in this country 50-percent of marriages breakup, so marriage is not an easy thing to do. It has to be worked out every year, and everyone, at some point in time, might be tempted to stray from their marriage, but it’s the commitment within the marriage that makes it—that makes us reject that and go back to the one that we chose. So he was the Minister, and she was married in an old plantation house in Hollywood, South Carolina, which is also gone now. And then Sandy and I—I don’t—I think we just feel like Robert has always been kind of an extended part of the family. We’ve known him forever. He has a huge Cinco de Mayo party every year on Bowen’s Island, which we’ve been going to for years. It started off as absolutely an enormous thing; the police were out there directing traffic. It would be interesting because everything from the cooks in the kitchen to Fritz Hollings, the US Senator, would be at this party together, and Sandy has always gone with me. And then when my grandson was born, he’s gone with me.

And Sandy and my grandson and I were in Robert’s commercials for his—now they cut his out; you didn’t see us on TV, but we were out there when they filmed the commercials [for his campaign for Lt. Governor of South Carolina] and one of the interesting things is a new show on the Food Network came out there. Do you know about that—the Hungry Detective? But he cut Bowen’s Island out when he showed the show because—I don’t know why they cut it out because one of the restaurants he showed in Charleston I never heard of in my life and—but it was after the fire, so maybe—maybe that’s why he did it, figuring he couldn’t recommend people to go there. But we did go, and he had some people out there eating and, you know, it’s a place where I’ve gone in the afternoons just to sit out on the dock and read a book. People can do that—to just go out and visit.

And so I think Sandy would—Sandy is probably not as close to Robert as I am, but I think she would reiterate the fact that it just seems like—I hate to keep going back to family place, but I think that’s really what it evokes in people is kind of a family place to go to. And I think Robert’s grandmamma would be really proud of his continuing this tradition. My guess is the land is worth a whole lot more money than the amount of food he serves in that restaurant. I can't imagine he’s getting rich serving food in that restaurant. And the dock itself, I can't think of any non-profit that has asked Robert to let them use that dock for a fundraising event that he’s ever said no to. So everyone, there’s some kind of group out there having an oyster roast or something for—for their non-profit. So ask more questions. I’ve run out of things to say. Ask more questions.

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Well I want to know if—and I don’t know if you can put this into words or not—but Mrs. Bowen, being kind of the matriarch of Bowen’s Island and being this female head and kind of minding all these misfits on the island and oyster pickers and—.

Well I—I didn’t know Mrs. Bowen very well, and from what I understand that she did allow a lot of misfits to come live on the island, and I’m sure that’s where Robert got it from. There’s a certain degree of sadness because I think that’s leaving the island, by the way. I mean and I love Robert’s family but his brother, Cas, has built a gorgeous home on the island—or I guess Cas is his brother-in-law. But more and more really lovely homes are being built out there, so those kinds of misfits are not really present on Bowen’s Island anymore. But I think she must have—I wish I had known her better because I think she must have been a very—what would be the right word, you know, businesswoman. I mean kind of what we look at as businesswoman today—at a time when there weren’t a lot of business women. She obviously kept the place going, and from what I’ve read, it wasn’t always easy. But she made the decision to keep it going.

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Can you talk about when you mentioned that there were trailers and things collected on the island and it had a different look and feel about it in the early days when you started going there? Can you talk about the changes that have happened over those years?

Well at one point in time when you came onto the island the road went straight and then it made a loop, and at high tide you couldn’t make the loop because the road was underwater. And the road if—if you envision Bowen’s Island today where—where Robert Barber and his brothers’ houses face out, there was actually a road in front of their house. And eventually, the road came straight down through the island as it is now. But at one point in time, 90-percent of the place was old trailers or mounds of oyster shells or a piece of equipment that got left somewhere and then never got moved again, and some of that is still there—a boat dock with abandoned boats. I think mine was one of them one time, an old rowboat, and but people lived in these places. Steve lived in a little house with some kind of funky three-legged cat or something. A lot of these people had substance abuse problems I think; I mean I can't swear to that, but that would be my guess. And at one time—point in time he had to kind of ne’er do well Citadel Cadets that had a house out there, and they came and spent time in it on the weekends. And he had a woman named Susan who was one of the chefs—chefs—[Laughs] cooks in the restaurant, and I remember going to the doctor and Susan was in there, and Susan had fallen from the very top of the Morris Island Lighthouse down the stairs but she didn’t remember it because, I guess, she was so inebriated at the time.

So a lot of the people that have come through there—but you know that’s just—that was just their lifestyle but those things are leaving now. When you go out there now, you know, there’s three or four gorgeous homes on the left, and now they’re building nice homes on the right and the trailers are disappearing and the dilapidated houses are disappearing, which, to me, is a little sad. I mean how can someone say, “Well it’s sad to see an old dumpy trailer leaving?” But it’s—it’s like everywhere I go there is—we’ve built another beautiful generic looking home. They all kind of look the same to me, and everybody that lives in them is kind of like the same and we’ve just—. So as I told you a minute ago, I expect one day to go out there and the whole island is gated. [Laughs] I told them, I said, “Don’t you ever gate”—which I’m just joking. I don’t think they would ever do but there’s—there’s a huge change in the past couple—20 years at the way Bowen’s Island looks. It looks much more like, you know, Kiawah-ish [Kiawah Island, which is a high-end planned community not far from Charleston], if that makes sense. Robert may not like me saying that, but it’s—but it’s very valuable land. I mean it’s extremely valuable land. Anything on the water in Charleston is extremely valuable land.

What about the restaurant itself, the physical space?

Well one of the biggest problems the restaurant always had was bathrooms but [Laughs] it was not a place you’d ever want to go to the bathroom, I can tell you that. And I think he’s improved on that. But as you walked in the front door there was a painting on the wall of Steve and—Steve [Shroyer], Mrs. [May] Bowen, and John [Sanka], I think…But then when you went in, you know, on the porch there’s—there was lots of collected furniture, none of which would be found in a fine furniture store, you know. It was just whatever, like abandoned furniture…The left-hand side was where you ordered your food and—and you know, there’s a counter and behind the counter is where they were cooking. And on the right-hand side, the front room was a, I guess, the room that you would eat your fried shrimp or fish on and lots of old jukeboxes and TVs and graffiti, where people had written on top of each other on every available space. And then behind that was the oyster room. And then I don’t know how they cook oysters now, but what they did then is they, you know, would have a big open grate where they’d pour the oysters, and they’d put the like burlap bags and pour seawater over it and steam the oysters open. So now my brother, Jimmy, who lives across the street from me, he goes by James—I call him Jimmy—my brother with Downs Syndrome calls him Jimbo, but he loves to take people from out of town to Bowen’s Island because it’s so unique. So he had his picture taken with Mrs. Bowen, and it was on the wall, and we understand it burned in the fire. But he’s got a copy of it, so he’s going to take it back to Robert. And one thing I think that indicates people’s commitment and loyalty to this place existing in the world is after the fire instead of just saying, “Well that’s too bad. Bowen’s Island burned,” people started bringing things to Bowen’s Island—pictures or memorabilia to put back in the restaurant. And I know they’re rebuilding it—to put back into the restaurant to rebuild and recapture this particular place. So—and there was lots of old political campaign stuff in there that I guess got burned, too, unfortunately.

Did you have a favorite part of the restaurant or a place that you always sat or anything like that?

Well I always sat outside. I mean I prefer to sit on the—the little outside dock and there’s always been an outside place to sit because the view from this restaurant is just—it’s just magnificent. You face out across the river there into the marsh, and then in a distance is Folly Beach. And, believe it or not, we live in a city with a zillion restaurants, very few of whom have any kind of gorgeous view of the water. So it’s just a very—it’s a very peaceful place just to go outside and eat, so I would rather eat outside. Now oysters I don’t eat, so I don’t go there in the cold weather and sit inside and eat oysters, but lots of people do so that—that wouldn’t have been my style.

Do you have a memory of an unusual event or happening or fun memory from your days going there?

Well it wasn’t the restaurant itself, but I was always very amazed that I could climb on top of those pilings and dive into the river. And Robert may not even know this, but some of us used to go back to the restaurant in the middle of the night and go out on the dock after we left the Sand Dollar at Folly Beach and go swimming in the water of his dock. Because there’s phosphorous in the water, so we’d all go skinny dipping off his dock in the middle of the night, although he probably would have joined us, if he had known we were there. And I just dearly loved Steve, who was the oyster cooker. I mean he was just a great guy and fun just to sit and talk to and so other than that—.

Well I will tell you, one night I went out there and—no, when I sold legal research, the Public Defender’s Office were having their annual party there, and Robert would say, “I don’t know how I’m going to handle them because there’s so many people.” So I went out there and played waitress for a night. I just knew them, and I went out there and acted as a server and, you know, waited on the people from the Public Defender’s Office. It was just kind of fun. [Laughs]

Lot of people have come and gone through that restaurant. It always tickles me to go over there and see Robert Barber back in the kitchen. And here’s a man with a law degree, you know. He’s an Ordained Minister and Registered Lobbyist—back there in the kitchen, you know, breading shrimp and frying them up. And I just think—of course I think cooking is the most loving thing you can do for someone—to prepare someone a meal and sit down all together. It’s almost becoming a lost art, too, because families don’t eat dinner together anymore, and so that was part of it, too—is just like the—the hominess…

…So but it’s also—I don’t know if the oysters are especially good or is the shrimp is especially fried well, but there’s something about the ambience of a place that compensates for that. And now when I went out there to film the commercial, the shrimp were wonderful. I don’t know what Robert had done to them, but the shrimp were wonderful. But like I say, for me it was never about the food; it’s always been a destination place to go for the experience. And it’s a place you took out-of-towners because there’s nothing like it anywhere else that I know of. I mean it’s just so funky and the continuity of the same state—like I say, it always amazes me every time I’ve been in there to watch people looking for the name they wrote in there in the ‘50s. And, of course, then the dock started getting all the graffiti on it, too.

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Well what do you think it will be like when it opens again?

I think that in five years we won't even think there’s been a fire. The graffiti will be back on the walls; the—the stuff will be back in there; people will continue to bring remembrances of Bowen’s Island. And it’s kind of like Hurricane Hugo [in 1989]. When it came through this town, we thought we’d never be the same again. It was horrible. I couldn’t get to my house; I couldn’t find my way home for trees and all, but now there are very few remnants. Of course it’s not quite like Katrina. But I think it will—it will all come back and be fine.

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How would you describe Bowen’s Island Restaurant to somebody who hadn’t been there and what to expect?

I would tell them it’s just this funky very eclectic place. Don’t expect five-star dining because it’s a really—it’s a dining experience—not just for the food but it’s an incredible view, and it’s a place you almost can't visualize until you’ve been there. And then once you go there it hooks people. People come from around the world. Every travel digest, every, you know, travel guide, all tell you to come to Bowen’s Island. And it’s not because they’re telling that it’s got the best food in town, but they’re telling you because it’s a very unique Southern experience. It’s—it’s a South Carolina experience. There is no other place like it that you can go to this little funky concrete block building, get your supper, sit within a gorgeous view, talk to the owner who is interesting as can be, really have an experience with the people cooking the kitchen, very casual, bring the kids, let them run around and scream, and so I think it does hook people. I think after they’ve been there—when they come back to Charleston from 1,000 miles away, they want to go back to Bowen’s Island.

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Well and that has been such a profound kind of underscoring to the work that I do, when we’ve been talking about doing this project for a year and then it burned—the restaurant burned—and so now we’re thinking, you know, more than ever, it’s time to get the story while it’s still—even though it’s burned, it’s still alive.

Exactly. I think that’s a wonderful analogy is Bowen’s Island still exists. It may be burned and you maybe not—can go eat there right now, although he’s having parties on the dock, but it didn’t kill the restaurant. It defaced it or scarred it, but it didn’t kill the spirit of the restaurant. That has lingered, and I think that it will—I think it’ll—it’ll—who was it that rose from the ashes in—in mythology? Well I think Bowen’s Island will rise from the ashes and go back [Laughs] and—and be a destination. But I do think it is sad that so many small local places disappeared, and we don’t value them until they’re gone. And if Bowen’s Island were gone, I think people would suddenly feel—well I think that’s what the fire did. I don’t know if people thought he’d rebuild. But it’s all people talked about is the fire at Bowen’s Island.

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