Refrigerated Trailer for Rent in Hilton Head, SC

Powerball’s grand prize continues to inflate in value as nobody has won the game’s ultimate jackpot since Jan. 1, but someone in the Palmetto State nearly snapped the streak Monday, South Carolina Education Lottery officials said in a news release.

A $250,000 winning Powerball game was sold at a gas station in South Carolina’s Upstate region, according to Tuesday’s release.

Now the search is underway for the winner.

The ticket that was one number shy of winning the Powerball grand prize was sold at the Yana Food Mart gas station/convenience store at at 6035 Wade Hampton Blvd. in Taylors, lottery officials said.

The six-figure winning ticket matched four white ball numbers and the red Powerball number in Monday’s drawing, according to the release.

The winning numbers in Monday’s drawing were 1, 3, 7, 16, 66 and Powerball: 5.

The winner has 180 days to claim the prize, according to lottery officials.

The winner will be allowed to retain some privacy, as South Carolina is one of 11 states — along with Arizona, Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, Texas and Virginia — that allow lottery winners to remain anonymous.

The odds of matching four white ball numbers and the red Powerball number are 1-in-913,129, according to the release.

“Sign the back of your ticket and put it in a safe location until you’re ready to come forward to claim the prize,” lottery officials said.

For complete information on claiming prizes, go to sceducationlottery.com.

When the ticket is claimed, the gas station is expected to receive a $2,500 commission for selling the winning game.

In addition to the $250,000 winning game, a $50,000 prize-winning ticket was sold in Columbia prior to Monday’s drawing, according to the release.

That ticket, which also matched four white ball numbers and the red Powerball number, was purchased at Harry’s at 9900 Two Notch Road, officials said. That’s the same location as Jimmy’s Mart, where multiple significant prize-winning lottery tickets have been sold in recent years.

Because there was no grand prize winner, the jackpot for Wednesday’s Powerball drawing is estimated to be $559 million, officials said.

Anyone looking to buy a ticket must make a purchase by 9:59 p.m. Wednesday for the 10:59 p.m. drawing. Tickets are $2, and could cost more with additional options.

The odds of winning Powerball’s grand prize are 1-in-293 million.

In a breaking news situation, facts can be unclear and the situation may still be developing. The State is trying to get important information to the public as quickly and accurately as possible. This story will be updated as more information becomes available, and some information in this story may change as the facts become clearer. Refresh this page later for more updated information.

This story was originally published March 12, 2024, 2:03 PM.

Philip Schrader drives his golf cart through the Palmetto Hall course, where he works as a ranger. For five seasons he’s ensured Hilton Head players follow rules and etiquette, but he’s never seen something as impolite as he did this month: an alligator eating another alligator.

Schrader estimated that the larger alligator was around 10 feet long and the smaller was about 5 feet long. He first saw the pair on Feb. 13 around noon and a second time about two hours later in the same position, with the smaller alligator still alive.

“He had a good grip on him in his mouth,” Schrader said. “It didn’t look like there was a struggle or anything.”

Alligator cannibalism isn’t civil, but it’s not uncommon either, according to Morgan Hart, the alligator project leader for the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. Many other animals are also cannibals; for example, foxes and bobcats, but alligators are more visible because they live in close quarters with humans, especially on Hilton Head. It’s a reminder that Beaufort County residents co-exist with apex predators that will attack just about anything, including other alligators and, in three local fatalities within five years, humans.

Hart guessed that the larger alligator was male and anywhere from 25 to 70 years old based on its size because female alligators only reach about 9 feet. Since the smaller alligator wasn’t a juvenile, it’s likely “there was something else going on other than just predation.”

It’s possible the smaller alligator was injured, making for an easy meal, or it challenged the larger alligator for territory, forcing a fight, according to Hart.

“Usually there’s a pretty big difference in size,” Hart said, explaining that adults may eat juveniles that are less than 5 feet long.

As to why the larger alligator wasn’t actively eating the smaller alligator, Hart said there could be a couple of possibilities.

“If he’s got a good bite like that and he’s afraid that prey item is going to get away, he might just sit there and hold on to it,” she said.

The alligator may have been basking in the sun, waiting to have the energy, digestive ability and metabolism needed to eat the smaller alligator. Like other cold-blooded animals, alligators don’t make their heat and rely on the sun to raise their body temperatures for energy.

“If their body temperature is under about 65 degrees, they really can’t feed. They can’t digest,” Hart said. “He’s waiting to get warm enough that he can spend some energy taking this other alligator apart to eat it.”

The next day, when Schrader made his rounds, the two alligators were gone. Schrader did something he’s practiced at: letting them play the course.

It’s what Hart recommends when encountering the reptiles so that everyone stays safe.

“People just need to give these these creatures their space, and they’ll take care of it themselves,” she said.

This story was originally published February 20, 2024, 1:40 PM.

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It’s no secret that Hilton Head Island is full of beautiful views from its shoreline.

Whether you are a local resident or just visiting, many diners try to find local restaurants with the best views, especially for when the sun begins to set.

If you’re looking for the best places to catch a glimpse of the local scenery, here are the seven best restaurants with a view on Hilton Head, ranked first through seventh, according to Tripadvisor.

Although not directly on the ocean, Links offers guests prime viewing of Harbour Town Golf Links, home of the PGA TOUR’s RBC Heritage Presented by Boeing golf tournament coming up in April.

Links, an American Grill is on the south end of the island in the Sea Pines resort community of Harbour Town and can be found within the Harbour Town Clubhouse. The 2023 “Travelers’ Choice Award” receiver offers beautiful views and is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. With both indoor and outdoor seating options, the premier fine-dining locale features a broad array of menu items and includes a Wine Spectator award-winning wine list, local craft beers, specialty cocktails and more.

Coast, Oceanfront Dining is a beachfront establishment on Hilton Head Island in Sea Pines that offers guests stunning ocean views and an outdoor patio to enjoy the salty sea breeze. The popular establishment can be found at the Sea Pines Resort and is open to the public daily.

Coast’s Lowcountry menu features a variety of local seafood, a raw bar, cocktails and more while guests also enjoy the nearby live music at this family-friendly restaurant. Although reservations are recommended, attire can be casual. The 2023 “Travelers’ Choice Award” receiver can be reached at 843-842-1888, but reservations can also be made online.

Ocean Lounge is a wonderful choice with coastal views for anyone over 21 years old. Here, guests have the opportunity to take in the scenic views of the Atlantic Ocean from the second floor of the Sea Pines Beach Club at the Ocean Lounge restaurant, which is open daily from 4 to 9 p.m.

The establishment is only open to adults 21 and older, where attendees may enjoy a full dinner menu from Coast, Oceanfront Dining in an upscale dining destination admired by locals and guests for its captivating scenery and extensive bourbon list.

Guests can select from more than three dozen bourbons, a collection of cognacs and cordials, as well as gins, ryes, single malt scotches, blended scotches, whiskeys, tequilas and mescals.

The Quarterdeck is a favorite staple for many who frequently visit Sea Pines on Hilton Head Island. The destination restaurant can be found in Harbour Town next to the iconic Harbour Town Lighthouse and offers waterfront dining, sunset views, a restaurant, a first-floor bar and dining area as well as a rooftop oyster bar with 270-degree views of Harbour Town and Calibogue Sound.

Quarterdeck is open daily from 11:30 a.m. until 9 p.m. with bar service from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Live entertainment is seasonal from 4 to 7 p.m. Reservations are recommended.

Hilton Head Social Bakery originated at Shelter Cove Harbour and Marina with waterfront views and later opened a second site near the Sea Pines Circle following the high demand and adoration for the locale.

The bakery is owned and operated by award-winning French chef Philippe Feret and serves a variety of camera-ready pastries, desserts and breakfast items. Day-to-day hours of operation vary by location.

Bistro 17 landed on Tripadvisor’s list for its view of Shelter Cove Harbour & Marina. The popular locale is open Monday through Saturday and offers both lunch and dinner menus.

Sunset Grille is a casual, waterfront fine dining restaurant established in 1996. Guests can enjoy lunch, dinner or Sunday brunch at the establishment voted by Garden & Gun magazine as having one of the best Bloody Marys in the South.

Sunset Grille offers sunset and water views perfect for a romantic fine dining experience. It’s located at the Hilton Head Harbor Marina on the Intracoastal Waterway and overlooks Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge.

This story was originally published March 2, 2024, 12:54 PM.

The world brands Hilton Head as a vacation destination. Luxury and lifestyle travel magazines name it the best island in the U.S. Economists called it the “new Hamptons;” country singer Zach Bryan quipped about the two as retirement communities in a recent song.

There is some validity to those judgments, but there’s also a lot more to Hilton Head demographics than what’s on the surface, based on a recent town assessment.

A 2023 assessment shows the population is getting older and varies greatly based on the season. It also shows changing demographics that are rarely mentioned and might not be known among residents: Hilton Head’s population is plateauing, the Hispanic community is growing the fastest and there has been a long-term decrease in African American residents.

The town conducted a “Conditions and Trends” assessment last month, analyzing the town’s demographics to inform policy development and growth planning. The assessment was compiled by consultants and based on multiple sources including the U.S. Census, American Community Survey and Gullah Geechee Cultural Preservation Project report.

“This is the first time that we are assembling this level of data,” Director of Planning Missy Luick said.

Here are the top seven demographic findings from the report:

Hilton Head’s population is plateauing at 37,660 full-time residents after immense growth in the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s, especially compared to Bluffton and Hardeeville.

The island population only grew 11% between 2000 and 2020 compared to Beaufort County as a whole growing 55%, Bluffton growing 2,074% and Hardeeville growing 317%. In Georgia, the Savannah metropolitan area grew 45% between 2000 and 2020.

More people in Hilton Head are living alone or live in a household where everyone is over 65 years old, shifting the population to be less likely to include school-aged children.

Households over 65 were up 50% and persons living alone were up 57% between 2000 and 2020. It makes for smaller average household sizes, which decreased 4.3% to 2.2%, compared to 1% for Beaufort County between 2000 and 2020.

On any given day, there are more than 8,500 visitors on Hilton Head, not including second-home owners or workers. In full, more than 3.1 million people visit throughout the year.

Workers are the highest percentage of the island’s daytime population, then non-working full-time residents, then visitors.

On average there are about 53,500 people on the Island each day. The most recent breakdown is from 2021 when Hilton Head’s 48,911 daytime population was:

The island population is getting older and the school-age population is decreasing.

Islander’s median age moved from 26 to 58 in between 2000 and 2020. During that period, 9,000 new residents over 55 moved to Hilton Head. Every other age segment decreased in size.

The 65 and over segment increased 80%, accounting for 6,500 new residents during that time. It’s consistent with Beaufort County, which grew by 175% in the older segment.

Notably, residents under 18 are decreasing, accounting for Beaufort County schools losing 400 students from 2012 to 2022. The most students were lost below second grade.

Hilton Head is rich with Gullah Geechee history, but the percentage of African Americans on the island has decreased by 400 residents from 2000 to 2020. It moves the total percentage down from 8% to 6%.

This doesn’t mean that the segment of white islanders is getting larger. Islanders who identify as white decreased from 85% of the population in 2000 to 79% in 2020.

Increases come partially from residents who identify as “other” or as “two or more races,” which increased from 6% to 13% during the same time.

Hilton Head’s Hispanic community is growing faster than any other population on the island, mirroring regional and national trends. Islanders who identify as Hispanic or Latino rose by 28.2% between 2000 and 2020 from 3,934 to 5,045.

The Beaufort County School District has the third-largest Hispanic student population in South Carolina, and Hispanic students make up almost half of the public school population. The district has the third largest Hispanic student population in South Carolina, with about 7,000 students concentrated mostly on Hilton Head and in Bluffton. Only Greenville and Horry counties’ school systems educate more of these students.

About one in every three students is multilingual and developing fluency in English at Hilton Head Island Middle and High Schools. Less than 33% of those students were language proficient in 2020, falling at least 11 percentage points behind their South Carolinian peers.

A little under 12% of Hilton Head residents were born outside the the United States, with 66% of this group migrating from Latin America. Europeans represent 18% of the total foreign-born population.

Do you represent any of these trends? Reach out to reporter Mary Dimitrov at mdimitrov@islandpacket.com. This article is one in a series of explorations of the demographic changes happening in the Beaufort County area. Other installments are coming soon.

This story was originally published February 20, 2024, 9:02 AM.

Even when a restaurant has been years in the making, there’s bound to be a few opening week surprises.

As Benny’s Coastal Kitchen opened its doors to the public on Hilton Head, one of those surprises was smack in the middle of the menu: The popularity of the Brazilian Fish Stew caught Chef Shaun Carter a bit off guard.

The dish, made with a base of coconut milk seasoned with yellow chili paste, includes local shrimp, clams, fish and scallops, and is served with Carolina Gold rice.

“I honestly thought I’d end up having to take it off the menu,” Carter said. “I really like it, but I’m like, I just don’t know if enough people are gonna go for this and try it.

“It’s my No. 1 seller probably like five nights a week.”

The restaurant on the banks of Skull Creek opened quietly in February. The open-air tapas bar on its second floor, called 41 Up for the number of steps between floors, opened on March 1 even though it was a rainy day.

Now that both the main restaurant and tapas bar have fully opened, next on the agenda is adding Sunday brunch. Plans are to have that available by Easter.

Benny’s Coastal Kitchen is the latest addition to the lineup for the Reilley family’s CRAB restaurant group, which also includes Old Oyster Factory, Reilley’s Grill and Bar, two locations of The Crazy Crab, Carolina Crab Company, Aunt Chilada’s, two locations of Fishcamp, and The Boardroom.

Benny’s is located on a site tied to an equally venerable Hilton Head family. It’s the former home place of island native Benny Hudson and where his name lives on at the Benny Hudson Seafood Market in a newly renovated building on the front of the property.

Benny’s Coastal Kitchen takes up the entirety of the bottom floor of the building, open-concept style, under a soaring ceiling. A bar with high-top tables is on one side, and the main part of the restaurant is on the other.

On the way to their tables, customers can peek into the open kitchen, but once seated, it’s hard to imagine wanting to look at anything but the view of Skull Creek provided by a wall of windows across the back.

Even two rows of tables along the outside patio don’t take away from the panoramic view.

“We have a complete open seating plan, basically,” Marci Kinavey, one of the managers, said, “not a bad view anywhere.”

The understated interior decor — the restaurant’s website calls it “casually sophisticated” — is highlighted by mementos and art that call to mind the legendary seafood businessman Benny Hudson. One of his boats hangs from the ceiling and another is depicted in a painting above the bar. His photos and photos of his numerous boats line the stairwell to the rooftop tapas bar.

Included in the Benny’s logo is an homage to Hudson. The two minnows above the restaurant’s name are a reminder of one of his mantras: “It starts with a minnow.”

While the decor puts a modern spin on elements from the past, the kitchen is on a similar track, taking familiar local ingredients and presenting them in a unique way.

Carter, the chef, uses classic local ingredients — the restaurant’s shrimp come off the private dock behind the restaurant, for example — and pairs them with spices from Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa.

“This menu is definitely special,” Carter said. “It’s not your traditional Hilton Head menu by any stretch.”

The oyster bisque is made with local oysters but they are paired with black urfa, a Turkish chili spice.

“You get those like roasted cayenne kind of flavor profiles that’s more traditional to Turkey paired with a Lowcountry classic like oysters,” Carter said. “We’ve done a lot of meddling and melding of really cool trending flavor profiles at the same time embracing the things that are awesome to this area.”

Every menu item seems amped up with flavor. The Bronzed Swordfish is seasoned with za’atar and served with crab dirty rice. The Whole Fried Catch is served with baharat tortillas and chimichurri. The Butter Lettuce Salad is topped with strawberry champagne vinaigrette and feta croutons.

The response to the menu has been overall positive, Carter said, explaining that because there are not many traditional, find-it-everywhere choices on the menu, people may feel more compelled to try something different.

“It’s been a really positive response. You have a couple of people who go, ‘Where’s the fish and chips?’” he said with a sly grin and a sheepish shrug. “Pick another place. You’ll find it, I promise.”

What: Benny’s Coastal Kitchen

Address: 75 Shrimpers Row (off Squire Pope Road), Hilton Head

Hours: Restaurant 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily; 41 Up tapas bar 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. daily

Website: bennyshiltonhead.com

Phone: 843-715-2202

This story was originally published March 7, 2024, 2:43 PM.