Meredith:
Here we are on episode 42 of the Gimme Golf Podcast, powered by MyrtleBeachGolfTrips.com, here with Nate today. I'm going to be talking about something everyone loves, and that is food. I wanted to share with you three restaurants I've been to and recommend some locals inside information, you could say. Let's get right to it. Nate, how are you doing today?
Nate:
I'm doing great. I've seen your list, and I have eaten at one of them. Obviously, you know that I don't branch out as far as restaurants, but everybody wants the inside information.
Meredith:
Which one have you eaten at?
Nate:
You definitely know where to go. Well, I've eaten at Quigley's. It's close to where you and I both live, and there's two locations. It's by TPC. And then on the south end, you've got Willbrook and Tradition. Real good restaurant. I recommend that.
Meredith:
I love Quigley's and that's why I put it in my top three. They just opened up that branch near us in Murrells Inlet, which is great because before we'd have to drive about 15 minutes down the road. Not too bad of a drive anyway to get down to Polly's from Murrells Inlet. But it's nice to have that in our backyard, so to speak.
Nate:
I can actually walk to this one.
Meredith:
Yes, you can.
Nate:
It's good.
Meredith:
One of my favorite meals at Quigley's is the shrimp and grits. Have you ever tried it?
Nate:
I have not. I am not a grits fan. Now, when I say I don't like something, I've actually tried it. I'm not one of those people that's like, "Nah, I don't want to try that." I have tried grits.
Meredith:
Really?
Nate:
I'm not a fan.
Meredith:
Well, you know what? I think grits are something you either love or hate. I'm a huge grit fan. I love their shrimp and grits. They're amazing. That's probably my favorite meal there, but they have just an amazing menu. Their fish tacos are awesome. I believe they have the fried green tomatoes, another low country entree that's just amazing. I think actually the fried green tomatoes though, I think you can get those like on the side. But still the food is really good. If you want that low country Southern cuisine, you can't go wrong with Quigley's.
Meredith:
They also have other stuff on their menu if you're not into the low country thing. And then they have a lot of beer on tap. It's a great place to go and maybe watch a game. After a round of golf, have a couple beers with your buddies and just a cool hangout place as well. Two in one there.
Nate:
Yeah. It's great after golf. The one in Polly's has... They brew their own beer down there, so they have different micro brews. The one here on 707 I believe it's just tap. They don't have the micro brews here. But great place to go after golf, even if you don't want to eat and just have a beer.
Meredith:
Yep, there you go. Do you have a favorite beer?
Nate:
I'm not a micro brew fan, but I do Miller Light. That's about what I drink. Pretty boring.
Meredith:
You're a cheap date.
Nate:
Yeah, I'm pretty boring. I'm a boring date for sure. It has to be in the bottle usually.
Meredith:
All right. Well, that's good. It's a nice upgrade there from the can.
Nate:
Not draft. Exactly.
Meredith:
All right. Number two, I'm going to go with Sara J's in Garden City.
Nate:
Very good choice.
Meredith:
And you've never been there.
Nate:
I never have. Driven by it thousands of times. Place is very, very busy, especially in the spring and the summertime. And I think they're a seasonal restaurant, but man, I've heard good things about them and always busy.
Meredith:
I know the owners of Sara J's. Wonderful people. It's a place that when you walk into Sara J's, you truly feel like family. I love that feeling of just... You kind of see the same faces year after year, but the food is amazing, the grouper, the mahi-mahi. If you're looking to have a really nice meal after a round of golf, you definitely got to go to Sara J's They also have live music in the summer outside, which is really cool. It's a great vibe out there.
Meredith:
You can just sit by the water there on the marsh and just enjoy the coast. You can see the beach in the distance and you're there in Murrells Inlet and it's just such a cool vibe. I love it.
Nate:
Is it a place that you recommend...
Meredith:
I would. I think it's smart to get reservations, especially in season. I mean, I would say from April to September, definitely get reservations, especially in the summer because they are jamming. You have that Garden City Causeway and that's kind of the general area of the hangout there. But yeah, it's a great place and they also have a really good like to go system. I've had a good experience ordering there and then picking food up. It's very new neatly packed.
Meredith:
You're never missing anything. Whoever is running the to go part is doing a phenomenal job as well. But great place, great people, just a cool vibe. It's kind of got more of a mellow feel to it.
Nate:
Yeah, I know. It's funny that when you drive down that causeway, like I was saying, you have all those home rentals, Dunes Realty, Garden City Realty. And in the summertime, the population of that area in Garden City just goes through the roof. I mean, I know because I go there every morning to get some ocean photography. It's a piece of cake to get there in the off season. But during the summer, those parking lots are full. There's a lot of people down there.
Meredith:
That place is jamming. I mean, you have the pier. I mean, you can technically like... I mean, you can let's say have dinner at Sara J's and just walk down the causeway right to the beach. You could go walk out on the pier. And then there on the pier, you have live music. I mean, it's like a little party. Garden City is like a little mini city, a strip. That's like a huge party every night in the summer. But it's really cool though, because you can literally walk not even a quarter of a mile there probably from Sara J's.
Meredith:
I would think it's about a quarter of a mile right there to the ocean and put your toes in the sand and enjoy that aspect too.
Nate:
And a lot of people fish on that pier out there. I mean, if you ever want to watch people fish, that's a good place to go.
Meredith:
Yeah, it's a fun place. And they have an arcade too. I go there sometimes. I actually go there and play. I love arcade games. I'll take my kids, of course, my grown kids. I have two adult kids that would like to go to the arcade and go to the arcade, but they have a lot of fun games there. They have like the old school Pac-Man, and I could literally go there and spend an hour just playing old school Pac-Man. I always try to get the high record, and I usually don't want to leave the arcade until I can get the high score on the machine, and then I feel like I've accomplished something.
Meredith:
But yeah, anyway, they have a really fun arcade. I would say we go to the arcade at least two or three times a year just for like an hour, and we'll just go blow like 20, 30 bucks and just have a lot of giggles doing it. But it's a lot of fun down in Garden City.
Nate:
Cool. Good place.
Meredith:
Speaking of Garden City, not far from Sara J's is another of... One of my favorite restaurants now. It's new on my list because it's a newer place. It's called Mango Thai. It's a Thai cuisine. It's literally probably about a mile from Sara J's, but it is a Garden City address. Not far. You can Google it if you're driving around in that area and want to find it. They have the best Thai food. Yeah, I'm looking at the menu right now that you have up on the screen. Oh, it's amazing.
Nate:
They do a great job with the menu on their website.
Meredith:
Yeah, they did. The food is fresh. They make it fresh every day. And oh, it's so good. I'm a huge curry fan. I love red curry, the green curry, the yellow curry. Their curries are amazing and it's very reasonable the pricing. If you go there... Let's say you go for lunch. Let's say you're playing golf in the morning on the South End and you want to go grab some lunch afterward. I mean, literally it's under $10 and you can have this just massive plate of healthy cuisine. I mean, super, super healthy. We're talking like anti-inflammation diet here.
Meredith:
They do have a couple of things on a menu. Obviously you can order some fried things and get some things that are not so healthy, but I tend to go with the healthier options and their curries. Like I said, the curries are amazing and their pad Thai is awesome too. That is something that I want you to go try, Nate, because we need to expand the horizon on places that you eat at because you're missing out.
Nate:
I know. I am not anti-trying food. I've never had Thai food, but I would never go in there without somebody like yourself that I would say, okay, what do I start with? I would definitely need to have your expertise.
Meredith:
Yeah, we need to do that. In fact, we should do it next week, because we're going to be filming some golf tips for our viewers and we should head over there. I should do like a sampler. You know what? We should get you like the sampler where you can try a bunch of different things and see how you like it.
Nate:
Yeah.
Meredith:
Yeah, that would be fine.
Nate:
I'm up for that.
Meredith:
Let's talk about your picks no. We've talked about my three with Quigley's, Sara J's, Mango Thai. What about you, Nate?
Nate:
Man, you put me on the spot here. I didn't expect this. I had nothing prepared. I'm a traditional food kind of person. I mean, I like going to Market Common. I know it's the center of the beach. There's a good variety there. I like King Street Grille. It's a bar menu for the most part, right? But I like the location. I like Market Common. I like the atmosphere. And then there is a place at Broadway at the Beach and they do have a few other locations, The Grumpy Monk. Again, it's not a specialty place food like Thai food, but there's something on the menu that obviously everyone can like.
Nate:
I don't particularly go into restaurants that are just specialty foods like sushi. I am not a big sushi fan. I'm more of a traditional pizza, that kind of stuff. To be honest with you, when you go on vacation, I like Outback. I know it's a chain, but you kind of know what you're getting, right? If you want a steak and you know the menu, it's a good place to go. Myrtle Beach has a good variety of restaurants. If there's something that's a staple that you have to eat in, chances are...
Meredith:
Oh, absolutely. That's a really good point, because we have all the major staple restaurants. We've got Cracker Barrel. We have Red Lobsters. We have the TGI Fridays, the Outbacks, the Mellow Mushrooms, and all those national chain restaurant that you can always fall back on your old faithful food picks. And then you have places like the Sara J's, the Quigley's, the Mango Thai that are more mom and pop type of places to eat at, where you get a little bit of a taste of local cuisine.
Nate:
And you've got kind of the I guess you'd maybe call them South Carolina change. You've got Carolina Roadhouse, which is fantastic. It's up by 48th Avenue at Myrtle Beach. I believe that's kind of... They have a couple locations throughout the state, and then you got California Dreaming, which I know is... I think it may be a sister restaurant to Carolina Roadhouse, but they're also in Charleston. I don't think you'd call them chains, but you'd call them local South Carolina chains.
Meredith:
Yeah. Carolina Roadhouse is great. One of my favorite meals there is their cob salad. And it sounds like, oh, salad, not very filling, but their cob salad is so loaded with like cheese and egg and bacon. I mean, this is like the most unhealthy salad you could possibly eat, and it's so delicious. Their bread is amazing, the bread that they bring out prior to your meal. I've always joked that you could go to Carolina Roadhouse and literally just eat the bread and drink sweet tea and that would be really good.
Nate:
Just be done. Check please.
Meredith:
I'm good. Thank you. That was a great sweet tea. Thanks for bread. I'm good. Yeah, I mean, they're great. So many places really to eat at when you come to Myrtle Beach for your next round of golf with your buddies and everything. I mean, there's so many great places to try. You mentioned Market Commons. There's a lot of places to eat just in Market Common. I love all the places there as well. You have Gordon Beers. You have Tupelo Honey, King Street Grille. You have an Italian restaurant. Is it Truvana's?
Nate:
Yeah. Travinia Grill I believe. I mean, you got Nacho Hippo. You got Gordon Beer, of course, does their own beer.
Meredith:
A sushi place.
Nate:
And then you have the Chinese restaurant that's really good. I'm drawing a blank on that, but that's a popular place.
Meredith:
That's really, really good. That's to me like an old fateful place that you're going to get the same meal. If you've eaten at PF Chang's before and you have a favorite, you know it's going to be the same when you go. It's always nice to lean back on those. But yeah, I mean, so many great places to eat and lots of choices from the north end of Myrtle Beach all the way to the south end. Gosh, I'm hungry talking about this food. We're getting to our lifetime now. I'm like hmm.
Nate:
Yep. Great places to eat. You come to Myrtle Beach. You got plenty of options. I don't think you could ever eat at all the restaurants here. It would be impossible. It's like trying to play all the golf course.
Meredith:
You play all the golf courses though. We have over 90 courses, and you can do it. I know groups of golfers that come here year after year. I mean, some groups have been coming here every year for over 30 years and they hit a lot of these restaurants, but they have played most of the golf courses. It is possible to play every golf course in Myrtle Beach. I think that would be a really fun challenge for groups of golfers to do, is come play every course in Myrtle Beach. I mean, why not? It would be a lot of fun. It's almost like people that like to travel to state parks and everything.
Meredith:
They want to hit all the state parks in a certain region or whatnot. But come play every golf course. I mean, at this point, you and I have been here for most of our lives at this point. We've probably played close to every course in Myrtle Beach, wouldn't you say?
Nate:
Yeah, there's a few I still haven't, I believe. Obviously, most of them are probably north end. In my younger days, traveling to the north end was not a... It's not a big deal. We just get kind of stuck where we're at, right? We just kind of do a radius of where we're at. But I could probably name a handful places that I haven't played, but it's pretty few. I mean, there's not many.
Meredith:
I mean, if you come here for a week, you could easily get in 10 courses. You could get in 10 courses in a week. I mean, it'd be fun. You're grinding. That's the whole point. You want to come and play around every day and maybe two rounds, if you can get it in, but you could comfortably play probably 10 courses in a week. You do that for a decade. You've played all of Myrtle Beach.
Nate:
You could do it. I disagree a little bit, but comfortably. Because I wouldn't be comfortable...
Meredith:
I would be comfortable. I would love it.
Nate:
...day five. That's if you did two a day.
Meredith:
If you play two courses, I would recommend play the shorter courses. Don't obviously pick a longer course. I wouldn't play like a barefoot course, and then come and play TPC Myrtle Beach the same day. I mean, no. I think something that would be reasonable would be like Lichfield Country Club and Willbrook Plantation one day. That's going to be reasonable. Going to Myrtle Beach National obviously, just staying out there all day. You could play Kings North and the West Course comfortably.
Meredith:
You can group it in a way where you can stop, have a break, have a good meal in between. The great thing about all of our founder collection courses is we have really good menus. We're talking about food and our favorite places to eat post round at some of the best restaurants in Myrtle Beach. But one thing is for sure with our courses and if you select one of our founder collection courses, we have incredible chefs. The lunch menus at all of our courses is great. In fact, they're so good, you could actually just go to the golf course and eat if you're not playing golf.
Meredith:
I actually would say, hey, go to the golf course and go and eat this. You don't have to go play golf. You know the food is good is if you would go there and you're not playing off. That's the cool thing is if you do the 36 holes, you can have a nice meal at one of our courses.
Nate:
All the courses have great food for the most part. I mean, you got Caledonia and True Blue. They can sit out on that patio. People actually go there just for lunch, for the view. There's all kinds of stuff. But when you're playing 36 holes, make sure you've got it mapped out that your morning round is not on the north end.
Meredith:
That would not be fun.
Nate:
And your afternoon round is on the south end. Stay at those multi-hole facilities. Take advantage of playing 36 holes. But if you got to leave, make sure the golf course is close by. You don't want to be rushing to somewhere.
Meredith:
Don't rush, because...
Nate:
...hurry to finish. You're looking at your watch like, "Man." You're not enjoying the last two holes, and then you get to the golf course and you're late.
Meredith:
And then the first two or three holes are going to be horrible, and then you're going to be miserable. Nobody likes to rush.
Nate:
Our folks, our golf directors at MyrtleBeachGolfTrips.com, that's what they're there for. They'll say, "No. No. We don't want to do that. Today let's put you here." Give you time. They know the lay of the land. When you're looking at your golf courses, kind of look at a map and try to figure the distance, because the Grand Strand is a pretty, pretty large area.
Meredith:
Exactly. Yeah. Those are really great points there. If you want to book your next Myrtle Beach Golf Trip and try some of these restaurants, go to MyrtleBeachGolfTrips.com. Like Nate said, we have golf directors. I always want to mention our awesome golf directors, because they actually live here. They play golf here. They know our courses. You're not talking to someone overseas about Myrtle Beach golf courses. You're literally talking to locals who can help coordinate the best golf trip for you and your golfing buddies.
Meredith:
But this was a really fun podcast. We've done this before. I want to throw out that Nate and I have talked about other restaurants before. I believe the podcast, you can scroll through on the Gimme Golf Podcast and you could find that, but we talk about other restaurants more centrally located too. Today, it just so happened that our picks are more on the south end, but we have done a podcast before where it's a little bit more spread out. I think we even had a restaurant or two on the north end, because there's some awesome restaurants up there as well.
Meredith:
You can go check out our previous podcast, but it was fun today, Nate.
Nate:
Yep, it is, and it always goes back to golf.
Meredith:
It always goes back to golf. Of course, it goes back to golf. But yeah, we're going to get you to Mango Thai. That's on our bucket list.
Nate:
Sign me up. I'm ready.
Meredith:
All right. Thanks everyone for joining us here on the Gimme Golf Podcast and we will see you next time.
