A restaurant my parents and I have been going to since I was young during our annual Pawleys Island visits has moved to Vegas. Ironically, our agency has done the work for them on identity, logos, etc. Now Louis has decided to focus all of his attention here in Vegas, closing the Pawleys Island one:(
Famed chef will close Pawleys Island businesses
Louis Osteen will focus attention on Las Vegas eateries
By Johanna D. Wilson - The (Myrtle Beach) Sun News
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Louis Osteen is one jolly man.
“I’ve found out what the meaning of a good life is,” Osteen said. “If you are happy, your life is good. If you aren’t happy, your life isn’t good. It takes different things to make people happy, but I’m happy.”
The 66-year-old restaurateur, owner of Louis’s At Pawleys and The Fish Camp Bar in Pawleys Island, will close his businesses Sept. 5, when his lease is up, to better focus energies on ventures in Las Vegas and beyond.
“It’s a decision I made to make my life a whole lot simpler, instead of me and Marlene (his sweetheart whom he married in 1979) going back and forth all the time,” said Osteen, a chef who clinched 2004 American Express Best Chef in the Southeast by the James Beard Foundation, the Oscars of food competition.
The property Osteen will vacate, however, has caught the interest of others.
“We have been talking with the owners of the Hammock Shops about putting in a restaurant at that location, and we will be able to release specific details [about] that very shortly,” said Laura Bright, director of marketing for Maverick Southern Kitchens, an independent restaurant and hospitality management company based in Charleston. The company’s businesses include High Cotton, Maverick Bar & Grill in Charleston and Greenville and Slightly North of Broad in Charleston.
In November, Osteen opened Louis’s Las Vegas and The Fish Camp in Las Vegas --- a venture that cost around $7 million.
A native of Anderson, Osteen was determined then, as he is now, to let more and more folks know that the South rules.
“Everything at The Fish Camp and Louis’s Las Vegas is about the South,” said Osteen in a phone interview Wednesday from Las Vegas. “The South is where I am from, and it is an awfully good place. The South has given America all of its original music. The field chants the slaves sung on the plantations turned into blues, then that turned into jazz and then that turned into rock and roll. The people in the Appalachian Mountains gave us bluegrass music. The South has given this country lots and lots and lots and lots of journalists and authors. And the South has the juiciest food. So, why not promote the South?”
At the eateries in Las Vegas, Osteen said he has cotton on a wall, other walls covered in cypress and kudzu on the ceiling.
Osteen, who has three daughters and five grandchildren, has been in the restaurant business since 1974. He opened in Pawleys Island the first time in 1980 and then again in March 2002.
“They are people coming in a lot for their favorite dishes before it goes,” said Bonnie Brewer, wine director and a manager for Osteen in Pawleys Island.
Osteen’s creamy grits (made with salt, pepper, cream, butter and milk) that is served with jumbo shrimp with a creamy reddish-brown gravy is arguably deemed the best on the Grand Strand by customers.
Osteen plans to teach others how to cook with Southern flair and in the future help other guys open places in Florida and New York.
“I’m not going to own the places,” Osteen said. “I’ll just be sitting back and getting my check. And then I’ll go back to make sure they are cooking the grits right.”
Osteen said he has a good family of employees working in Pawleys Island (about a total of 90 during the peak of summer).
“None of them are worried about finding a job,” he said.
His time in the business of food has allowed him to develop a resume that earns respect from restaurant industry insiders and outsiders.
“Certainly, it is upsetting,” said James Clark, Marina Inn at Grande Dunes executive chef. “I hate to see him go, but I wish him all the luck in Las Vegas. He will be greatly missed because he is loved by so many.”
Clark, 37, worked with Osteen at Louis’s Charleston Grill and Louis’s, which were both in Charleston.
“He has been one of my mentors, and working with him has really opened a lot of doors for me,” Clark said.
Osteen’s patrons said they will miss the food and the environment of his Pawleys Island spots.
“The community is going to suffer,” said Margaret Moore, a resident of the Burgess community in Horry County. “Pawleys Island is going to suffer. I love his place because you can bring your family, and the children enjoyed playing (on the playground). It’s really a great social place.”
Moore never actually ate at the restaurant, but she went there to enjoy live music performed by Deas Guyz – a group that plays a lively mix of Motown hits, soul and Southern rock.
Rose Rock, a Georgetown County resident and an author, enjoyed the food and atmosphere.
“I love the ambience, and I love the people,” Rock said. “The people I met there were always interesting, and they were friendly. The food was excellent, and the service was excellent, too. I just loved it.”
Osteen said he and his wife are enjoying a good life, and his friends and fans should know he could pop up anywhere.
“I’ll be around from time to time because every day is a new day,” Osteen said. “And I know I am not going to retire until I make so money…Right now, I’m enjoying Las Vegas because it is fun, it is wild and it is crazy. You have to have fun because life is too short, and you have to have all the fun you can.”
