[COPY] The Most Popular Yankee

Heaven help the fool who tested Pearl, a Lowcountry legend.

There is nothing more dangerous—or more delightful—than putting a group of Beaufort folks in a room who lived here in the ’70s and ’80s. Give them one drink and a little time, and the stories start rolling like a July thunderstorm over the marsh.

Take Skeet.

Skeet had legs so long folks swore he could step from Bay Street straight into the Beaufort River without getting his cuffs wet. One night—Lord help us—I was having dinner on the rooftop of the old John Cross Tavern on Bay Street when suddenly there was a thud and a blur of denim and bravado. Skeet had leapt from the rooftop of the Yacht Club across to the John Cross Tavern and landed on his feet like some kind of Lowcountry superhero.

The waiter froze. A tray of gin and tonics hit the floor. Ice skittered across the boards like startled crabs.

Skeet just brushed himself off as if rooftop vaulting were an Olympic sport.

Now, he did have a temper that could curdle milk. One night, in a fit of fury, he shot out the streetlights on Boundary Street. Just shot them clean out. The whole stretch went dark like somebody had flipped off Beaufort itself. And yet—would you believe it?—he never spent a single night at what folks affectionately called the “Beaufort Hilton.”

Nothing he did was ever considered quite serious enough.

But over at the Yankee? That was different territory.

When something flared up at the Yankee Tavern, it got handled.

Arguments there had a way of swelling like high tide—voices rising, chairs scraping, somebody’s cousin saying one word too many. And then you’d hear it.

“TAKE IT OUTSIDE.”

That was Pearl.

Pearl, with her tight perm shellacked into place, cigarette dangling from the side of her mouth like punctuation, eyes sharp as oyster knives. She didn’t yell often—but when she did, grown men moved.

That New “Joisey” accent could slice through a barroom fog faster than a shrimp boat horn at dawn. She and Manny opened the place in 1959—a one-story cinder block building with a brick façade that never pretended to be anything fancier than it was.

They were Yankees. The stayin’ kind. The ones who came South and never quite left, even if the accent did.

And Beaufort loved them for it.

Shrimpers still smelling of pluff mud.
Politicians who loosened their ties.
Doctors fresh from rounds.
Young Marines with too much energy.
Tomato pickers in dusty boots.
Families with babies.
Singles looking for somebody.
And yes—even movie stars in town filming The Great Santini or The Big Chill would find their way to the Yankee.

Because if you wanted to know Beaufort—really know it—you went to the Yankee.

It was loud and democratic and forgiving. It was where grudges cooled,

and romances sparked. Where birthday cakes appeared without warning. Where somebody always knew your name, even if they pretended not to remember what you’d done last Saturday night.

And heaven help the fool who tested Pearl.

Some folks swear Heaven will look a lot like the Yankee Tavern.

No velvet ropes.
No reservations.
Just laughter bouncing off cinder block walls.
Cold beer.
Plates sliding across the counter.
A cigarette’s ember glowing in the dim light.
All kinds of people at one long table.

And Pearl at the door saying, “All right now. Behave yourselves.”

But if you don’t?

Take it outside.