After 40 years, Hilton Head seafood market ready for a glow-up. Here’s where it’s moving

Some businesses grow little by little over their lifetime, but at Benny Hudson Seafood Market on Hilton Head Island, the growth that is about to happen is more like an explosion of fireworks.

The market has operated out of a pair of shipping containers on the banks of Skull Creek since the early 1980s, but soon it will move into a different building being renovated on the front of the family’s property.

The 900-square-foot seafood market will expand to nearly 5,000 square feet all at once after the move into the building that used to house one of the first furniture stores on the island.

“We’re in the works now and working on the interior and, hopefully, we should be in there by sometime this summer,” said Tonya Hudson, a fourth-generation islander who runs the family business that her father started on the north end of the island all those decades ago.

Tonya’s father, the legendary Benny Hudson who gave the business his name, started out dealing only with wholesale seafood customers.

“We had 16 shrimp trawlers at that time,” Tonya Hudson explained, “... and we actually sold wholesale to large companies in the Gulf area. They would bring semi trucks, and we would load thousands of pounds weekly.”

Pretty soon, though, residents and visitors on Hilton Head began stopping by to ask if they could buy a pound or two. From that, the retail business was born.

Benny Hudson bought two shipping containers from the Port Authority in Savannah, his daughter said. He tied them together with a roof and outfitted the inside of one with a custom ice-packed display counter for seafood. The other became an office for the business.

And while the number of customers grew, the size of the market’s storefront didn’t.

Generations of seafood lovers have climbed the ramp to enter the door on one end of the structure, make their selections, pay and then exit through a second door on the other end. The aisle inside is one-way only.

Behind the counter, employees Colleen Wooby, Jonathan Bryant and Janice Heuck navigate the tiny space with the ease that comes from years of working together to serve customers willing to line up outside to wait their turn to shop.

Tonya Hudson said it’s a bit of a “ballet” when everyone is busy. She hasn’t been able to hire extra workers because of the lack of space behind the counter.

“It’s all we can do with three people on the weekends,” she said. “We kind of know how to dance around each other.”

Offerings on a recent day included local oysters and a variety of oysters from Virginia, large scallops, and locally caught fish such as snapper and trout.

“We have, at any one time, 8-10 different varieties of fish in the building, and that changes based on time and tide and that sort of thing,” Tonya Hudson said.

Family ties

The name Hudson is synonymous with seafood on Hilton Head.

Just a mile down Squire Pope Road from Benny Hudson Seafood Market is Hudson’s Seafood House on the Docks. The restaurant — it was smaller at the time — was owned by Benny Hudson before it was sold to Brian and Gloria Carmines in 1975.

Enough people are confused about the names of the two businesses that the seafood market installed a sign outside directing lost diners to the restaurant about a mile farther along Squire Pope Road.

Along with Hudson, though, there’s another name that figures prominently in Hilton Head hospitality: Reilley.

The Reilley family is the name behind Coastal Restaurants and Bars, commonly known as the CRAB Group of restaurants. The group includes two locations of The Crazy Crab, Reilley’s Grill and Bar, Aunt Chilada’s Easy Street Cafe, Carolina Crab Company, locations of Fishcamp on Hilton Head and in Port Royal, Old Oyster Factory and the recently reopened Boardroom among its businesses.

And then there’s the restaurant that’s under construction.

Towering steel beams outline a multi-story structure in the works next to the current Benny Hudson Seafood Market.

Benny’s Coastal Kitchen, which will fill the space in the spring of 2024, is the result of a partnership between the venerable Reilley and Hudson families.

Both families’ history on the island made the partnership a natural one, said CRAB Group CEO Brendan Reilley.

“The generations they’ve been there, it just made sense to do a nice partnership together,” he said.

Explained Tonya Hudson: “We had this land, and over the years we’ve had so many people approach us to do this or do that on the property. We were always just very hesitant, not really sure what we wanted to do or what we didn’t want to do.”

When the Reilleys approached Tonya Hudson and her mother, Barbara, it seemed like the right time for a deal.

“I think Barbara sold my parents their original bedroom set,” Reilley said with a chuckle.

The CRAB Group is leasing just over four acres of the property for the restaurant from the Hudson family. The Reilleys are in charge of the construction and the running of the restaurant. The Hudsons will keep the seafood market on the land, in the new location, but also maintain access to the dock.

“I think it was a great fit for the Reilley family and the Hudson family to kind of pull our two family heritages together,” Tonya Hudson said.

Benny’s Coastal Kitchen, with a seafood-focused menu, will feature a large patio off the first floor and rooftop bar with a view that’s guaranteed to be a draw. Renderings of Benny’s Coastal Kitchen show a wall of windows across the back of the restaurant overlooking Skull Creek and the working dock.

Reilley was able to go up the elevator shaft to take some photos from what will one day be the restaurant’s rooftop bar.

“The sunset view is pretty amazing up there,” he said.

Said Tonya Hudson: “It’s funny as long as we’ve had this property, that’s the only view we’ve never seen, and there’s going to be nothing like it.”

While the two families’ businesses seem to mesh well together, getting to construction didn’t happen overnight. Background work, planning and approvals have taken years.

“You couldn’t find two nicer people than Barbara and Tonya,” Reilley said. “Easy, easy to work with. I mean, there’s a lot of moving parts to put this partnership together, and if we weren’t dealing with Barbara and Tonya ...”

“This was a big move for us, but we’re super comfortable with the fit of their family and our family together,” Tonya Hudson said.

Changes to come

Tonya Hudson said the site where the current market sits will become parking for the restaurant.

She’s heard from customers worried that the changes will mean a loss for a place they love, but she’s quick to reassure them.

“We can carry so much more product,” she said. There will be tanks for live crabs and lobsters and more prepared foods such as she crab soup or deviled crab.

“I’ve noticed in the past couple of years that a lot of people that have moved here like a lot of to-go items,” Tonya Hudson said. “A lot of people move to the island, and they’re not familiar with seafood, so they’re almost scared to prepare it at their home.”

Oysters Rockefeller, for example, is not a dish many would think to prepare at home. If the oysters on the half shell topped with the other ingredients were available to just pop into the oven, more might consider it.

“That way we kind of start you out with baby steps,” Tonya Hudson said.

What isn’t likely to change is Benny Hudson Seafood being a stop not only for locals but also for tourists headed to their rentals on the south end of the island.

“When the visitors come on the island, the first thing they do is stop at Benny Hudson’s, and then they check in and then they go to the beach. That’s just the way the route goes.”

Then, the route off the island brings them once again down Squire Pope Road, this time with coolers of ice.

“On any given Saturday, we’ve got shrimp and fish going to Ohio, New Jersey. Atlanta is very popular, too,” Tonya Hudson said, “because once they have our product and they realize what real fresh seafood is supposed to taste like, they want to take it home.”