Couple returns to Lady’s Island and their raw bar brings new energy to local food scene
Beaufort natives Hunter and Jessie Cozart were living with their dog Kai-anne in a camper on Coosaw Island, saving their pennies to one day realize their dream of opening a restaurant. The camper’s refrigerator and shower didn’t always work but the rent was right and with a few side hustles, like horseshoe crabbing, the bills were covered.
Everything lined up when the right opportunity presented and, with the money they had saved and the addition of hours of sweat equity, they remodeled a former sushi bar on Lady’s Island to a new restaurant space.
Sushi, oysters, seaweed salads, crab and shrimp are just a sampling of the menu at the newly opened Locals Raw Bar the couple opened June 16 at 97 Sea Island Parkway. The seafood restaurant also offers steak or a pulled pork sandwich. Drinks include cocktails, beer and sake and the place’s energy has injected more life into the growing Beaufort-area food scene.
“We’re getting busier and busier and busier every day,” Jessie, smiling, said on a recent Monday afternoon during the lull between lunch and dinner service.
As she spoke, a couple of customers were seated at the counter, where they had a full view of an open kitchen. Preparation and food service can get rowdy here and that’s as much of the dining experience at Locals Raw Bar as the food. Customers watch Hunter, the executive chef, or sushi chef Justin Patton — known locally as the Sushi Guy — prepare orders.
“It’s an intense dinner service,” is how Justin describes it. “It can be pretty fun watching.”
Hunter, 28, grew up on Lady’s Island, Jessie, 25, on Coosaw Island. He always wanted to be a chef. “I like eating a lot,” he says.
Several years ago, they decided to leave Beaufort behind. “We were like, ‘We’re never coming back,’” Hunter says. “Sayonara.’”
For seven years, both worked at restaurants in other states, including at a five-star restaurant at the Umstead Hotel and Spa in Cary, North Carolina where they gained valuable hands-on training.
Turns out that the couple that couldn’t wait to leave Beaufort missed the fishing, the lifestyle, family, locals and everything about the Lowcountry and couldn’t wait to return.
In 2020, they moved back and went to work at a restaurant at Dataw Island, the gated waterfront community east of Beaufort. Eventually they opened the restaurant of their dreams inside the old Fuji, the restaurant where Justin was first introduced to sushi. The current site for Locals Raw Bar was the former Japanese restaurant was chosen because of those memories as well as its open kitchen design.
For 12 weeks prior to opening day, the couple had plenty of challenges to overcome. They had invested all of their savings and, without any investment partners, went to work remodeling and adding special touches. The result is a small restaurant space with a decidedly local and hometown atmosphere. There are some designed quirks including chairs that don’t match with some coming from a former Five Guys hamburger restaurant that had closed. In a possible unintended nod to their coastal menu, the tables are finished with a seaworthy coat of hardened boat epoxy.
They wanted it to feel like a place customers could get “damn good food” and a cocktail after a day at the beach or fishing. “Lady’s Island needed something like this,” said Hunter.
It’s not just a sushi and oyster joint.
The menu also includes fried chicken or a New York strip steak or a Togarashi pulled pork sandwich with kimchi slaw. One day, Justin wants to add sausage to the menu.
Hunter shares that opening a restaurant has been the most stressful thing the young couple has ever done. “But the rewards are so worth it.” One of the blessings is being their own boss and making their own decisions instead of working a corporate job.
Creating a restaurant that uses fresh, local ingredients and has a great working environment for the employees was the goal, says Jessie, who says employees are like family. This place has no “front” or “back” of the house drama that can be found at some restaurants. They grew up with many of the employees. Jessica’s younger sister manages the dining room.
Hunter says it isn’t that difficult to make good tasting food if you are working with premium ingredients like black sea bass, Yellowfin tuna, wahoo, shrimp and oysters caught in Atlantic Ocean waters or the tomatoes, watermelons or egg plants grown on St. Helena Island.
They hired Justin Patton, an experienced sushi chef who has worked at other restaurants in the area. Years ago, while working at another restaurant, Patton had actually served Hunter and Jessie sushi. It happened to be on their first date. They did not forget that experience. Patton has deep roots in the area, too. His grandmother owned a cake boutique on Ribaut Road. He shares the goal of Justin and Jessie in bringing “a career culinary company” to Beaufort and improving the city’s food scene. “I want to be a part of that,” Patton said.
Patton calls the service climate “eclectic but focused.” Servers call out across the room when food tickets are ready. As the sushi chef, he says, “you are being watched at all times,” which he enjoys.
“It’s dinner and a show,” Patton says.
The sense of fun transfers to the restaurant’s social media efforts with the restaurant’s Facebook page regularly featuring staff in humorous poses holding items that will be on that day’s menu, like a big red snapper or a giant filet of Yellowfin tuna. Patton says everybody has different skills, using them to collaborate on dishes rather than letting egos get in the way.
Hunter Cozart gets the irony of the young couple that couldn’t wait to leave Beaufort now owning a local restaurant with a goal of some day opening more. They’ve also ditched the camper. They now own their own home. Service at the restaurant, Hunter says, can be “chaotic.” But, he adds, it’s still a well-organized symphony. And a dream come true.
“This has been our goal our entire relationship,” Jessie says.
Hours
Closed Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday, 11-3 p.m., 5-9; Friday-Monday, 11 a.m.-9 pm.
