This family is turning aging buildings into a Brunswick town's favorite gathering spots

When Rube McMullan told Carson Durham, then-mayor of Shallotte, some 30 years ago he believed the town had been built backward, he wasn’t sure how Durham would react.

Durham had called a meeting with McMullan, wondering why he and his family had been buying properties around the Shallotte River.

“The greatest, underutilized land in Shallotte is property around the river,” McMullan told him. “I believe the town was built backwards and I think that’s going to change. And when that changes, we’ll own key real estate.”

Durham slammed his hand against his desk as hard as he could, and McMullan sat across from him, scared.

“He looked at me and said, ‘That’s exactly what I think,’” McMullan recalled with a laugh.

Some three decades later, it seems McMullan was right.

Public and private efforts to revitalize the town – with a particular emphasis on the once forgotten riverfront – are products of a renewed interest in the small Brunswick County town's body of water that first put it on the map.

Private effort to restore rather than bulldoze

McMullan now owns those properties. Rather than bulldozing them and building new structures entirely, McMullan was committed to restoring the buildings and bringing in new commercial services to meet the needs of the current residents.

Originally from Greensboro, McMullan attended the University of Georgia and spent much of his adult life in Atlanta. When he was growing up in Greensboro's Triad region, he said, his family spent weekends and summers at their home in Carolina Beach.

He said he bought his home in Ocean Isle Beach in the late 1970s.

“I wanted them to grow up the same way because it was just a really cool way to grow up,” he said. “Ocean Isle was the closest North Carolina beach to Atlanta. If you’re from North Carolina, you’re always from North Carolina.”

McMullan began his career in real estate development in Atlanta and continued that work when he moved his family back to North Carolina. He and his sons started by buying every property they could that touched the Shallotte River.

“I think downtown Shallotte is an incredibly underutilized piece of real estate,” McMullan said. “It’s like the town was built backwards, like they tried to cover up the river rather than using it.”

That conversation with Durham, McMullan said, started a relationship between McMullan Properties and the town of Shallotte where “we were all focused on acknowledging this incredible, natural resource that we have in Shallotte – the Shallotte River – and how do we embrace that, how do we enhance that.”

The Shallotte Inlet and river served as a stopping point for boaters traversing to and from Wilmington. They’d stop at a dock where Main Street now sits and pick up supplies and food, McMullan said. Commercial services, like trading companies, department stores and a post office, were built on the high ground immediately next to the river.

Wing & Fish Company was the first of McMullan’s projects. The building at 4762 Main St. dates back to the 1890s, McMullan said. Taking advantage of the original brick and timber beams, the family restored the building, rented it out to a few other restaurants over the years and eventually opened Wing & Fish over a decade ago. McMullan’s son, Barrett McMullan, and his wife, Stephanie McMullan, own and operate the restaurant, which serves as a popular spot among the locals.

It's the most popular lunch spot in town, Rube McMullan claims. He believes the atmosphere is largely thanks to the preservation of the building itself. If it were a new building, he doesn’t think the atmosphere would be quite the same. It’s why he chose to embrace the history of the building in the first place.

“There really was no question,” Rube McMullan said. “Once you tear down something like this, it’s gone forever.”

Just next door sits another of Rube McMullan’s ventures: Pour House, a pay-by-the-ounce, self-serve taproom that opened in 2023. The building dates back to the 1900s, Rube McMullan said, and was given new life. The space previously operated as Red Hare, a taproom for a Georgia-based brewery.

When Red Hare closed, the town was missing a gathering spot. Pour House looked to fill that void. Smoke’d – a restaurant on the water also operated by Barrett and Stephanie McMullan – was another of the family’s projects, though the building wasn’t quite as old as some of the McMullan’s other projects.

The latest project is still under renovation: The former Bellamy Hardware Building at 4812 Main St. Once complete, the site will likely be a retail store of some kind, Barrett McMullan imagines.

While development – largely residential development – in the county is often met with some animosity from residents, Barrett McMullan said locals have been more receptive to their work as it embraces the town’s history and offers new services for the residents.

“Make no mistake, we’re not some unmotivated hero here trying to save buildings, we’re in business,” he said. “While we have a vision… it all still has to make economic sense. We go spend a ton of money because we believe that we have faith in time the area will grow, and the businesses will work. It’s all part of the plan.”

Town embracing its history

The town of Shallotte first outlined its vision to update its presence on the Shallotte River more than a decade ago – imagining a space that would become a commercial and recreational downtown hub for residents and visitors alike.

In the fall of 2021, the town completed the first step in the multi-phase project when it opened the Shallotte Riverwalk – a 0.3-mile walkway along the river, bookended by gazebos and studded with informational plaques celebrating Shallotte’s history.

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Eventually, McMullan said, the riverwalk could connect all the way back up to Main Street, creating a true commercial, residential and recreational hub along the waterfront.

Jamey Cross covers Brunswick County for the StarNews. Reach her at jbcross@gannett.com or message her on Twitter/X @jameybcross.

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: How groups in Shallotte, NC are restoring the town