Bridgette Frazier needs no one’s advice in the kitchen. A restaurant owner and town council member in Bluffton, South Carolina, Frazier learned to cook when she was seven. “When my mom passed away, my dad moved us in with my grandmother Daisy, and she wouldn’t let me leave the kitchen until a pot was done,” Frazier says. Canning vegetables, making stewed tomatoes, and putting together big plates of okra were all part of the deal under the Gullah matriarch’s watchful eye. It was tough some days, especially when her brothers were allowed outside, but she saw how her grandmother, “Ma Daisy” to friends, used her culinary gifts to feed her neighbors; no one was turned away when they passed by her porch. Later in life, Frazier decided she wanted to do the same, so she left a teaching career in Florida to return to her coastal hometown and follow her culinary dreams. What she started—on her stove and beyond—was a movement to rethink business equity on a scale rarely seen in a small Southern town. And that movement is all the more reason to visit the charming Lowcountry community of Bluffton, South Carolina.
by RACHEL HAHN
video by MIKA ALTSKAN AND MATVEY FIKS
In Bluffton, South Carolina, an innovative dining scene starts with an equitable small business community
Open Table
But let’s back up a bit in the story. Frazier’s dreams had always been bigger than her food truck, Chef B's Eatz. But she had no financial backing to take the next step—a step to uplift the community at large—until a chance meeting in a serendipitous place.
Billy Watterson had just opened Bluffton’s Burnt Church Distillery. The recent transplant was on a mission to not just own a spirit company but to serve the greater spirit of his new community. He named his distillery after the town’s iconic church and displayed a branch of Bluffton’s Secession Tree (a towering live oak that fell last year and that’s considered the birthplace of the town’s movement to leave the union before the Civil War). Called “the Witness,” the glass-encased tree is inscribed with a poem about the Black experience in the town.
It was written by Frazier, whom Watterson met at a Juneteenth celebration the year before.
“I found out she was already working on this Black business directory and doing a lot of things for Black businesses in Bluffton,” Watterson recalls. Having taken stock of the area's shrinking Black economy, he wanted to help. “I learned an incredible amount from her—real, hard-core truth. We had uncomfortable conversations,” he says. What the two quickly realized was that the community lacked foundational tools to help these businesses thrive. So they founded BlacQuity, a twelve-week course designed to coach entrepreneurs on the essentials of business ownership.
Now in its fourth cohort, the program—led by Gwen Chambers—teaches everything from bookkeeping to the trademark application process. “We had a woman who wanted to scale her elder care business and another expanding her beach apparel line,” Chambers says of recent enrollees. And then there’s Frazier, who completed the course herself and, in partnership with Watterson, is now in the process of constructing Ma Daisy’s a Gullah compound which will include her restaurant, an open air market, bakery, and music venue. Frazier is also working to create the Bluffton Gullah Cultural Heritage Center.
Okàn's journey began with entrepreneur Matt Cunningham, who wanted to open a multi-use space in downtown Bluffton that had a conscience—a site with art, food, and goods that spoke to the history of its Lowcountry community. Chef Bernard Bennett had just the idea: a West African and Caribbean restaurant that traces the legacy of the African American story through food. Okàn isn’t afraid to wrestle with the past on the plate, whether that means celebrating a mash-up of cultures or showing how dishes changed through forced migration, and the culinary elite have taken notice. Bennett was named a semifinalist in the Emerging Chef category of the James Beard Awards this year.
Frazier wishes her grandmother, Ma Daisy, could see what's happening in town. “She was born on a plantation and only had a second-grade education. She had eleven children and lived in such a restricted time,” Frazier says. “But none of those obstacles held her back. I think seeing a space that exists based on the embodiment of who she was would bring her great joy.”
“But none of those obstacles held her back. I think seeing a space that exists based on the embodiment of who she was would bring her great joy.”
—BRIDGITTE FRAZIER
Plan your culinary journey to Bluffton at VisitBluffton.org
It's a similar story of collaboration at Bluffton's Okàn restaurant, a place Jai Jones, a Charleston-based food writer and photographer, says is one of the most intentional and exciting restaurants he’s visited. In partnership with G&G, Jones, who attended the Roots and Rivers Festival and visited the restaurant, says the flavors in Bluffton and work happening in the small town with Blaquity and more represent an exciting shift for the area and beyond. "They're really talking about the issues and working to understand what's needed in the community," Jones says.
“Billy said, ‘I want to invest in you. I want to watch you win too,’” Frazier recalls. The partners see the space as a first for the region, a place where visitors will experience Gullah Geechee heritage through all of their senses. But while Ma Daisy’s is under construction, Frazier, Watterson, and Chambers are also working on initiatives like the Roots and Rivers Festival. The inaugural event was held in September and showcased BlacQuity graduates along with other local business owners for a day of celebration in the center of town. “This was just the start. We're going to do this every year,” Chambers says of the event.
Burnt Church Distillery co-founder Sean Watterson
Gwen Chambers, executive director of BlacQuity
Lisa Sulka, Mayor of Bluffton; Bridgette Frazier, co-founder of BlacQuity, Billy Watterson, co-founder of BlacQuity and co-founder of Burnt Church Distillery; Sean Watterson, co-founder of Burnt Church Distillery; Jai Jones, Charleston-based food writer and photographer.
Roots and Rivers Festival
Blue Crab and Blue Grits
at Okàn
Interior of Okàn
Breakfast Potatoes with Berbere Mayo from Okàn
Bridgette Frazier, owner of Chef B’s Eatz
—VENITA ASPEN
“I found it to be a very diverse place in the sense that one minute you could be at a local dive, listening to some great live music on the patio, and the next you could get dressed up for a glam evening on the town.”
For Sunday, her final day in town, Aspen ventured to Palmetto Bluff, a community nestled within 20,000 acres of Bluffton’s stunning wildlife. Home to a collection of neighborhoods, a vast nature preserve, inviting club amenities, and the award-winning Montage resort, Palmetto Bluff has both a quaint, small-town feel and a sense of subtle luxury. Aspen’s exploration began with lunch at Buffalo’s, a casual eatery that serves Southern Italian-style dishes, including light, seasonal salads and fresh-made pasta and flatbreads. After lunch, a tour of the grounds awaited, complete with a stroll through the main square, a bit of shopping, and ample opportunity to marvel at the wild surroundings.
For a charming retreat off the beaten path, Bluffton may be just the answer. “I found it to be a very diverse place in the sense that one minute you could be at a local spot, listening to some great live music on the patio, and the next you could get dressed up for a glam evening on the town,” Aspen says. “We were given a warm welcome everywhere we went.”
Chef Bernard Bennett of Okan
Lisa Sulka- Mayor of Bluffton, SC, Bridgette Frazier, Co-Chair of BlacQuity, Billy Watterson- Co-Chair of BlacQuity and Co-Founder of Burnt Church Distillery, Sean Watterson - Co-Founder of Burnt Church Distillery, Jai Jones
Burnt Church Distillery Co-Founder Sean Watterson
Gwen Chambers, Executive Director of BlacQuity
Bridgette Frazier,
Co-Chair of BlacQuity
Blue Crab and Blue Grits
at Okan
Breakfast Potatoes with Berbere Mayo from Okan
Interior of Okan
Chef Bernard Bennett of Okàn