There are no strangers at Bert’s Market. “Patronized by freaks, surfers, skaters, crunks, retirees, tourists, stoners, day trippers, hippies, hipsters, and regular folk,” as the website proclaims, the small corner store is the only grocery on the island of Folly Beach, South Carolina. It’s hard to say whether Bert’s grew into a community hub or was born that way. Either way, it beats to the island’s easy coastal rhythm around the clock.
To step inside is to enter an eclectic, sun-soaked Folly Beach town hall that’s open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three-hundred-and-sixty-five days a year. Stickers around the shop promise, “We may doze, but we never close.” The staff greets familiar faces by name and newcomers with equal warmth in their smiles.
Outside in the morning light, surfers coming in from dawn patrol beeline for the sidewalk order window, eager for warm breakfast burritos swaddled in tinfoil; beachgoers stock up on sunscreen and pick up wide-brimmed straw hats; construction workers tote out housemade wraps, sandwiches, and slices of pie for lunch; musicians swing by for guitar strings and picks on their way to gigs; families renting bungalows down the street plan tomorrow morning’s breakfast with packs of frozen Callie’s sausage and cinnamon biscuits. As the main street bars empty out at two a.m., Ms. Lee, a ten-year-plus veteran staff member, holds down the fort as revelers flood the shop and unwrap cheeseburgers and corndogs for the walk home.
Bert’s has only closed once in recent memory—with a push from the city of Folly Beach, and to relieve any burdens to Public Safety Department officers—during Hurricane Matthew in 2016. But otherwise it remains open, even during storms. Omar Colon, who bought Bert’s with his wife, Julie, in 2010 from his father-in-law, founder Bert Hastings, is no stranger to staying with a few staffers in the apartments above the store during severe weather, helping neighbors through the aisles, and illuminating the way with flashlights when the power goes out.
“Everyone is on an equal tier—there’s no hierarchy,” Colon says, “whether you’re homeless and there for free coffee and a seventy-five-cent hot dog, or a local, or a tourist, or a wealthy CEO.” The shop and its always-free coffee corner have seen a few changes over the years, including a wave of local products added to the shelves and a stocked, organic deli. But the ethos has stayed the same: “It’s a gathering place where we can be present.”
And being present in Bert’s is a delight. At the entrance, slices of key lime pie, blueberry cheesecake, and dense chocolate cake perch in a display bar like subjects in a Wayne Thiebaud painting. A glass case holds flaky croissants and galettes from Saffron Bakery. On the left wall, cold cans of beer from nearby breweries like Edmund’s Oast, Revelry, and Holy City glint like colorful fish scales through the refrigerator doors. On the right side, produce, dips, and charcuterie make for easy beach snacks.
Between it all, you’ll find just about everything else you’d need or want: dog treats, Asheville’s Poppy popcorn, mullet flies and sinkers among a wall of fishing tools, whole frozen chickens from Storey Farms, pie-making ingredients, cleaning supplies, markers and glue in the arts and crafts aisle, sunscreen, surf wax, and beach towels. And then there’s my favorite corner of the shop: a dedicated ice cream freezer cradling Southern-made goodies like Not Fried Chicken drumsticks from Charleston’s Life Raft Treats, fruity and creamy desserts from Atlanta’s King of Pops, and ice cream sandwiches from Charleston-based Wich Cream tucked alongside classic bars from Nightingale in Richmond, Virginia.
Colon’s deep appreciation for supporting local makers comes from running a business on an island sustained almost entirely by tourism. “There’s no production on the island, and it’s so important to support someone producing something from nothing, generating and creating with their own hands,” he says. Plus, nearly all of the newly added products are the result of someone coming in and advocating for their place among the shelves.
Bert’s is a place powered by the people, for the people. “We deal with humanity, and even if it’s old-fashioned, it’s important now, more than ever,” Colon says. In an era of automated checkouts and contactless deliveries, that face-to-face greeting stands out.
Somehow it took three years of living in Charleston for me to find myself outside the hallowed storefront and its handpainted ticker tape of words: deli chips wine water sushi be here now subs paper free coffee. A rotating message graces the outdoor chalkboard—sometimes a sweet movie quote, sometimes a smattering of feel-good lyrics. How could I resist? I ducked through the doors and loaded up a chili dog.
Since then I’ve returned dozens of times, often to pay homage to that sacred ice cream freezer. Like many on the island, I’ve built countless summer memories there after early-morning surfing and sun basking. But even on hard days, when I need a lift, the ritual stays the same: thirty minutes wandering the aisles, soaking in the shelves of goodness, mentally noting the new kombucha, pie, or wedge of cheese to sample next time. On one particularly serotonin-zapped, gray winter afternoon, an ice-cold Coke, a turkey-and-potato-chip wrap, and an endlessly kind woman behind the counter delivered a shot of spiritual healing straight to my soul.That’s the familiar magic of a roadside stop. A time-weathered storefront promises cheerful energy beyond its doors, laying its optimism bare in the form of a handwritten sign, grinning face, or friendly greeting. And while the ever-popular Folly Beach isn’t a quaint little rural town (nearly one and a half million people visit the island yearly), the shop’s simple bid for kinship and relishing the moment remains the sandy bedrock of the island. Even as the number of summering guests, trendy tropical cafés, and kitschy beach shops tick up—and the occasional bad day casts a gray shadow—the mantra stays the same around here: Slow down, man, it’s Folly!
Gabriela Gomez-Misserian, Garden & Gun’s digital producer, joined the magazine in 2021 after studying English and studio art in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. She is an oil painter and gardener, often uniting her interests to write about creatives—whether artists, naturalists, designers, or curators—across the South. Gabriela paints and lives in downtown Charleston with her golden retriever rescue, Clementine.
