Women's Clothing Boutique Near Me Bluffton, SC

If you think the Bluffton bakery Cupcakes 2 Cakes looks charming enough to be in a Lifetime movie, you wouldn’t be alone. It seems a Lifetime film crew agrees.

The bakery, located in Berkeley Place near Cinemark Theater off Buckwalter Parkway, was used as a filming location earlier this year for an upcoming television romance titled “The Royal Bake Off.”

Here’s the plot synopsis from IMDB.com: “The rivalries of bakers Allie and Marily intensify when the royal prince of Samavia rolls into town looking for a royal baker. When Allie and the prince hit it off, it seems he might be in the market for more than just a terrific cake.”

While the release date for the movie hasn’t been announced, the owners of the Bluffton bakery are launching some romantic ideas of their own in the meantime, shifting the focus of their business from primarily a custom-order bakery to a dessert bar.

“Custom orders were great, but I wanted to increase the foot traffic coming into the building,” explained Erica Ashby of Okatie, who operates the business with her mother, Linda Ashby, and daughter, Kaiya Medrano.

“We’ve expanded our lines. We’ve expanded our hours,” Erica said.

Cupcakes 2 Cakes started as a home-based business then moved into a Berkeley Place storefront in late 2021. The bakery shut its doors temporarily in July before reopening Aug. 1 with a refreshed purpose.

“We made the decision to shut down and rebrand,” Erica said, “partly because I wanted to change the aesthetic and the feel of the business, and I wanted to change kind of the direction in which we were going.”

Now, Cupcakes 2 Cakes offers at least 13 flavors of cupcakes on any given day. Customers also can choose from 10 or so different pastries or order cake slices and even Jack Frost ice cream.

“Of course, we still have our decorated sugar cookies and then our gourmet cookies,” Erica said.

Everything is done in small batches, she explained.

“We don’t use a lot of dyes. We don’t use extracts and emulsions. We use natural flavorings for our cupcakes. ... We put out our pastries, and when we are sold out, we are sold out for the day,” she said. “We don’t keep anything in the freezer.”

The trio of bakers hasn’t stopped creating extravagant celebration cakes for birthdays, anniversaries and weddings, and they use an edible ink printer to create logo cookies for corporate events.

New to the menu, though, is an expanded lineup of drinks.

“We do more coffee, more tea, more funky drinks like our cotton candy lemonade, our Shirley Temple floats, our bourbon coffee.” The bourbon coffee is non-alcoholic; it uses coffee beans aged in whiskey barrels from The Grind Roasters.

Cupcakes 2 Cakes has started opening in the evenings on Fridays and Saturdays and soon will add a menu of special dessert and drink pairings available during that time.

“After the movies, couples, singles, family members, if they’re looking for something to do after dinner, after the movies, they can come in and grab a mocktail that we will set up to pair with a specific dessert so that it’ll be a type of an experience.”

Customers can expect the evening hours will feature the same creativity evident in the current cupcake menu.

“We try to do out-of-the-box flavors,” Erica said, listing habenero peach, elote street corn, or chicken and waffles among some recent offerings.

“We tend to do kind of a crazy flavor each week, and people love us for our creativity,” she said. Holidays are particularly fun because the bakers like to take a theme and run with it.

Right now, they are learning all they can about beverage pairings.

“We’ve been hiring mixologists and baristas, and we’ve been attending classes just to get a better understanding of the chemistry and everything that’s involved with actually making drinks,” Erica said. “We want to do something that’s the show, fancy cocktails, smoked cocktails ... creative stuff.”

What: Cupcakes 2 Cakes

Where: 108 Buckwalter Parkway, Suite 2C, Bluffton

Hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday; 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; closed Sunday and Monday.

Phone: 843-415-5678

Website: cupcakes2cakes.com

This story was originally published August 17, 2023, 4:00 AM.

Have you ever had nitrogen ice cream?

Chill-N Nitrogen Ice Cream is set to open its first South Carolina location later this year in Bluffton.

The made-to-order nitrogen ice cream shop will be opening its new establishment at 65 Towne Drive, Unit 65 in Belfair Towne Village II in Bluffton.

The current estimated opening date will be this fall.

The new locale will be owned and operated by Derek Cohen, the new franchisee and retiring Marine Corps veteran, who recently purchased the rights to develop new Chill-N locations in the Hilton Head area and Savannah, Georgia markets, according to recent release by Chill-N.

Cohen’s immediate plans are to open one location in each market for a total of two.

“As I was looking for an ice cream brand that could service the more than two million visitors that the Hilton Head area receives each year, I was immediately blown away by Chill-N and its level of technology. I believe that Chill-N is leading the way in which all ice cream shops will eventually operate, and I couldn’t be more excited to be part of a brand that is pioneering the future of one our country’s most beloved sweet treats,” said Cohen.

“I’m looking forward to introducing Chill-N to the Bluffton community and growing my portfolio even further in the years to come.”

The new Bluffton Chill-N location will feature the brand’s newest prototype, which includes a new nitrogen system that has allowed the brand to reduce its investment to open a store by 20%, increased production efficiency, and enhanced the customer experience, according to the release.

Cohen will reportedly hire approximately 15 new employees for his first Chill-N shop in Bluffton and has plans to open a second shop in Savannah in the future.

How does Chill-N Nitrogen Ice Cream work?

Customers will have the ability to choose a portion size, ice cream base and then a flavor. Ice cream bases include milk, yogurt, or alternative milk option such as coconut, almond or oat.

Next, guests may choose to add on premium toppings including candies, cookies, cereal, fresh fruit, sauces, nuts, and Cuban coffee.

Each scoop of ice cream is hand-crafted to order, and flash frozen instantly using liquid nitrogen at -320° Fahrenheit.

The new Bluffton Chill-N locale will be open within the next several months and will operate Monday through Sunday.

One of Hilton Head Island’s better Italian restaurants is expanding to Bluffton. But before you run out to try to make a reservation for your next event, this new spot isn’t what you think.

After a decade plus of making the island crowd happy, Pomodori Italian Eatery, widely regarded as one of the Hilton Head’s best and most consistent restaurants, is opening a smaller outlet in Old Town Bluffton. We feel like outlet is the proper term to use here. The reason why is because the new Pomodori will be largely take out and to go meals.

“We will probably have a few tables outside. On the porch or in the courtyard so people could eat there, but the whole point is to offer our food to take home.” is how Amanda Cifaldi, Pomodori’s owner put it.

“Our interior space is very small.” she adds. “After we are done re-working the kitchen it might be even smaller.”

The space she is referring to is at 1253 May River Road in Old Town. The cottage has been a couple of different things over the last few years. Most recently it was home to Underground Burritos.

“There are so many homes in the area. So many moms who run their kids around after school. We just want to be able to offer them some of our food to take home and enjoy.” she says

What it ultimately look like is anyone’s guess right now. The day we caught up with Amanda, she was sitting in her space taking notes.

“I’m just sitting here in Bluffton thinking of cool ideas.” she said at the time.

If you know anything about Amanda and how she runs a restaurant, then you know a few things. This new space will be convenient, it will be fun and yes, it will be delicious.

The work in progress includes the menu. The guess here is staples like their house made gnocchi, piccatas and marsalas are going to transition nicely. I’m sure there will be more than that. What exactly? We’ll have to wait and see.

As we publish this in mid-June the target open date is mid-August. Just in time for the back to school crowd. We will keep you posted.

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BLUFFTON, S.C. (WTOC) - The Lowcountry is home to many flavors of cuisine, from local Gullah Geechee cooking to modern fusion restaurants.

Those flavors continue to expand as the area grows.

Many of those who have tried Chef Bernards’s food say it will take you on a cultural journey. He started in a food truck to now owning a full-blown restaurant.

“The whole journey started through the pandemic, I thought I had got my dream job in Chicago but the whole world shut down, it had me really contemplate what to do next.”

And the decision led him to South Carolina to be with family.

“So you know I made up my mind to come down to Bluffton, then I knew that this was a project that I definitely gonna do.”

During that time, he says he felt the need to expand people’s taste buds, so he started a food truck.

“I’m using my vision of the origin of our foods in my opinion from West Africa through the Caribbean to America.”

But he soon realized he wanted to bring something bigger than a truck to the community.

“Nobody is doing this flavor palette; I want to be bold I want to tell a story I want to showcase the love I have for cuisine. We are very passionate about what we are doing in bringing in a level of complexity and love to what we do. I think that there needs to be more places like that in Bluffton.”

And that is why a new restaurant he co-owns and cooks for is open for business in downtown Bluffton.

“Okan means heart in soul in the language of Yoruba. Yoruba is the first language of West Africa so I thought while I am trying to represent our roots and pathways of the forced migration, we should use a language that was spoken then.”

But he says he hopes the food talks for itself once people get a taste.

”Jollof rice you can’t have west African representation without Jollof rice and many other things cashew curry. Cashew curry has been one of our biggest hits.”

”Everything is done through food, so I am definitely trying to teach people a little bit of a history lesson. Rice was the cash crop rice if it hadn’t been for forced migration maybe rice wouldn’t be in this country. Different things like that. Just showcasing those little nuggets is my goal. Now, if you learn fantastic, if you don’t you had a fantastic meal so it works either way.”

Chef Bernard says that the restaurant will be open Wednesday through Sunday.

For more information visit their website here.

Copyright 2023 WTOC. All rights reserved.

The most recent installment in The Post and Courier’s “Boom and Balance” series, on Bluffton’s discolored tap water, underscores two important points: It’s vital for local governments, including utilities, to make the necessary infrastructure investments to stay ahead of their population growth and ensure that existing residents don’t see their quality of life erode when new ones move in. And running water systems is a hard job.

As reporter Michael Cuglietta makes clear, the Beaufort-Jasper Water & Sewer Authority is struggling with providing clear, appealing drinking water to the rapidly growing number of customers in its service area. Too often, full bathtubs look like muddy rivers, and glasses of tap water resemble whiskey. And while utility officials assure customers this yellow or yellow-brown water is safe to drink, people are understandably not happy about it. Even pricey water filters don’t help for very long. As one woman told Mr. Cuglietta: “Honestly, I wish we could move.”

The utility has 65,000 connections and an annual growth rate of about 5%, and its chief of plant operations admitted it has failed to stay ahead of the water demand. And while it has identified $52 million to double the treatment capacity of its Purrysburg Water Treatment Plant from 15 million to 30 million gallons per day, that project is still at least two years from completion. And even when completed, the authority’s total treatment capacity still will be 1 million gallons a day less than its peak demand day last year — an indication that it already should be working on plans for additional capacity.

It’s the oscillating demand that can cause the problem. During winter months, the utility needs only about 20 million gallons per day to meet demand, but that can rise to almost 35 million in the summer. Further spikes in demand during a day add to the challenge. A recent wave of discolored water apparently stemmed from fire hydrant testing, which released manganese and iron that had accumulated in the pipes. While the water pressure hasn’t dropped enough to demand boil-water advisories, that more hazardous scenario could occur if the utility doesn’t do more to plan for growth.

It should be noted that the Beaufort-Jasper Water & Sewer Authority is a relatively big player among South Carolina’s water providers, and therefore should have the financial means and experienced personnel to handle these challenges. Many other communities are served by smaller, less capable systems. The newspaper’s Uncovered series highlighted particular problems in the Clarendon County town of Summerton, where pumps broke down, safety equipment was removed, water tanks had sludge accumulate inside and weed killer and ant poison were scattered near wells — all potentially more concerning that the aesthetic issues Bluffton residents face when they turn on their taps.

About 1 of every 6 homes in the state relies on these smaller systems, which are far more likely to violate state or federal regulations designed to ensure safe drinking water. The Department of Health and Environmental Control has recommended consolidating these smaller water systems or folding them into nearby, regional systems, and we urge state and local officials to do what they can to make that happen. While South Carolina recently received both COVID relief and infrastructure funds to improve water service, the state should not invest in propping up tiny systems that are more likely to experience problems again once the benefit of any recent upgrade fades. State lawmakers should see to it that DHEC has all the carrots and sticks it needs to require consolidations of small systems.

As we’ve noted, contaminated water ultimately impacts even those who don’t drink it, through others’ health problems, higher taxes for Medicare, Medicaid and health insurance for state and local government employees and lost economic opportunity. Running a water system — like running an electrical utility — is hard work, requiring constant vigilance to meet evolving regulations, address fluctuating demand and ensure the safety and satisfaction of every customer. Our state’s regulatory approach should evolve to recognize those high stakes.

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