Loris restaurant owner leaves massive legacy beyond his legendary Lowcountry grill

When David “Shorty” Conner died in June, the 69-year-old left a legacy in the Loris community.

The namesake for Shorty’s Grill in Loris has been an institution since Shorty purchased the building in 1979. It was formerly known as Loris Lunch and Pool Hall.

His passing has brought family and neighbors together to remember him.

His son, Nicholaus Conner said his father’s funeral had a line to meet the family that made one think they were at a parade.

“We’ve been in other countries and people would come up to us – we don’t know them and don’t even speak any English – they would write on papers and tell us what kind of person he was,” Nicholaus Conner said. “He had halos over his head.”

Shorty’s Grill has been operated by Nicholaus Conner since 2019. The menu has offered southern staples since it opened, and the menu or any big changes aren’t coming anytime soon, he said.

“Shorty” had a sixth sense for helping people, his wife, Betty Mishoe-Conner, said. She remembers him bringing construction workers a gallon of tea with plenty of cups on hot days or showing up to neighbors’ houses at midnight to help them with chores or just to check in, Mishoe-Conner said.

She added that Shorty never gossiped about anyone and any time someone was speaking ill of someone he knew, he would pretend he didn’t hear it.

“He got me with that sometimes,” Mishoe-Conner said. “Oh, it made me mad.”

He also built a village in Loris where his family still lives, Mishoe-Conner said. His entire family lives along one road, without a single of the five houses not within a stroll or a golf cart ride away from one another.

Everyone checks on each other, and oftentimes people walk right in through the front door to say hello.

“See how everyone walks in?” Mishoe-Conner said with a chuckle as her step-grandson walked into her home with a gallon jug of pickle juice. “I would be up and down all the time trying to open the door. I’m not locking the doors.”

Mishoe-Conner and Shorty met each other in the fifth grade at Daisy Elementary School. She said they had been “going with each other” since the fifth grade where they would see each other every Wednesday at a roller skating rink.

Before Shorty and Mishoe-Conner started dating, he had started racking pool balls for 10 cents a game at 9 years old. Shorty saved hundreds of dollars from his first job, and he later dropped out of school by the seventh grade.

By the time he was 23, Shorty married Mishoe-Conner, built their first house and bought Loris Lunch & Pool, which would later become Shorty’s Grill.

They had to borrow $300 from their neighbor for customers’ change on the condition that they never serve alcohol.

They promised and haven’t had to borrow a cent since opening, Mishoe-Conner said.

Shorty had two kids, Meagan and Nicholaus, and acquired more land to build more houses to form a village.

His daughter Meagan passed away from a rare bone disease when she was 16. Shorty later had a friend dig a pond in his back yard and called it Meagan’s Lake.

Shorty was known to sit in front of his house in a golf cart outside his house where he would wave and talk to anyone passing by. His niece, Heidi, made a flag to place in the location where he would wait.

Two months before he died, Shorty told Mishoe-Conner that his “heart was alright” after being sick with COPD for years. He also called everyone out to his golf cart where he liked to sit, telling Nicholaus for the first time he was proud of him, Mishoe-Conner said.

“Before he died he said that he had his heart all right…that was the extent of us talking,” Mishoe-Conner said of Shorty’s health. “He said, ‘what do I do now?’ I said, ‘whatever you want I reckon. You haven’t been bad anyway.’”

Nicholaus Conner said he loves Loris, and everyone has a duty to check in on one another. He’ll carry on the business that has provided for him and his family as his father intended.

He also has no plans on changing the menu, or serving alcohol like his parents promised.

“He would hate this,” Mishoe-Conner said of the recognition in the newspaper or on Facebook. He never wanted recognition or to be bragged on because he didn’t want anyone to feel worse than him.

“He didn’t want to be the center of attention,” Mishoe-Conner said. “Isn’t that weird? He didn’t like the recognition, but he would be smiling all through it.”