'There's a lot of magic': LuLu's restaurant in Barefoot Landing set to open this week
Nestled on the shore of the Intracoastal Waterway stands a new open-air restaurant with its own beach.
LuLu's restaurant, owned and operated by musician Jimmy Buffett's sister Lucy, is set to open in Barefoot Landing on June 9.
Sitting right on the water, guests can watch boats float by, spend time on the beach and enjoy the 'Fountain For Youth,' a scene Lucy Buffett describes as "magical." The restaurant has 450 seats, both indoors and outside.
"One of the biggest motivations is that this area is so similar to where I live in Gulf Shores," Lucy Buffett said. "It is a tourist area, I love a tourist town. It's coastal, it's beach. LuLu's concept is a beach vacation concept.
"There's a lot of magic that were signs for me."
Lucy Buffett has two other LuLu's restaurants, one in Gulf Shores, Alabama and the other in Destin, Florida. The first location was in Fairhope, Alabama, a small waterfront dive with 22 seats and nine employees.
"LuLu's started because I moved back to Alabama to help take care of my elderly parents and I didn't have a job," Buffett said. "It started as a very very small, little tiny waterfront dive and then it just had its own growth and evolution and I ended up opening another LuLu's."
Now, the North Myrtle Beach location will employ more than 300 people and will eventually feature a Shag Beach Bar, a three-story ropes course and an arcade.
LuLu's will act as an anchor for Barefoot Landing's new Dockside Village. The new restaurant sits between Greg Norman’s and TBonz.
"I'm terribly excited because in the first two locations, we always correct what didn't work and here we have been able to build like the ultimate LuLu's that will accommodate the growth that North Myrtle Beach and Myrtle Beach area has," she said.
Buffett continued, noting, " I need to know I'm going to put LuLu's in a place that's gong to appreciate it and we can have a really great working relationship with the community."
This story was originally published June 6, 2018 at 4:14 PM with the headline "'There's a lot of magic': LuLu's restaurant in Barefoot Landing set to open this week."