Customer Spotlight – Coach

Walk into Carey Hilliard’s – Skidaway, in Savannah, and you’re bound to see “Coach” a regular lunch customer.  Coach is a retired school teacher from BC, who walks here for lunch almost every day.  He knows the wait staff like family.  “I’m here at least 6 days a week for lunch – sometimes 7,” he said when we sat down to talk with him.  Here’s what he loves about Carey Hilliard’s.

What is your go-to meal?

“The hamburger steak with lots of grilled onions – always extra onions. Whatever I get here they know to add extra grilled onions to it.”

And you always visit the same location?

“Yes, always Skidaway Rd.  I walk from my house not too far down the road and come here for lunch every day. Then after lunch, I walk back home.”

What do you think of the new renovation to this location?

“I think they did a good job. I like that they put the history pictures up on the wall. I think that gives it more of an original feel. I mean, I grew up with this location. I still remember when it had the fire back in the 70s.”

What do you remember about that?

“I was about ten years old or so when that happened. They had to rebuild the interior of the restaurant. Me being a little boy, I ran to where all the fire trucks were, to see what was going on.”

Next time you visit the Skidaway location for lunch, say hello to Coach.  He’ll appreciate the acknowledgment of being a local-lunch-fixture at the store.

Coach is right, in that Carey Hilliard’s is THE place where treasured memories are kept by generations of Savannah families.  Most locals have a memory of going to Carey Hilliard’s as a kid, then growing up, and coming back as a “regular,” just like Coach.  That’s what makes Carey Hilliard’s special.