Spending the New Year weekend in Hilton Head was such a needed relief! I had been suffering from a cold and missed out on the usual family get-togethers on Christmas Day. So, even though I was still feeling tired and not shaking the cough, a few days down in Hilton Head sounded like a great pick-me-up.
Last year’s NYE trip found all of my favorite thrift stores closed for the holiday. But, at least our favorite restaurants were still open. This time around, I was still prepared for the thrift stores to be closed—but I could still check for garage/moving sales. And hopefully, our favorite places to eat would still be open as well.
We roll onto the island and find a newspaper. No garage sales. Ugh. Then, we come across a story covering the recent break-in and robbery of my favorite thrift store, Hospice Community Thrift. What’s up with that?
The good news is that it reopened and would actually BE OPEN the next morning at 10am! Yeah!
First thing the next morning, Dunc and I head over to Flamingo’s Doughnut Café. Every morning on Hilton Head should begin there. And guess what I find…
Empty parking lot.
Empty and dark building.
Closed sign with no hours written on it and a For Sale sign on the door. Oh no….
This must be some sort of a terrible mistake. Perhaps I’ve misinterpreted all the signs and they’re just taking the New Year weekend as a holiday, right? Come on, right? They had an ad in the December issue of Island Events…surely they aren’t out of business?
We picked up breakfast elsewhere and went back to the condo. I pulled up Facebook and tried to go to their page (after all, I am a fan!). Nothing. I googled the name, found a link to their breakfast menu and clicked on the link: “This site does not exist within the LDAP database.” Wow…I’m so disappointed. This place had become a tradition for me. Sure the service was spectacularly lousy with this last owner, but the doughnuts were always such a treat no matter who owned Flamingo’s. What a sad way to start the last day of 2011.
Dunc and I finished breakfast and headed over to Hospice Community Thrift. We were the first ones through the door and I had a great time looking through the cookbooks. And some with the pink price tags were half off! Nice way to finish out the year. I think we ended up spending an entire hour there!
Wanna see my last haul of 2011?
SLAR 1979, The Seattle Classic Cookbook (Junior League of Seattle), The Gasparilla Cookbook (Junior League of Tampa), The Cordon Bleu Cook Book (Dione Lucas), The Cupcake Cafe Cookbook (Ann Warren & Joan Lilly), Old Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking, Putting on the Grits (Junior League of Columbia, SC) and Virginia Hospitality (Junior League of Hampton Roads, VA).
Gourmet According to Saint Luke's (St. Luke's Episcopal Church, HHI, SC), L.C.W. Cookbook (St. Michael's Lutheran Church, Doraville, GA), Christ Church Cook Book (Savannah, GA), Any Bitch Can Party Cookbook, Look 'n Cook (Evangelical Deaconess Hospital Junior Auxiliary) and The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (Fannie Merritt Farmer).
Love it! Great finds including the Christ Church Cook Book from Savannah and the Cupcake Cafe. They helped take the sting out of losing Flamingo’s…until the next trip down here. Keeping my fingers crossed that some miracle happens and once again I’ll see the doors to Flamingo’s open for business.