It was early in the day when Buddy Wiles had a unique visitor to the bar he had just opened on North Lumina Avenue.
The old man, a tourist from Florida, ordered a glass of wine and chatted with Buddy for a few minutes before being the first person to do something that would become an integral part of the atmosphere at Buddy’s Crab House and Oyster Bar.
“I’ll probably never be back,” the old man said, as he took a dollar from his pocket and wrote on it with a marker that Buddy gave to him. “But you’ll see the results of that dollar bill.”
With that, the old man used Buddy’s staple gun to attach the dollar — which now carried the words “Thank God for Trends” — to the wall of Buddy’s and he was never seen again. But the dollar bills kept coming and now line the walls of the beach bar that’s been a fixture for Wrightsville Beach locals and visitors for more than two decades.
“It was true,” Buddy said of the man’s prophetic statement. “People always come back to see the dollar bills. It’s been an important part of our business.”
When Buddy’s opens its doors on Friday night, Feb. 26, it will be the last opportunity for a generation of patrons to visit their dollars, as Buddy’s will stop operations after 25 years in business. While the new owners of the building will reopen a bar or restaurant at the location, it won’t bear Buddy’s name, nor will it be the “Buddy’s” that the clientele have come to know.
Since news broke in January that the bar would close, loyal patrons have been flocking to get one last visit, said Matt Wiles, Buddy’s son who now manages the bar.
“People from all over the country are coming in this weekend,” Wiles said. “Some of the best people I have ever met have come through these doors.”
One of those people, Wiles said, is bartender Audrey Holloman, who has worked on-and-off for the bar for 22 years. She started when she was just 15, parking cars and splitting the proceeds with Buddy, who also promised to keep her in the latest swimsuit fashions as part of her compensation.
Like many of her patrons, Holloman said she is devastated by the news of the bar’s closing.
“It felt like my heart got ripped out,” she said. “People have come in here and cried.”
From fundraisers to theme nights to pranks, she recounted the many antics that the staff and customers have engaged in over the years. One patron who left his unlocked bike out in front of the bar soon found it hanging from the ceiling, decorated like a Christmas tree. On another occasion, Holloman brought the beach to the bar by hauling in “literally, a ton of sand,” some of which is still in the corner. She wore her best buccaneer outfit to work on Dress Like a Pirate Day.
“Funny, wacky things happened here. You’d have to see it to believe it,” she said.
For Holloman, Buddy’s offered a sense of family and community to its patrons, and she strove to return the love she felt from her customers. Holloman organized at least 30 fundraisers over the years, including benefits for Masonboro.org, Surfers Healing and Frank Fest, to raise money for a former bartender’s cancer treatment. Her “Thanksgiving with Friends” was a potluck for displaced patrons that weren’t able to be with their families.
“We took in everybody,” she said.
Buddy concurred.
“We never had any trouble. We sure enjoyed the people,” Buddy said. “We made about a zillion friends. They are our friends, they’re not just patrons.”
The dollar bills that wallpaper Buddy’s were sold with the building. At least $7,300 was on the walls at the bar’s original location, which is now Lagerheads Tavern. In 2002, Buddy and Matt Wiles moved the bar, and the dollar bills, to its current location by Johnnie Mercer’s Pier. And while the dollar bills can be counted, their value to Buddy’s can’t.
“If I had to put a sentimental value on them, Rockefeller couldn’t have bought it,” he said.
email [email protected]
