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From left, manager Clay Williams, Alzata Lee, Kelly Dorman and Dexter Dorman keep the busy restaurant humming. Hostess Alzata Lee, 85 years young, has been welcoming customers to Lee's Inlet Kitchen since 1948.
Photo by Matt Silfer
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Hungry patrons pack the place for a sampling of seafood.
Photo by Matt Silfer
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U.S. 17 was still a dirt road when the neon sign advertising Lee's Inlet Kitchen first lit up the night.
Photo by Matt Silfer
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Pearl Lee's shrimp salad
Photo by Matt Silfer
Lee’s Inlet Kitchen may be the ultimate proof of the old maxim “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
The laid-back seafood restaurant, a fixture in Murrells Inlet for 66 years, still features many of the same recipes developed by Eford Lee and his wife, Pearl Lee, when they opened the doors in 1948. Back then, the place could only seat 40 guests at a time, and people would line up for the fresh, local seafood and family-friendly atmosphere. Pearl was known to go about her work with customers’ babies slung on her hip, so parents could eat in peace.
Today, Lee’s can seat almost 300 hungry diners, but little else has changed—and the family wouldn’t have it any other way. Eford and Pearl’s granddaughter, Kelly Dorman, runs the place with husband Dexter. Eford’s sister, Alzata Lee, was the restaurant’s first waitress in 1948, and she is still working there as a hostess at age 85. And the guests? They still start lining up before opening time to get their seafood favorites.
While the menu runs the gamut from soft-shell crabs, shrimp Creole, oyster stew and shrimp salad to fresh local fish prepared any way you like it, the most popular dish at Lee’s remains the fried shrimp dinner. Employees peel and fantail 150 pounds of shrimp per night to meet the demand, and then the cooks batter and fry the tasty crustaceans in a light and crispy coating known as Lowcountry style.
“This kind of seafood and Calabash style are very similar, but we use the larger shrimp and oysters,” Kelly Dorman says. “The people that come down here in the summertime are going to get fried seafood. Some of them get broiled, and some of them get grilled, but by and large our biggest seller is still the Lowcountry seafood."
Lee’s even offers the same fresh-made dessert options that have been on the menu since 1948, including coconut cream pie and peach cobbler a la mode. Dorman says the combination of traditional menu items and familiar faces is what keeps loyal customers coming back for more, whether they are tourists who visit each summer or the local family that’s been coming for dinner every Saturday for the past 40 years.
“The same people keep coming back over the years because of the consistency,” she says. “Not just with the food, but with our service.”
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Pearl Lee's shrimp salad
SERVES 4–6
1 pound fresh, white, 26/30 count South Carolina shrimp; boiled, peeled and deveined
3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
2–3 tablespoons sweet pickle relish, drained
2–3 tablespoons Duke’s mayonnaise, or to taste
Salt and pepper, to taste
Cut the shrimp into bite-size pieces and place in a large mixing bowl. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Cover tightly and refrigerate until ready to serve. Place on a bed of crisp and cold salad greens and drizzle with dressing, or serve with crackers as an appetizer.
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Lee's Inlet Kitchen
4460 U.S. 17 Business, Murrells Inlet | (843) 651-2881 | leesinletkitchen.com
Hours: Through Oct. 31, hours are Mondays through Saturdays, 4:30 to 9:30 p.m. In November, hours are Thursdays through Saturdays, 4:30 to 9:30 p.m. Closed December and January. No reservations accepted, except for large groups.