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Calabash restaurants survive changes, fires

  ·  Paul Stephen, The (Wilmington) StarNews   ·   Link to Article

Deep in Brunswick County, there’s a fryer that never dies.

Dubbed “The Seafood Capital of the World,” the close-knit and well-fed community of Calabash is home to roughly 2,000 residents and 32 restaurants. That’s 62.5 people per restaurant, a ratio far above the state average of 513 residents per restaurant, according to U.S. Census and National Restaurant Association numbers. And the backbone of Calabash’s bustling food service industry is unquestionably the throng of venerable seafood establishments dotting River Road and the Calabash River waterfront in the town’s heart.

That heart skipped a beat earlier this summer when an electrical fire consumed the better part of Coleman’s Original Calabash Restaurant, one of the county’s oldest eateries with a history dating to 1940. It wasn’t the first blaze to rip through an area restaurant - not even the first for Coleman’s, which burned in the 1970s - and it likely won’t be the last.

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