Outer Banks Articles & Shorts - Issue 11: Summer 2016

PUBLISHER’S LETTER

Outer Banks This Week - Summer 2016 - Issue 11Take a moment to see how many songs you can think of about summer. (Wait, don’t read my list here until you’ve done your own mental inventory.) Hot Fun in the Summertime, Summer Breeze, School’s Out, All Summer Long, Summer Nights, Summertime, Summer in the City, Summertime Blues, In the Summertime, Summer of ’42 … ok, that’s all I can come up with off the top of my head. How’d you do? I find it interesting that there are so many songs about this time of year. If we were to attempt the same exercise about any other season, I don’t think we’d come up with as many. 

Summer is our season in a way that gets into our skin, and I don’t mean only sun-kissed bodies. We wear summer with many fewer barriers than winter. We open ourselves up to the warmth, the sand, to Mother Ocean without the arm’s length that often comes with cold. We dive in and let summer surround us. Perhaps that’s why we celebrate it so in song (and in poem too, btw). It’s a primal season, and we get back to our roots under the summer sun.

Those of us who live here deeply understand this pull, and it makes sense to us that the thousands of visitors who come to swim in the ocean and merge with nature are looking for what we locals chose to live around. We make room for them and know that the same filling up the soul process we experience every day of summer is theirs for the week or two they’re here. There’s more than enough to go around.

We’re so excited to bring you this Summer Issue of OuterBanksThisWeek.com magazine. It’s filled with stories about local businesses that give you a better insight into who they are vs. only what they do. You learn about the people behind the business and their motivations. As always, we hugely enjoy co-creating with these business owners and appreciate their enthusiasm and their trust in letting us help to get their word out to locals and visitors. 

Since our feature story is about novels set on the Outer Banks — and there are so many you need to read! — we encourage you to grab a chair, umbrella, some cold drinks and your favorite local book and head to that warm sandy beach to read away a summer day. You’ll feel renewed!

Happy summer, everyone!

VIEW A DIGITAL VERSION OF THIS ISSUE

Asian Fusion with a Taste of the South

By Lexi Holian
The Outer Banks may be a place where visitors come to get away from it all, but they don’t have to sacrifice excitement, flavor or quality. BuddhaLicious fills a much needed Asian food niche in the Corolla restaurant scene. Chef Todd Bryant’s prodigious skills in the kitchen, thoroughly schooled in Asian and Southern... Read More

Manteo

By Beth P. Storie
This is a jewel of a little town. Hugged by water and touched by limitless sky, Manteo feels as open as what surrounds it. Locals say hello and smile a welcome to visitors. The town’s kids can be watched joyously jumping off the bridge that leads to Festival Park in the summer heat. And every direction you look, there... Read More

On the Scenic Streets of Duck

By Lexi Holian
There’s something so effortlessly special about our little northern town that it can’t quite be put into words. Perhaps it’s the obvious – stunning stretches of coastline and a boardwalk above the ...glistening Currituck Sound  — but just as alluring are Duck’s small town boutiques and tucked away eateries that are as... Read More

An Oasis of Country Coastal Living

By Lexi Holian
There’s a place just over the bridge in Currituck County that some would call a little slice of heaven. Set amidst more than 200 acres of working farmland and serene coastal vineyards, The Cotton Gin invites you to sip local wine in the shade of native pines, grab a light bite to eat and meander through the store’s... Read More

Dining on a Sandbar

By Amelia Boldaji
When Jen Banzhoff and Tony Northrup came down to the Outer Banks from Pennsylvania in 2009 to take a summer job at Uncle Ike’s in Corolla’s Town Center, it was their first time visiting the area, but they immediately fell in love with it. They thought they were only coming for a few fun months, but by August the... Read More