Drive out toward the island on Pavilion Place and you'll notice the sign at the last big building before the bridge has changed again. As of August 17, it reads Cabana Bar and Grill. If that name doesn't ring a bell yet, don't worry. The one before it probably doesn't either.
That's not a knock on the new owners. It's the pattern.
Four Names, One Address, Under a Decade
The building started life as Fibber McGee's, a bar most longtime residents remember by feel more than by fact. Then, in the summer of 2017, it reopened as Waterman's Brewing Company, a 7,000-square-foot renovation built around a 15-barrel brewing system, a fireplace for cold months, and a deck out front. The people behind it called it a surf lodge and meant it. Head brewer Zac Brown planned to run through roughly 50 different beers in the first year, with 13 rotating on tap at any given time.
Waterman's didn't make it to a second decade. The building's next chapter was Sammy Sea's Coastal Kitchen, a seafood-forward concept that came and went with far less fanfare than the brewery before it. And now, less than ten years after that grand opening with plans to brew on the Fourth of July, the same walls belong to Cabana Bar and Grill.
Four identities. One address. That turnover rate is the part of this story that a simple "new restaurant opens" post would skip past.
Why This Corner Keeps Turning Over
Pavilion Place sits at the exact spot where mainland traffic narrows and funnels toward the bridge into Wrightsville Beach. Every car headed to the island passes this building. So does every cyclist and dog walker who lives on this side of the water and never needs to cross the bridge at all.
That's a strange kind of foot and car traffic to design a restaurant around. A niche brewery asks visitors to come specifically for the beer. A seafood-forward coastal kitchen asks for a certain kind of dinner reservation. Both concepts, in their own way, narrowed the audience down to people who wanted that particular thing on that particular night.
A bar and grill with a sports-friendly indoor space and a patio built for cornhole doesn't ask for much of anything. It just asks people to stop.
Compare that to Lighthouse Beer and Wine, the package store that has held its spot in Wrightsville Beach since the late 1990s without ever needing to reinvent its concept. Lighthouse doesn't compete on atmosphere. People walk in for beer and wine, they buy it, they leave. There's no vibe to maintain, no seasonal menu to justify, no reason for the shelves to feel stale after five years the way a themed restaurant's concept can.
The buildings built around an experience are the ones that keep changing. The ones built around a simple transaction don't.
What's Actually There Now
The new ownership group is not new to this business, even if the name is. Clayton Gsell and Kevin Keatts, who bought the property and reworked it into Cabana, also run three well-known spots in downtown Wilmington: Yosake, Tempo 33, and the Husk. Keatts brings a different kind of local recognition to the partnership too. Before he was in the restaurant business, he spent years as the head men's basketball coach at UNCW and later N.C. State.
The concept leans hard into the name. The menu mixes Caribbean and American dishes, including grilled jerk wings, coconut shrimp, Steak Churrasco, and mofongo, alongside tropical cocktails like Mai Tais, Bahama Mamas, and Guava Mules, plus a rotating selection of local and regional beer. Inside, there's a comfortable bar built for watching a game. Outside, the patio has an AstroTurf lawn and cornhole set up for anyone who wants to hang around after the meal is done.
"Guests will enjoy an 'island' feel the minute they walk through the door."
That's Gsell's own description of what he's going for, and it fits a building that has spent the better part of a decade trying on different personalities to see which one the corridor keeps coming back for.
What This Means for Your Week
If you've been to this building as Waterman's or as Sammy Sea's, the bones will feel familiar even if nothing else does. The layout hasn't moved. The location hasn't moved. What changes is what happens once you're inside, and this time that means jerk wings instead of flatbreads, and a Guava Mule instead of a flight of house-brewed IPA.
For anyone who loops the island regularly, whether on foot, on a bike, or in a car headed to drop off guests at the beach, this is one more stop that's genuinely new rather than another coat of paint on an old concept. Given the opening date, the cornhole set and the AstroTurf patio are likely to be doing a lot of work over the next few Friday evenings as people figure out whether this is a spot they add to the regular rotation or a name they'll be reading about being replaced again in a few years.
Buildings like 1610 Pavilion Place function as a kind of weather vane for a stretch of coastline that sees both loyal residents and a constant churn of visitors. Watching what survives here over time tells you more about what this corridor actually wants, night after night, than any single new sign out front ever could.
If you're the kind of person who notices these things, who tracks what opens and closes along the route you drive every day, you already understand something about how this place works that a listing description never will. That's the same instinct Lynne Galloway brings to every conversation about buying or selling near Wrightsville Beach. Let's Connect.
