I was both surprised and sorry to learn a few weeks ago of the unexpected closing of the Hardee’s restaurant in Richmond Hill, at the corner of US 17 and Highway 144. I was even more surprised to see that the entire building had been completely demolished, down to the concrete slab,
I well remember when that Hardee’s came to Richmond Hill, some 30 years or so ago. I was glad to see it, and had lunch there often on the weekends. More recently, I often stopped by on my way to work in Savannah to get a biscuit breakfast, usually through the drive-through.
I was born and raised in Savannah, and moved to a rural area of eastern Liberty County, a few miles north of Midway, in January of 1986. The Hill at that time was a much smaller place than it is now, maybe 1/10th its current population. Both US 17 and Hwy. 144 were still two-lane roads; City Hall was what is now the Senior Center, and the Post Office was still in that small red brick building a few doors east.
Shores IGA was the only grocery store in town, and the only gas station was tiny little Harrison’s Gulf, where the Walgreens now sits. Harrison’s had a one-bay tire repair and oil change garage, and still sold live bait and tackle for those who wanted to try their luck fishing.
A few years later, when I was working for the El Cheapo brothers, in the late 1980’s, Harrison’s became the first gas station in the area to have an electronic credit card machine, through Gulf Oil. I coordinated that installation with Linda Snyder, the Gulf Oil Rep who came down from Cleveland to oversee that installation, and others we did in Savannah, after that.
That was a revolution in credit card processing! Not only did a station get instant approval for the sale, if the card presented was good, the funds were posted to the bank account in two days! Before then, paper tickets had to be imprinted and then mailed to Cleveland to be processed, and it took a week before credit showed up in the bank account.
Our company at the time processed something like $70,000 a week in Gulf credit card charges, so accounting for that deposit timing became an important part of my cash-flow management calculations.
Not long after that, the Georgia DOT started to widen US 17, partly to allow for the increased traffic, and partly to avoid interruptions on that stretch of the road north of the Hill, when the Ogeechee River would sometimes flood the roadway, making it impassable.
They first built a pair of new lanes, on a raised roadbed, then shifted traffic to that new roadway; then went back to the original highway, tore it out and raised that roadbed, adding another two lanes, to make it the nice wide road we all enjoy today.
As part of that road widening project, however, the DOT had to take a good chunk of the Harrison’s gas station property, which by then was operated by “Dinky” Miner. When Mark’s lease expired, he moved south a few hundred yards and built the much larger facility that is now known as “Ozzy’s.” Sometime after that, CVS built on the lot north of his new place, and Walgreens eventually built across 144 from CVS, following their new corporate strategy of building across the street from CVS.
When Hardee’s finally built across 17 from CVS, their westside parking lot was unpaved for the longest time. I remember asking the manager, why wasn’t it paved yet? And the answer was that they had to wait until the DOT finished their widening of US 17.
Seems like that took a year or two; I remember it seemed to take forever.
When I worked on Savannah’s west side, I frequently ate lunch at the Hardee’s in Garden City. I thought their hamburgers were better than most, and you could get one with fries and a coke for under $3, another important factor at the time, given the tight state of my budget! When I first moved to Midway, I would go to Hinesville on the weekends, to do laundry, get groceries and lunch at the Hardee’s next to Wal-Mart and the Winn-Dixie. So I was glad to see Hardee’s finally come to Richmond Hill, later on.
I don’t know what is coming for that corner, now that it is vacant. I am glad it’s not another title-pawn place, as has happened with other Hardee’s locations that closed.
A lot has changed in Richmond Hill over the past 30 years! It keeps getting bigger and better. We are lucky to live in such a nice corner of our state.
Rafe Semmes is a local writer. He attended Savannah High and UGA.