By Kathleen Vereen Dayton, The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, S.C. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
May 3--Even though former bartender Walt Garnett changed careers three years ago, patrons of The Grill Room at The Dunes Club still call it 'Walt's Bar.'
For 10 years, Garnett served drinks and handled private parties while getting to know each customer by name. He also had a knack for remembering the names of children and grandchildren, and for talking sports with anyone who shared his passion for baseball, football and golf.
Now, as the director of operations for two local Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants, Garnett finds former customers seeking him out, ordering chicken instead of champagne and quizzing their old friend about his golf game.
Everyone, it seems, knows Walt Garnett.
'All you can do is smile when you say that name,' said Sally Reed, an accounting assistant at The Dunes Club. 'I still consider him one of my best
friends.'
Those who know him say Garnett's charisma has helped the bartender-turned-businessman form lasting relationships with nearly everyone he meets.
For Mike Hilton, former president of The Dunes Club, the relationship has gone from friendship to business partnership.
When Hilton was approached about buying two local KFC restaurants, he thought of Garnett as a business partner.
Hilton was already running several restaurants, including Kahuna's Pizza, so he offered Garnett a 25 percent share in the KFC venture if he would run the stores.
Garnett agreed, becoming vice president of Hilton's company, VIP of Myrtle Beach Inc.
'It was a tough decision for me to leave The Dunes Club, but it also was a great opportunity for me,' Garnett said.
Vickie Parsons, who works in the administrative offices at The Dunes Club, still gets phone calls from people asking about Garnett.
'He was a definite asset to this club, but he was offered a business opportunity that was definitely beneficial to him,' Parsons said. 'When anyone is enhancing their career, you just wish them well.'
Garnett, who graduated from Marshall University in 1970 with a degree in social studies, never dreamed of a career in the restaurant business.
'I'm just an old country boy who grew up with nothing,' Garnett said.
As a boy, he attended an all-black high school in Virginia, where one of his first jobs was driving a school bus. During the summers, he worked in a pickle factory and a tomato canning factory.
He couldn't afford to go to college.
Not long after graduating high school in 1957, Garnett moved to Beckley, W.Va., where he worked in hospital labs and as a handyman.
While playing on a summer baseball league in Beckley, Garnett met a friend of the athletic director at Marshall University. By age 26, he was on his way to college, funded by a partial baseball scholarship and a student loan.
While at Marshall, Garnett played with future major-leaguers such as Don Robinson of the Pittsburgh Pirates. He also played against Thurmon Munson of the New York Yankees and Cy Young Award- winner Steve Stone.
'I was three-for-four at bat against Steve Stone,' Garnett said. 'I remember that day very well.'
He also remembers the day in 1970 when Marshall University lost its football team in a plane crash, including his good friend, Art Harris.
After college, Garnett worked for an alloy company, International Nickel, and took an early retirement in 1989.
That same year, an amateur golf tournament lured Garnett to Myrtle Beach, where he he met John Rose, a Dunes Club member, and later Dave Demer, the club's president at the time.
Garnett accepted a part-time job at the club and eventually became head bartender.
Ben Baker, a server at The Dunes Club who worked with Garnett for eight years, recalls that the bartender would visit club members when they were in the hospital and would always say grace before a meal.
'Everyone who stepped in the door would look for Walt,' Baker said. 'He's still mentioned here almost daily.'
Today, club members still know where to find him. Garnett divides his time between the two KFC stores he manages, one in North Myrtle Beach and one in Shallotte, N.C.
'I'm so pleased to see him in business for himself,' said Clyde Port, past president of The Dunes Club who came to the North Myrtle Beach KFC recently for a bucket of chicken.
'I've had had a wonderful life and I've been blessed,' Garnett said.
In 1999, the ex-baseball player, now 61, received an award from his alma mater. His name is listed in the university's Hall of Fame.
And every now and then, he still tends bar at private parties by request.
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(c) 2001, The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, S.C. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
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