Written by Michele Roldán-Shaw
Photography by Donna Huffman

Johnny Cahill was born and raised in Bluffton. You would probably know him from Cahill’s Market, the old-timey country store on Highway 46 that he runs with his brother and sisters, on the very same property where they all grew up. With hand-written signs outside advertising boiled peanuts, fresh collards and local peaches, a porch hung with ferns and geraniums, plenty of wooden rocking chairs and bluegrass music playing in the background, Cahill’s is a downright pleasant place to go. And if it wasn’t great before, now you can get a home-cooked lunch at their newest attraction, the Chicken Kitchen. Fried chicken and catfish, turkey wings and pork chops, field peas and collards, tomatoes and okra, mac & cheese and red rice, sweet potato soufflé and peach cobbler—every day from 11:30 to 3:00 the otherwise sleepy market turns into a lively, picnic style occasion, as people flock to get a taste of some Southern comfort, Cahill style.

Bluffton Breeze: What was it like growing up in Bluffton?
Johnny Cahill: We were raised on a farm in the country, in a farmhouse with no AC or any of that. We hunted and rode horses and bicycles, crabbed and fished in the May River and we’d go to the creek across the road and go swimming. I had a good childhood.

BB: Tell me the story of how your family acquired this property.
JC: My grandmother had a brother who died in World War I and she got $2,000 from his life insurance policy. At the time she worked as a cook at Palmetto Bluff. She could’ve bought 80 acres on the May River side but she chose 160 acres on this side because it had a house on it. My granddaddy passed away right after they moved here.

BB: How did she hold down 160 acres all by herself?
JC: She was a hard-working woman. She farmed all this. She had malaria a couple times. She had two sons, Johnny and Michael—that’s who my brother and I are named after—and they were out planting sweet potato slips* in July when a thunderstorm came up and they ran under an oak tree that they thought was protection. Lightning struck the tree and killed them both. It also killed a mule and injured a black man that was with them; he ran all the way to Bluffton from Gastonia Bluff where they were. That must have been a hard time, but even after all that my grandmother lived to be a hundred.

BB: What happened to the land after she died?
JC: Mike and I inherited a portion of it and then our aunts sold the rest back to us. Now we own close to all 160 acres of it.

BB: What do you do with all that land?
JC: We farm it. We grow corn, squash, watermelon, snap beans, cucumbers … produce basically. And we have horses on part of it. We don’t use any chemicals when we plant, that’s the reason you find worms in the corn. These big farmers, they bring big trucks and spray with pesticides. We do everything by hand, one row at a time. We sell the produce here at the market and our sister Deborah runs the business; she’s the general manager of the whole operation. I do all the cooking for the Chicken Kitchen and Mike goes to the Columbia Farmer’s Market to get fresh produce. When our stuff starts coming in, then we don’t have to buy. Our other sister Joy helps out on demand. It’s a family affair, and we are a very close family. We know how to stay out of each other’s way, if that makes sense.

BB: How did you first get the idea for the market?
JC: Growing up, we didn’t get an allowance. We were given seed, fertilizer, a horse and a tractor. Our dad said, “Raise produce and sell it.” We did that all through school; people would come to us and buy it or we’d sell to other fruit stands. So it’s in our blood.

BB: What kind of thought went into the creation of this market?
JC: Being raised in the country and liking the country setting, this is a way to bring back that country feeling. Kind of like stepping back in time. I like a barn, so I built this building as close to a barn as I could. After being in the rat race, you can come here and chill out.

BB: Why not sell out to developers?
JC: Money is not everything. If you sell, you’re gonna take the money and do what? I’d rather be contented.

BB: Are you contented?
JC: Yes. I like to work so that keeps me contented. I work seven days a week. At the end of the day you’re tired, but you feel like you’ve accomplished something. It’s just a simpler way of life.

BB: When did you start the Chicken Kitchen?
JC: I started cooking last February because we wanted to offset the slow season of produce. People come in here in February and say, “What’s local?” Well, you can’t grow anything here in February. Everything comes from Florida. We’ve done real well with the lunches; people have been good to us. The reason I called it Chicken Kitchen is because I have fried chicken every day.

BB: How did you learn how to cook all that stuff?
JC: I don’t know. My mom’s a good cook and I learned a few things from her, but the rest was trial and error. If you know how good food is supposed to taste you can season it to that. And we use everything fresh.

BB: Do you still love Bluffton as much now as you did growing up?
JC: Oh yeah. People complain how Bluffton’s changing but you can’t stop progress. Bluffton has given me a livelihood my whole life. I didn’t sell out to developers, but a lot of people made that choice. The people who hung on to what they had are the ones who are happy. But I think it’s kind of foolish to have a piece of land and let it sit there. In this day and age you have to make a property work for itself, otherwise you can’t afford to keep it. Like we farm ours and we have a business. It’s a lot of work but we’re having fun.

* A sweet potato “slip,” Johnny explained, is a term used in reference to an old-school method of growing sweet potatoes. The bed is planted in February, covered with straw and dirt, then in May the sprouts are pulled out and replanted. Sometime before the 4th of July, the farmer cuts off the slip, a vine that grows from the sprout, and plants it one more time. This labor-intensive process creates a sweeter, more attractive potato than commercial specimens grown from the sprout.