Why you should experience Coco's on the Beach in South Carolina.
Coco's on the Beach is a carefree oceanfront bar where Singleton Beach's Atlantic shoreline meets a family-run Hilton Head institution, Caribbean styling and an unusually direct relationship between cold drinks, beach volleyball and the sand.
Set beyond William Hilton Parkway at the ocean end of Hilton Head Resort near Singleton Beach Road and just steps from Singleton Beach, the bar occupies a mid-island stretch where a long boardwalk crosses the coastal landscape before reaching the Atlantic. Bright paint, hand-lettered signs, open-air seating and a timber structure establish the deliberately unfussy character of a beach cabana. An upper deck opens toward the ocean, keeping the water in view as the activity below shifts between the bar and adjacent volleyball court. Island music and the exposed outdoor configuration allow the rhythms of the beach to continue directly into lunch and drinks. The result is a Singleton Beach hangout whose appeal comes from functioning as an extension of the shoreline itself.
What you should know about Coco's on the Beach.
Coco's on the Beach is best known for Larry Watkins' transformation of Hilton Head Resort's refurbished oceanfront cabana into a seasonal beach bar that has survived for nearly two decades at the edge of Singleton Beach. The operation was already trading under the Coco's name in 2007, and Watkins remained its owner through a consequential 2019 dispute with Hilton Head Resort, which owns the building. That episode threatened the bar's future after twelve seasons, even after Coco's had negotiated a three-year lease the previous year; a March 2019 settlement kept the operation in place and established another chapter for a business whose location depends on the resort property surrounding it. The relationship between resort and bar produced an unusual arrival ritual as well: patrons entering through Hilton Head Resort travel across its long boardwalk to reach Coco's near beach marker 94A, separating the bar physically from the highway address attached to it. By 2026, the business had entered a generational transition under proprietor Tammy, carrying forward the operation associated with her father as its website announced a season with new and returning faces. Its current format remains seasonal, extending from spring into autumn and preserving the combination of grill, bar, island music and beach recreation that defined the original cabana conversion. Live music adds another dimension during the season, and the volleyball court immediately beside the building has long connected Coco's with organized games and informal play. The survival of the concept through ownership succession, changing lease conditions and almost twenty Hilton Head summers has turned a refurbished resort cabana into one of Singleton Beach's enduring social fixtures.
Frozen drinks provide the clearest expression of the bar's tropical side, with the Captain Colada combining the cold density of a blended cocktail with the rum-forward profile expected beside the Atlantic. Margaritas push tequila and citrus to the front, joined by a broader selection built around rum, tequila and beer. The Georgia Peach supplies another longstanding house reference, bringing peach sweetness into the frozen-drink repertoire. Burgers carry most of the grill's weight, moving from straightforward beef into combinations such as the Beach Bum and Buckeye alongside a peanut-butter burger whose salty-sweet construction gives the casual food a distinctly unconventional turn. Boom Boom shrimp adds fried seafood and creamy heat, with chicken sandwiches, cheesesteaks and hot dogs extending the beach-grill format. Cold blended cocktails, griddled beef, fried seafood and quick handheld food fit the open-air location with almost literal precision, keeping the eating experience compatible with a day moving between the deck, volleyball court and beach.
How to fold Coco's on the Beach into your trip.
Coco's on the Beach works as the final stop after exploring the mid- and north-island historical corridor, where colonial settlement, plantation-era land use and the Civil War produced surviving sites that reveal a Hilton Head far older than its modern resort landscape.
Begin at Zion Chapel of Ease Cemetery, where St. Luke's Parish established Hilton Head's first chapel under the direction of Isaac Fripp and Captain John Stoney, completing it in 1788 after the Revolutionary War interrupted earlier construction plans. The chapel disappeared after 1868, yet the cemetery preserves memorials to Revolutionary War patriots Isaac Baldwin, James Davant, John Stoney and Charles Davant alongside the 1846 Baynard Mausoleum, the oldest surviving structure on Hilton Head. Continue to Historic Honey Horn, a property whose history extends through Indigenous occupation, John Hanahan's 1789 acquisition, plantation agriculture and its later conversion into a hunting retreat under Landon K. Thorne and scientist-financier Alfred Lee Loomis. Its oldest surviving building dates to 1859 and was used by Union forces during the Civil War; the Coastal Discovery Museum relocated to the property in 2007 after the Town secured the 68-acre tract, preserving nine historic buildings alongside the surrounding maritime landscape. Conclude at Fort Howell, constructed in 1864 by the 32nd United States Colored Infantry from Pennsylvania and the 144th New York Infantry under engineering supervision from Captain Patrick McGuire and the 1st New York Engineers. The pentagonal earthwork was designed as an artillery fort protecting Mitchelville, the nearby self-governed community of formerly enslaved people, and its surviving ditch, ramparts and north bastion preserve the physical imprint of Black Union soldiers defending freedom during the Civil War. The progression moves from the colonial parish and Revolutionary generation preserved at Zion through Honey Horn's successive agricultural and recreational uses into the Black Union infantrymen who constructed Fort Howell to protect Mitchelville, placing a day at Singleton Beach within more than two centuries of Hilton Head history.
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