Popular Santee barbecue restaurant destroyed in Christmas Day fire

SANTEE, S.C. (WCBD)- A popular, longtime barbecue restaurant in Orangeburg County was destroyed in a fire on Christmas Day.

Rachael Henderson, owner of Lonestar BBQ and Mercantile in Santee, said she was watching TV at home when she received a call around 7:30 p.m. Monday from someone who lives near the restaurant. The caller said the building was on fire.

“We jumped up, went down and got our son, and came up here,” Henderson recalled. “When we got here, the third building…it was engulfed in flames.”

Henderson said when she got first got the call, she thought about the community the restaurant has served for decades.

“The church next door, I mean we do all their birthdays and pretty much any kind of function they have…the women’s group, they have their women’s Christmas here all the time,” she said. “We’ve got golfers that come in from New York to Canada.”

The restaurant, located just off Interstate 95 on State Park Road, is housed in multiple old buildings. Some date back as early as the 1800s, while the newest building was built approximately 100 years ago.

A few of the buildings were brought to the current site from the town of Lone Star, Texas in 2001.

“This was the Schuyler building that we turned into a bar,” she said pointing to what is now a pile of rubble. “That was a general store. The original post office is still in there.”

The fire marshal told Henderson that wiring may have started the fire, but the cause remains under investigation.

And while the Hendersons hope to rebuild and reopen the restaurant in the future, it is unclear when that may happen.

“I mean there’s no way to replace what was here,” “I mean all we can do is, of course, we want to come back. Of course, we want to, you know, reopen and have another business but it’s just so sad because you can’t replace history.”