Village Market at Watersound Town Center

Village Market at Watersound Town Center is a full-service restaurant and take-away market from the Hartley Restaurant Group, serving fresh local seafood and southern classics since the family’s original 1949 roots, with indoor, outdoor, and bar seating. Those roots trace back to C.H. “Cube” McGee, who opened the original Seagrove Village MarketCafe in 1949 as a simple stop for travelers passing through what was then a remote, largely undeveloped stretch of the Gulf Coast. George and Ann Hartley bought that market in 1999 after George, a regular customer, learned the McGee family wanted to retire, and the deal reportedly closed on a handshake and a check. What started as one roadside market has grown into the Hartley Restaurant Group, now also home to George’s at Alys Beach, Surfing Deer, and La Cocina Mexican Grill and Bar.

Village Market at Watersound Town Center is the group’s newest expansion, and it was built to handle a crowd: the standalone building runs about 5,800 square feet with roughly 268 seats, plus a wrap-around porch and outdoor patio for guests who want their meal with a Gulf breeze. Inside, the restaurant serves lunch and dinner six days a week and Sunday brunch, backed by a full bar and wine list, while a dedicated takeaway counter sells family-style take-and-bake dinners, dips, and soups for anyone who would rather eat at home or back at the beach house.

The menu itself reflects George and Ann Hartley’s own travels as much as it does the Gulf just outside the door. The San Miguel Bowl grew out of a trip to Mexico, the Hot Tangy Fish on Asian Slaw traces back to one of Ann’s visits to a spa in Texas, and the Fried Shrimp Po Boy carries over directly from the original Seagrove Village Market menu, a dish longtime 30A visitors already know by reputation. Layering those personal, well-traveled dishes onto a foundation of fresh local seafood and southern comfort food is what gives Village Market its identity: familiar enough to feel like home cooking, but varied enough that a family could eat there several nights in a row without getting bored.

Because Village Market sits inside WaterSound Town Center, it works equally well as a sit-down dinner destination after a day at the beach or as a quick stop for a take-and-bake meal on the way back to a rental. Its size and porch seating also make it a natural gathering spot for larger groups or extended family trips, something the smaller original Seagrove location was never quite built to handle. Sunday brunch adds another reason to visit, giving guests a slower-paced option before the kitchen shifts into its regular dinner service later in the day.

The wrap-around porch and patio seating give Village Market a genuine sense of place, letting diners eat within earshot of the WaterSound community’s oak trees and manicured green spaces rather than feeling boxed into a purely indoor dining room. The full bar and wine list round out the experience for anyone settling in for a longer meal, while the grab-and-go counter stays busy with locals picking up soups, dips, and take-and-bake dinners for nights when cooking from scratch is not on the agenda. That dual identity, part restaurant and part neighborhood market, is central to how the Hartley family designed the concept from the start.

For visitors who want a taste of 30A’s culinary history without leaving WaterSound Origins, Village Market offers a direct link back to 1949, filtered through more than two decades of the Hartley family’s own additions, and that blend of heritage and hospitality has made it one of the anchor restaurants of the whole Town Center development. Its proximity to Origins Main Street’s shops and Ambrosia and Scout Sports Tavern nearby also makes it easy to fold into a longer evening out, whether that means starting with dinner at Village Market or ending the night there after browsing the rest of Town Center.