How did fast-talking New Yorker Howard Goldstein wind up in the sleepy village of Duck on North Carolina’s Outer Banks? “I came out of the Holland Tunnel,” Howard says, “and made a left.”
Actually, he visited on vacation two decades ago, “and that was it. We rented property a week later.” Howard happily forsook the big city to become the wisecracking proprietor of Cravings Coffee Shoppe. “It’s the lifestyle,” he explains. “I mean, if I put on long pants, it’s an event.”
Duck’s lifestyle gets even better after summer’s tourist crowds have flown. “You can go to a restaurant and have a meal right away,” says Marion Settle, proprietor of Tarheel Fine Jewelry. “You can go into a retail establishment and not wait in line.”
And you can linger over dessert at Elizabeth’s Café & Winery and The Left Bank, two fabulous dining experiences that are worth a trip to this island getaway all by themselves. Both serve dishes with a French accent, flirting with other cuisines as well, and prominently feature seafood. They’re also about the only places in the village where Howard might feel obligated to wear long pants. The Left Bank—part of the superb Sanderling Resort & Spa—asks men to wear collared shirts, too.
The rest of the unpretentiously upscale Sanderling stretches in low-rise, cedar-shingled buildings along the Atlantic Ocean. The lazy rhythms of autumn lend themselves to aimless beachcombing, hours of reading in the wood-paneled lobbies, and indulgent afternoons in the spa.
Most restaurants and many of Duck’s surprisingly diverse shops stay open year-round. However, as a sign on the door of Cravings Coffee Shoppe puts it: “Hours may change due to surf, mood, weather, fish or other forces.”
For more information, call 877/629-4386 or visit outerbanks.org.
