Sea Trail's Renovation Isn't Finished. Here's What's Actually Open This Fall in Sunset Beach.

"Park your car on Friday, and you won't need it until you leave." That's how Sea Trail's director of golf, Jimmy Biggs, described the resort in an NC Brunswick article. Sea Trail is still mid-project, and so is the town's most-talked-about restaurant address.

Three Courses, Three Different Years

Sea Trail's 54 holes didn't get renovated all at once. The Byrd Course went first, closing in the spring of 2024 for a five-month rebuild that replaced its greens with TifEagle bermudagrass, rebuilt every bunker using the Better Billy Bunker drainage system, and planted hundreds of new palms and ornamental grasses along the fairways. The work was led by Tim Cate, a Sunset Beach resident whose other regional designs include Thistle Golf Club and the Big Cats courses at Ocean Ridge Plantation. The Byrd reopened in October 2024.

The Maples Course got its version of the same treatment in 2025. That leaves the Jones Course, which is on the schedule for its own greens and bunker renovation this year, the piece that closes out what golf trade writers have been calling a three-year cycle across the entire resort. If you play Jones this fall and find part of it rougher than you remember, that's not neglect. That's the last course in line.

The "grand reopening" headlines from 2024 and 2025 reflected openings during a renovation that continued in stages. The resort has been renovating in stages since new ownership took over, and 2026 is the year that's supposed to finish the golf side of the project, not the year it already did.

What Opened During the Course Renovations

The clubhouse work moved on its own timeline, separate from the fairways. The redesigned Jones-Byrd clubhouse now holds Sunset Prime, a steakhouse serving Certified Angus Beef alongside a daily breakfast buffet for $15 and a lunch buffet for $24.95, plus a rotating Taco Tuesday and a weekly pizza deal. Behind the clubhouse, a smaller turn house called Sunset Cove gives golfers a place to grab a drink between the front and back nine without heading all the way in.

Away from the golf shop, the resort's old convention center reopened as 55 Bistro Bar & Grill, a sports-bar-style space with 40 large screens and an NFL Sunday Ticket subscription, aimed more at evening crowds than golfers making the turn.

What hasn't opened yet: the Village Activity Center, which is supposed to house a pool and a covered tiki bar called Sunset Tiki. That part of the project is still under construction. So if your image of "the new Sea Trail" includes a poolside drink at Sunset Tiki, that image is ahead of the calendar. The steakhouse and the sports bar are real and running. The pool bar is not there yet.

The Swing Bridge Address Has a New Name Again

Separately from Sea Trail, the most visible restaurant spot in town, the waterfront building at 102 Sunset Blvd N overlooking the swing bridge and the Intracoastal Waterway, changed hands again this year. It's now Oak & Palm Waterfront, and one recent OpenTable reviewer noted that the address has changed hands more than once while the food and service there have stayed excellent.

Oak & Palm is open daily from 11 a.m., with dinner service running until 9:30 or 10 p.m. on weekends. The menu leans on Calabash seafood traditions filtered through a wider set of influences, Korean BBQ short ribs, miso-glazed sea bass with coconut rice, seared scallops over sweet corn risotto, and complimentary hush puppies with cinnamon honey butter to start. A local newspaper's dining column ran an early review this spring that was mixed in the way new kitchens often are: the scallops and Korean ribs landed well, while the wine list and a couple of the seafood entrees still needed tightening. That's a normal growing pain for a restaurant a few months into a new identity, not a verdict on where it'll land once the kitchen settles in.

Between Sea Trail's staged reopening and the swing bridge's latest owner, Sunset Beach residents are watching two separate renovation clocks tick at different speeds, one tied to golf-course agronomy and construction schedules, the other tied to a single dining room that keeps finding new operators. Neither is finished. Both are worth checking in on before the season turns.

Fall Is When You'll Actually See the Difference

The town's own calendar gives residents a natural window to do exactly that. Sunset at Sunset, the community's signature block party, lands on its usual date, the first Saturday in October, running October 3 and 4 this year. It's an event built around live entertainment, local vendors, and food, held in the heart of town rather than out at the resort.

Two weeks after that, the NC Oyster Festival takes over Town Center Park in neighboring Ocean Isle Beach on October 17 and 18, pulling in the wider Brunswick County crowd for oysters, crafts, and live music. Stack those two weekends together and you've got a stretch where it's easy to walk the swing bridge strip for dinner one weekend and make the short drive to Sea Trail or Ocean Isle the next, without waiting for a single grand-opening date that may or may not hold.

None of this is really "done." The Jones Course still has its renovation ahead of it this year. The Village Activity Center's pool and tiki bar don't have an opening date yet. And Oak & Palm is still early enough in its run that opinions on individual dishes are still shifting review by review. Those details are useful to know before you plan an evening around any of it.

If you've been meaning to try Sunset Prime's lunch buffet or see what the swing bridge's newest kitchen is doing with Calabash seafood, this fall's back-to-back weekends are as good a reason as any. I keep an eye on what's actually open versus what's still under construction around town, mostly because clients ask, and partly because I live here too. If you ever want the current read on any corner of Sunset Beach, from Sea Trail's next phase to what's cooking at the swing bridge, Debbie Morgan is happy to compare notes. Let's Connect.